The following from Hamish Birchall http://www.livemusicforum.co.uk/

A leaked Local Government Association email, and the Facebook website of LGA 
Culture Committee chairman Chris White, suggest that his erroneous 80% gig 
venues claim was key to LGA opposition to new exemptions for small gigs.

As the government confirmed last month, the proportion of licensed venues 
authorised for live music is closer to 40%.

The email, which dates from April this year, outlines LGA strategy on 
licensing and live music. It leads with this statement under the heading 
'Licensed Premises - LGA view':

'Of the 113,000 premises licensed for the sale of alcohol, around 91,000 
already have live music as part of this licence.  This number has risen by 
8% in the last year.  This leaves 22,000 premises that will benefit directly 
from the new Minor Variations process.'

91,000 is 80% of 113,000 and is almost certainly the source of Mr White's 
80% claim.   But this is a misreading of the DCMS alcohol and entertainment 
statistics: a confusion of the estimated number of venues where some form of 
entertainment is authorised with the total number of licensed premises.  See 
8th and 9th bullet point: 
http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/research/AE-Statistics-bulletin-2008.pdf

The LGA email goes on to list proposed actions, including the formation of a 
'working party' with the Musicians Union and UK Music to 'develop a 
promotional implementation pack for councils to promote the 'minor 
variations' amendment.  Interestingly, it concludes:  'A successful roll out 
of this work implies a burden on local authorities and would be contingent 
on DCMS addressing - to an extent - the present under funding of the 
licensing regime.'

Given that LGA promotion of 'minor variations' is now underway, perhaps DCMS 
has promised to address this funding question.

And what of Chris White, who has been campaigning vigorously on Facebook for 
re-election as Chair of the LGA Culture, Media and Sport Committee?

His public Facebook group 'Chris White for LGA Culture, Tourism and Sport 
Chair' includes a self-promoting Powerpoint-style slide headed 'Efforts and 
Achievements - Licensing'. The last bullet point states:

'Worked with DCMS and Feargal Sharkey to find a workable and safe solution 
to perceived problems in the Act for live music.'

If you truly believed that 80% of bars were licensed for live music you 
might wonder what musicians and the music industry were fussing about.  But, 
apart from his fundamental statistical error, there is a patronising 
undertone.  He insinuates misleadingly that live music generally is unsafe, 
and that the 'problems' are perceived, not real.

Of course, UK Music, for which Feargal Sharkey is chief executive, yesterday 
publicly distanced itself from the LGA live music strategy reported in the 
LGA article 'Striking the right note', and forced an LGA apology for 
misrepresenting its views:
http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/core/page.do?pageId=2765113

Over the past year or more, Chris White has been responsible for leading the 
LGA strategy on live music and licensing.  But given his careless 
misinterpretation of key statistics and the outrageous licensing 
restrictions on live music imposed by his own St Albans council, is he 
really a suitable candidate for chair of the LGA Culture, Media and Sport 
Committee?

ENDS

At 13:01:32 on Thu, 6 Aug 2009, Roger Gall  
wrote in :

>The following from Hamish Birchall http://www.livemusicforum.co.uk/

You, know, Roger, it would be awfully useful if you could put all of 
these posts in just the one thread, each one "replying" to a previous 
one.  Keeps the information together, and those who want to read it all 
know where to find it, and those who don't want to read it all can just 
leave that one thread alone.
-- 
Molly Mockford
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety - Benjamin Franklin
(My Reply-To address *is* valid, though may not remain so for ever.)

"Molly Mockford"  wrote in message 
news:79Ey0nApBteKFwW9@molly.mockford...
> At 13:01:32 on Thu, 6 Aug 2009, Roger Gall  
> wrote in :
>
>>The following from Hamish Birchall http://www.livemusicforum.co.uk/
>
> You, know, Roger, it would be awfully useful if you could put all of these 
> posts in just the one thread, each one "replying" to a previous one. 
> Keeps the information together, and those who want to read it all know 
> where to find it, and those who don't want to read it all can just leave 
> that one thread alone.

Seconded. Roger's posts are informative, and I'm supportive. But he's in 
danger of being perceived as spamming this ng.

Steve
--
http://www.fivetrees.com

At 00:13:33 on Fri, 7 Aug 2009, Steve at fivetrees 
 wrote in 
:

>"Molly Mockford"  wrote in message
>news:79Ey0nApBteKFwW9@molly.mockford...
>> At 13:01:32 on Thu, 6 Aug 2009, Roger Gall 
>> wrote in :
>>
>>>The following from Hamish Birchall http://www.livemusicforum.co.uk/
>>
>> You, know, Roger, it would be awfully useful if you could put all of these
>> posts in just the one thread, each one "replying" to a previous one.
>> Keeps the information together, and those who want to read it all know
>> where to find it, and those who don't want to read it all can just leave
>> that one thread alone.
>
>Seconded. Roger's posts are informative, and I'm supportive. But he's in
>danger of being perceived as spamming this ng.

Ah well, I guess Roger disagrees, seeing as how he has just started a 
brand-new topic for yet another of Hamish Birchall's press releases.

Well, it was worth a try.
-- 
Molly Mockford
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety - Benjamin Franklin
(My Reply-To address *is* valid, though may not remain so for ever.)

Molly Mockford wrote:

> Ah well, I guess Roger disagrees, seeing as how he has just started a 
> brand-new topic for yet another of Hamish Birchall's press releases.
> 
> Well, it was worth a try.

He probably didn't see the suggestion, lost as it was in the 
immense flood of other posts...

JF