Commentary on Parts Part 2 – Licensing Bodies and Officers Section 5 – Licensing Boards
13.Licensing Boards were introduced by the Licensing (Scotland) Act 1976 and subsection (1) of this section retains them. There will continue to be a Board for each council area or, where a council area has been divided into licensing divisions, a Board for each division. The Boards will continue to be made up of local authority councillors elected by the local authority.
14.Subsection (2) provides that where local authorities consider it appropriate to do so, they may split their area up into licensing divisions in the future.
15.Subsection (3) sets out the consequences of establishing licensing divisions. This includes the requirement that for each of those division areas, a separate Licensing Board would have to be established and that where this occurs the existing Licensing Board for that local authority would be dissolved. The provision of licensing divisions is a continuation of the current procedure under the Licensing (Scotland) Act 1976.
16.Subsection (4) allows for licensing divisions to be merged back into a single area so that there is a single Board for the whole area. Subsection (5) provides for the consequences of such a merging of divisions.