Licensing (Public Protection) Committee - Monday 19 January 2026, 6:30pm - Buckinghamshire Council Webcasting

Licensing (Public Protection) Committee
Monday, 19th January 2026 at 6:30pm 

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  1. Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport
  2. Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer
  3. Michelle Shelly - Taxi Licensing Officer
  4. Harry Thomas - Democratic Services Officer
  5. Joanne Bowles - Senior Licensing Officer
  6. Alaka Tomlinson - Legal
  7. Cllr Heather Wallace
  8. Harry Thomas - Democratic Services Officer
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  1. Cllr Heather Wallace
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  1. Michelle Shelly - Taxi Licensing Officer
  2. Cllr Heather Wallace
  3. Michelle Shelly - Taxi Licensing Officer
  4. Cllr Heather Wallace
  5. Michelle Shelly - Taxi Licensing Officer
  6. Cllr Heather Wallace
  7. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  8. Michelle Shelly - Taxi Licensing Officer
  9. Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport
  10. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  11. Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport
  12. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  13. Alaka Tomlinson - Legal
  14. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  15. Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport
  16. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  17. Cllr Heather Wallace
  18. Cllr Matthew Hind
  19. Michelle Shelly - Taxi Licensing Officer
  20. Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport
  21. Cllr Matthew Hind
  22. Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer
  23. Cllr Matthew Hind
  24. Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer
  25. Cllr Heather Wallace
  26. Cllr Mahboob Hussain JP
  27. Michelle Shelly - Taxi Licensing Officer
  28. Cllr Mahboob Hussain JP
  29. Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport
  30. Cllr Heather Wallace
  31. Cllr Chris Chilton
  32. Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport
  33. Cllr Heather Wallace
  34. Cllr Shade Adoh
  35. Michelle Shelly - Taxi Licensing Officer
  36. Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport
  37. Cllr Heather Wallace
  38. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  39. Cllr Shade Adoh
  40. Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport
  41. Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer
  42. Cllr Heather Wallace
  43. Alaka Tomlinson - Legal
  44. Michelle Shelly - Taxi Licensing Officer
  45. Cllr Heather Wallace
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  1. Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer
  2. Cllr Heather Wallace
  3. Cllr Shade Adoh
  4. Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer
  5. Cllr Shade Adoh
  6. Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer
  7. Cllr Heather Wallace
  8. Cllr Kathy Gibbon
  9. Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer
  10. Cllr Heather Wallace
  11. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  12. Cllr Shade Adoh
  13. Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer
  14. Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport
  15. Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer
  16. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  17. Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport
  18. Cllr Matthew Hind
  19. Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer
  20. Cllr Heather Wallace
  21. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  22. Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer
  23. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  24. Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport
  25. Cllr Heather Wallace
  26. Alaka Tomlinson - Legal
  27. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  28. Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer
  29. Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport
  30. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  31. Cllr Heather Wallace
  32. Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer
  33. Cllr Heather Wallace
  34. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  35. Cllr Kirsten Ashman
  36. Cllr Heather Wallace
  37. Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer
  38. Cllr Kirsten Ashman
  39. Cllr Heather Wallace
  40. Cllr Chris Chilton
  41. Cllr Heather Wallace
  42. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  43. Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer
  44. Cllr Heather Wallace
  45. Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport
  46. Cllr Heather Wallace
  47. Cllr Shade Adoh
  48. Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer
  49. Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport
  50. Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer
  51. Cllr Shade Adoh
  52. Cllr Heather Wallace
  53. Cllr Shade Adoh
  54. Cllr Heather Wallace
  55. Cllr Shade Adoh
  56. Cllr Heather Wallace
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  1. Cllr Chris Chilton
  2. Cllr Heather Wallace
  3. Webcast Finished

There we go. Super. Right. Good evening, Councillors, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this meeting
of the Buckinghamshire Council's licencing. That's the public protection committee. I'm
Councillor Heather Wallace and I'm the chairman of this committee. As usual, the meeting is
webcast. Gender papers have been published. And just some housekeeping points. Obviously
if you keep your mobiles on silent raise your hand if you want to ask a question
I'll make a note and bring you in and remember to turn your microwave phones
on and off when you finished and if there is a fire alarm we just exit
through the main doors and congregate in the car park so I'd like to introduce
you to my officers so start with on my left Thank You chairman Lindsey Valles
service director for transport and regulatory services
Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport - 0:00:58
Simon. Good evening councillors Simon Gallacher principal licencing officer.
Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer - 0:01:00
Michelle Shelly - Taxi Licensing Officer - 0:01:04
Good evening councillors Michelle Shelley taxi licencing manager. I'm Harry Thomas
Harry Thomas - Democratic Services Officer - 0:01:10
Democratic Services. Hi Joe Bowles senior licencing officer.
Joanne Bowles - Senior Licensing Officer - 0:01:12
Alaka Tomlinson - Legal - 0:01:16
Alika Tomlinson legal advisor to the committee. Lovely thank you very much. So
Cllr Heather Wallace - 0:01:20
Harry do we have any apologies? Yes we've got apologies from councillors Paul

1 Apologies for Absence

Harry Thomas - Democratic Services Officer - 0:01:22
Gryphon, Paul Kelly, Phil Gom and Maz Vissen. Thank you very much. Okay so

2 Declarations of Interest

declarations of interest which is item number two. Do any members have any
Cllr Heather Wallace - 0:01:32
declarations of interest they wish to be known? No? Okay thank you. Minutes of the
previous meeting are we in agreement?

