Alcohol and Entertainment - Personal
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 has no expiry date 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.
An accredited licensing qualification
For the purpose of personal licences, the Secretary of State has accredited 5 qualifications under the Licensing Act 2003 for the level 2 Award for Personal Licence Holders. Further information about these accredited qualifications are available from GOV.uk
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 Personal Licence are available from GOV.uk