Temporary Event Notices? Rubbish.

A timely warm-up to something I intend to post on shortly. Chris Maclean, blogger of sorts for The Publican, has had to apply for some TENs and is less than impressed by the new 'light touch' the regime affords them. He has 14 events to apply for and describes the process thus:

Today I have downloaded the 10-page TEN document, omitted the four unnecessary pages and copied them four times for each application – two for the council and one each for me and the police. So that is 56 forms, 336 pages in all. They then have to be correlated. Each form has 63 questions. That is 3,528 questions that have to be answered. Because the envelopes are so vast they exceed the postage limits. The bill for the photocopying and postage stamps alone was £34.03. And with TENs costing £21 apiece the cost of today’s licences is in excess of £320.

Compared to the old system under which letters to the mags and police plus a £10 fee would have accomplished the same.

Poor Chris should count himself lucky he hasn't had to contend with licensing authorities refusing to accept TENs signed by solicitors on behalf of clients, confusion regarding the notice period or the council (is there more than one?) that bizarrely insists on producing a special certificate rather than signing and dating the 2nd TEN they're sent.

Summing up the shoddiness of the TEN form, Chris points out:

"for me, the crowning glory is the simple fact that it isn’t until page two you find out where the event is and page three before you find out when"

As easy as it is to think of government workings in the abstract we should remember that someone got up one morning, had their breakfast, went to work, sat down and designed this form. And the DPS consent form. And the licence application forms. Is this person proud of their work? Are they even aware of the problems they've caused to people all over the country? Of all the expletives muttered in their direction?

Presumably their work was checked by someone too but it took Chris Maclean a matter of moments to spot the problems. I know the forms are due to be mentioned in the upcoming review - can the guy that designed them be given something else to do.

Chris's full rant can be found - here.

Share This Post