Music Education Council launches Child Performance Licensing Survey

As many brass bands will be aware, Child Performance Licences have been a hot topic affecting bands at every level. The recent Regional Championships have brought into sharp focus issues that have been arising in the last few years. A new survey has been launched to collect the information needed to support the campaign for changes in the legislation and your input is needed.

Brass Bands England has been both campaigning and supporting bands in dealing with the subject. As part of that campaign BBE has been sitting on a task and finish group at the Music Education Council. As part of this group a survey has been created to gather experience from anyone who has needed to deal with this legislation. Whether that is someone who has needed to apply for licences or the parent of a child who needs licensed, the survey want to collect your experiences.

The Music Education Council has issued the following statement:

“A group of Music Education Council’s Member Organisations has come together to look at how as a sector we can address the issue of outdated Child Licensing legislation which is affecting both educational and amateur performances across the country. Despite a number of constructive conversations with civil servants at the Department for Education there has been little movement on addressing this issue. To help with further lobbying the MEC group has launched a survey which it is hoped will amplify MEC’s messages by demonstrating the scale of the problem and the impact it is having on opportunities for children and young people to participate in music making at a local, regional and national level. Please click here to complete the survey. Closing date 15 June.
The MEC member organisations that make up the Task and Finish Group working on this issue are: The Association of British Orchestras, the British and International Federation of Festivals, Brass Bands England, The Choir Schools Association, The Incorporated Society of Musicians, Making music, Music for Youth and Music Mark.”

The central issue for bands revolves around the interpretation of the Children and Young Persons Act 1963, after the introduction of the new Children (Performances and Activities) (England) Regulations 2014 (equivalent regulations in Scotland (2014) and Wales (2015)). These led to guidance by the NNCEE (National Network for Children in Employment and Entertainment) in 2016.

This interpretation whilst designed to protect children in employed performance the regulations have caught almost all performances by young people. The second issue is that each local authority has its own interpretation of the regulations and thus administers them differently. This has created a large administrative burden on bands.

Brass Bands England is calling everyone in the banding community to contribute to this survey, whether contest organiser, band manager, parent or concertgoer, let us know what issues you have been faced with.

For more information about Child Performance Licensing please see the information available on bbe.org.uk

The deadline for submissions is 15 June and the survey can be accessed at this link
https://forms.gle/yoKBfkfT4GbTK7Ho8