Personal licence is issued under the Licensing Act 2003 and allows an individual to sell or authorise the sale of alcohol.

All premises with a premises licence issued under the Licensing Act 2003 require at least one personal licence holder to be specified as the Designated Premises Supervisor (DPS) where one of their activities is the sale of alcohol.

A Designated Premises Supervisor (DPS) is the individual named on a premises licence issued under the Licensing Act 2003 who is responsible for authorising the sale of alcohol and is responsible for the day to day management of the premises. A DPS must hold a personal licence.

A Personal Licence is valid for 10 years and is portable throughout England and Wales.

Who can apply for a Personal Licence?

A personal licence holder must:

• be aged 18 or over,
• have not forfeited a personal licence within 5 years prior to making an application
• have not been convicted of any relevant or foreign offence;
• possess an accredited licensing qualification

How to apply for a personal licence

A personal licence application must be made to the Local Authority in which you reside and should contain the following:

• A completed Application Form;
• The appropriate fee (£37.00);
• Two passport sized photographs one of which should be endorsed on the back by a solicitor, notary, teacher, lecturer or other professional person as a true likeness;
• Disclosure of convictions and declaration;
• Either a basic disclosure criminal conviction certificate or the results of a subject access search under the Data Protection Act 1998(b) of the Police National Computer by the National Identification Service;
• Accredited Licensing Qualification Certificate (see details below).

Basic criminal record checks can be obtained from Disclosure Scotland. For further information please telephone 0870 609 6006 or visit their website.

An accredited licensing qualification

For the purpose of personal licences, the Secretary of State has accredited 5 qualifications under the Licensing Act 2003. These are as follows:

BIIAB Level 2 Award for Personal Licence Holders, Qualifcation Accreditation Number: 501/1494/3, Tel: 01276 684 449

EDI Level 2 Award for Personal Licence Holders, Qualification Accreditation Number: 500/9146/03, Tel: 0247 651 6500

HABC Level 2 Award for Personal Licence Holders, Qualifcation Accreditation Number: 500/9974/7, Tel: 0845 226 0350

NCFE Level 2 Award for Personal Licence Holders, Qualification Accreditation Number: 600/1323/0, Tel: 0191 239 8000

SQA Level 2 Award for Personal Licence Holders, Qualification Accreditation Number: 600/1269/9, Tel: 0845 279 1000

Further information about these qualifications are available through the links above.

What happens next

If the applicant has no relevant offences and meets the required criteria the licence will be granted.

Where there are relevant offences, the Licensing Authority will inform South Wales Police. The Police can object to the grant of an application if they feel that granting the licence would undermine the crime prevention objective and must give the authority an objection notice within fourteen days. The application will then be determined by a licensing committee at a hearing.

If there are no objections and the applicant fulfils the application criteria, the application will be granted.

Application Forms

All the official application forms for applying for a Perosnl Licence are available from the Home Office Website.