Court Generated Complaints

Summary

The request sought statistics on licensing complaints raised by the Clerk to the Licensing Court to the Isle of Man Constabulary since January 2017, including regional breakdowns and the Clerk's remit. The authority disclosed that 24 matters were referred ad hoc, provided a regional breakdown, but stated it could not confirm the Clerk's remit as that information is held by the Courts.

Key Facts

• Since January 2017, 24 licensing matters have been referred to the Alcohol Unit by the Licensing Clerk on an ad hoc basis.
• There is no formal mechanism for logging complaints directly made to the Alcohol Unit by the Clerk.
• The Constabulary received 5 direct complaints regarding noise issues, all associated with premises in Douglas.
• Regional breakdown of Clerk referrals includes 10 from the South, 6 from Douglas, and 3 generic to the Isle of Man.
• The authority declined to answer whether it is the Clerk's remit to proactively investigate premises, directing the requester to the General Registry/Courts.

Data Disclosed

• 24
• 5
• 14
• 10
• 7
• 6
• 3
• 1st Jan 2017
• 2019-07-16
• 2019-07-23

Exemptions Cited

• Information not held by the public authority
• Information held by another body (General Registry/Courts)

Original Request

Please confirm how many complaints about licencing matters have been raised by the Clerk(s) to the Licencing Court, to the IOM constabulary (Alcohol) Licensing unit since 1st Jan 2017. Please confirm what percentage of complaints these are against total number of complaints received by the unit. Please confirm what region of the island the complaints relate to. (North, South,East,West) Please confirm that it is the remit of the clerk to the court to proactively investigate licenced premises and raise concerns with the police licensing unit.

Data Tables (1)

Data Tables (reformatted)

Full Response Text

Isle of Man Constabulary Freedom of Information Department of Home Affairs Headquarters Tromode Road, Douglas Isle of Man, IM2 5PA Tel: +44(0)1624631394

Our ref: 885868 23 July 2019

Dear ###

We write further to your request which was received on 16 July 2019 and which states:

"Please confirm how many complaints about licencing matters have been raised by the Clerk(s) to the Licencing Court, to the IOM constabulary (Alcohol) Licensing unit since 1st Jan 2017. Please confirm what percentage of complaints these are against total number of complaints received by the unit. Please confirm what region of the island the complaints relate to. (North, South,East,West) Please confirm that it is the remit of the clerk to the court to proactively investigate licenced premises and raise concerns with the police licensing unit."

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the public authority does not hold or cannot, after taking reasonable steps to do so, find some of the information that you have requested. I have detailed below the information that is held. 1. Please confirm how many complaints about licencing matters have been raised by the Clerk(s) to the Licencing Court, to the IOM constabulary (Alcohol) Licensing unit since 1st Jan 2017. Such reports have been on an ad hoc basis from the Clerk and the Constabulary suggests that since Jan 2017 there have been 24 matters referred to the Alcohol Unit from the licencing Clerk. The licensing clerk would bring these to the attention of High Bailiff who has directed that the Licensing Unit be aware of the issue. There is currently no mechanism for logging such complaints directly made to the alcohol unit.

1. Please confirm what percentage of complaints these are against total number of complaints received by the unit. Any other licensing complaint that have been reported directly to the unit appear to have been noise issues. The unit received 5 complaints directly which related to noise complaints. They were all associated to premises/events in the Douglas area. This does not include calls for service to licenced premises.
2. Please confirm what region of the island the complaints relate to. (North, South,East,West) South - 14 - 10 from the Clerk Douglas - 7 - 6 from the Clerk Generic IOM - 3 - 3 from the Clerk
3. Please confirm that it is the remit of the clerk to the court to proactively investigate licenced premises and raise concerns with the police licensing unit. This is not a matter for the Constabulary to answer as it is not a request for information held. This information may be available from the General Registry/Courts.

Please quote the reference number 885868 in any future communications.

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I will now close your request as of this date.

Yours sincerely