Dear Fife Licensing Board,

Please could you release to me information on how many Licensed Betting Offices were licensed in the borough in each year from 2007 to 2013.

For clarity: I wish to understand the total number of bookmakers licenced in each year 2007-13 and how that has changed over time.

This means that licenced bookmakers whose licences have lapsed, been surrendered or have been revoked need to be included, just information of when the currently licenced premises were first licenced is potentially misleading when analysing the trend over time.

Some councils make their current register available online,
unfortunately this gives just the current number not the historic trend.

Yours faithfully,

Richard Richardson

Dear Fife Licensing Board,

Has there been any progress on this request which is now over the 20 day limit suggested by the ICO?

Please note that I want to understand the number of bookmakers operating in each year and so I need to know how many licences were issued in each year and also how many ended by being revoked/surrendered or lapsed.

Yours faithfully,

Richard Richardson

Dear Liquor Admin,

Thanks for this update. The request is fairly simple so I am sure you will be fine. The board has a register of all licencing events. This register started on 1st September 2007 and was initially populated by fast tracked betting offices - that is all those that were licenced under the system before the 2005 Gambling Act came in to force.

This gives you a total for when the register first started. From that the annual total varies if an extra licence is issued or a licence is surrendered, revoked or lapses (they have annual renewal fees).

Going down the register and either adding one or taking one from the running total depending upon the event on the register gives us the total OPERATING each year which is what I am interested in.

Potential pitfalls are transfers of ownership - notably the 2011 take over of the Tote by BetFred - such transfer events can confuse, either by resulting in the record showing the commencement date as when the transfer happened or simply because it is a licencing event but it does not alter the total of shops operating, just who the operator is.

There is also the possibility of confusing other licence types ie Bingo, racetrack, amusement arcade and counting them as licenced betting offices in error.

I hope this helps

Yours sincerely,

Richard Richardson

Dear Fife Licensing Board,

Many thanks for this clear and complete response.

Thank you

Yours faithfully,

Richard Richardson