Guide Removing the need for a DPS at your community premises

1. Guidance on removing the need for a DPS at a community premises

Overview

The Licensing Act 2003 requires that anyone wishing to sell alcohol or provide entertainment or late night refreshment (the supply of hot food and drink between 11pm and 5am) must do so from premises that have the benefit of a premises licence or club premises certificate.

The Licensing Act states that a premises licence must include a condition that:

"No alcohol sales may be made unless the premises licence has named on it a nominated person, known as the designated premises supervisor (DPS) who in turn must be a personal licence holder"

However, a community, church or village hall (or similar community premises) that wants to be able to sell alcohol or already sells it, can apply for the sale of alcohol to be made the responsibility of a management committee instead of a named DPS.

If the mandatory condition is disapplied, a new alternative condition will be applied instead. The new alternative condition means that a management committee supervises sales of alcohol and the application form requires you to set out how that supervision will take place in a range of different circumstances.

This can help reduce the burden and cost to community premises of having to find a personal licence holder prepared to take the responsibility of being the DPS.

As premises licence holder the management committee will be collectively responsible for complying with licence conditions and the law.

This doesn't mean that a member of the committee needs to be present at all times when the premises is used but, if the premises is to be hired out, a robust hiring agreement with a written summary of the hirer’s responsibilities in relation to the sale of alcohol is suggested.  The management committee could be liable to prosecution if the hirer commits any licensing offences.

How to apply

Restrictions

Only a community premises such as a village hall, church, chapel hall or community hall can apply to remove the requirement for a DPS. 

The DPS condition will not be automatically removed for a community premises and you'll need to apply for this.

If you are applying the remove the DPS requirement from an existing licence, only the premises licence holder or their agent can apply.  

Guidance

Our guidance for village halls provides further general information on licensing for village halls and community premises. 

Legislation

Complaints

If you have an issue with a licensed premises there are different people you should contact depending on the problem.  

Public register

You can view details of existing premises licences and a list of current applications on our licensing public register.