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

The Number 10 live music petition calling on the Prime Minister to implement 
new entertainment licensing exemptions for small gigs reached 6,000 
signatures this morning: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/livemusicevents/

In just over three weeks it has risen to 23rd in the list of over 5,000 
petitions on the Number 10 website.  But many more signatures are needed if 
the petition is to make an impact on the press and politicians.  If you 
haven't already signed, please consider signing and circulating the petition 
link.

Meanwhile, there are increasing signs of desperation at DCMS.

Last Friday, 14 August, The Publican magazine published an online article 
headlined 'LGA forced to apologise over live music stats'.  This highlighted 
the LGA's retraction of their mistaken 80% live music venues claim, now 
reduced to 55%:
http://www.thepublican.com/story.asp?storycode=64798

The first reader to post a comment was one Adam Cooper:

'The 2007 report found that 76% of pubs and clubs have a licence allowing 
them to stage live music, even though less than half (44% in 2004) 
historically staged live music. Don't trust me, read the report: 
http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/research/surveyoflivemusicdec2007.pdf '

This comment, including a link to the 2007 British Market Research Board 
survey, could be construed as giving some comfort to the LGA. But who is 
Adam Cooper, and how reliable is the 76% statistic?

It turns out that Adam Cooper is Dr Adam C Cooper, Head of Research at DCMS. 
I recognised the name from email correspondence we had last year over this 
very BMRB survey - the one which headlined with the finding that there had 
been a 5% fall in live gigs since the Licensing Act came into force.  But 
even when I disclosed his identity in a comment on The Publican article, he 
did not confirm his job title. He defended his response, adding: 'I do work 
at DCMS, but nothing I say represents the Department's official stance - I 
am acting only as an interested member of the public.'

Once again this raises questions about potential conflict with the Civil 
Service Code of Conduct which centres on four principles: honesty, 
impartiality, objectivity and integrity.  This point was made in comments 
posted by two other readers of The Publican article. Is it ethical for a 
senior civil servant to post comments on a public article about government 
research in which he is closely involved, without disclosing at the outset 
his close involvement in that research?  Was he authorised to do this by 
ministers? Personally, I believe Dr Cooper is in breach of the code and I 
have made a formal complaint to DCMS.

But this doesn't mean that the 76% claim should be ignored.  Dr Cooper 
clearly believes it is a reliable figure. The first objection, however, must 
be that the BMRB survey is two years out of date. Secondly, as I pointed out 
in The Publican, more than half of interviewees knew little or nothing about 
the legislation, which tends to undermine confidence in their knowlege of 
the premises licence.  The BMRB questionnaire did not ask whether the 
interviewee was actually responsible for the licence.  Indeed, it found that 
about 40% interviewees were probably not working at their venue in 2005 when 
old licences had to be converted to the new ones. A further caveat is that 
the licensing arrangements in about 20% of all pubs are handled centrally by 
the managing company. Lastly, even if a licence has a live music permission, 
the survey did not look at licence conditions, such as the restrictions on 
performer numbers and music genres found in St Albans.  If live music 
licence conditions are not implemented, putting on live music remains 
illegal.

All in all, then, the BMRB 76% does not look like a robust statistic. DCMS 
could have established the percentage far more reliably by searching local 
authority public licensing registers, as the St Albans group did. These 
record not only entertainment permissions but also licence conditions.

So, we're back with 55% as the best estimate for the overall proportion of 
premises licensed to sell alcohol that are also licensed for live music. 
This is derived from the more recent DCMS alcohol and entertainment 
statistics, sourced from local authorities - although even this figure is 
about 18 months old.

ENDS