3 Minutes of the previous meeting

Okay. Great. So item number four is the taxi private

4 Taxi and Private Hire Licensing Budget Review and Fees and Charges

hire licencing budget review fees and charges. And we have Michelle Shelley here today to
Michelle Shelly - Taxi Licensing Officer - 0:02:01
present the report. Thank you, chairman. Good evening, everybody.
Thank you for the opportunity to present the report this evening.
Before we get started, I would like to note some minor corrections that have been made
to the report since the publication. So we have four amendments which I will refer
to in order. On page 14, there is a minor amendment at
paragraph 2 .22. The second line of this paragraph notes a
number 10 when this should actually be a number 11.
Further on page 14, which is also paragraph 2 .23, second to last line in that first paragraph,
state 7 however this should actually read an 8.
On page 15, paragraph 2 .24, the first paragraph and line 6 of that paragraph, there is an
the remainder of that sentence has actually been removed. And finally we
have replaced Appendix B and C which is pages 25 through to 29 of your report
and provided new copies which you should all have with you on the table.
Lovely. Just to note the above amendments do not impact the
recommendations which relate to the fees provided in Appendix A and I'll read the
recommendation now. The recommendation is that the proposed fees and charges set
out at Appendix A are agreed prior to statutory advertisement. Members will
have read the report so I will summarise the main points of the proposal and
will be happy to answer any questions for you at the end. The main purpose of
this report is to review the forecasted end -of -year budget position for the taxi
and private hire licencing service for year -end 25 -26 and seek your agreement
to a proposed 3 .5 uplift in fees and charges to ensure the costs of the service are met
and ensure that the taxi licencing service remains cost neutral to the Council.
Section 2, which is page 10 of the report, emphasises the legal framework in which we
are required to operate within when setting fees.
Hackney carriage and private hire licencing fees must be set at a level that recovers
only the costs prescribed in law. The Council cannot make a profit from the licencing fees
and any shortfall in revenue must be borne by the Council as a whole.
Conversely, any surplus or deficit must be carried forward
and considered in subsequent fee reviews.
Sections 2 .2 to 2 .4 of this report outlines the relevant legal provisions
outlined in the Local Government Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1976,
which permits licence cost recovery against each respective licence type.
These sections also cover the function of the licencing committee when setting fees,
as set out in the regulation of local authority regulations 2000.
Section 2 .5 to 2 .6 refers to the relevant licence case law that permits the recovery of costs for enforcement or compliance
which is also considered as an administration cost which can be included as part of the fee setting exercise.
It is important to note that the fees being considered today do not include the costs associated with dealing with unlicensed unlawful activity.
These costs are primarily recovered through court cost awards and other general funds.
This activity, however, is relatively small when considered against the team's larger
enforcement activities such as determining the fitness and proprietary licence holders,
dealing with complaints which do form part of the fees being considered today.
Section 2 .7 to 2 .11, which is page 11 of your report, refers to guidance from local government
association to be considered when setting fees for recovering the costs of the licencing service
and you will have noted that the relevant case law that supports our approach to fee setting is also
cited throughout. All of the sections I have mentioned have been considered when reaching
our proposal for your consideration this evening. Pages 12 and 13 which are sections 2 .12 to 221 of
the report draw the committee's attention to the annual review of the fees and charges for the last
financial period. The Council's accounting period runs from April to March and each year
fees are set to recover the costs incurred within this time period. Fees and charges
are reviewed every year and a full review is carried out at least every three years.
This ensures that fees are set at the right level and reflect the true cost of providing
the licencing service. We monitor income and expense closely throughout the year to identify
any new trends that may influence our financial position which could impact future fee decisions.
As with all other local authorities, staffing costs are the biggest expense to the service,
which includes salaries, pensions and national insurance contributions. Other expenses include
costs arising from ancillary support services such as IT, HR, facilities, legal and democratic
services. All of these expenses are factored into the overheads of the licencing service.
Costs from external suppliers such as vehicle information cheques and physical licence items
like plates and driver badges for issuing licences are also included.
The proposed fee also covers all associated staffing costs that ensure that all drivers,
vehicles and operators meet the required standards as set out in our policy and taking action
where breaches of policy occur which are necessary to protect public safety.
It is important to note that all income into the service is generated entirely from taxing
and private hire licencing fees. I would like to draw the committee's attention to the table
in paragraph 2 .17 of the report which details the projected position for the end of 25 -26
financial period. You will note significant savings have been made in salaries and expenditure
totalling £62 ,104. This is noted as red in the table which is an underspend.
In addition to this, the service has been able to contribute £28 ,625 which is the third and final
percentage to offset the £100 ,000 deficit from the 22 -23 year end budget position.
The salary and expenditure savings realised this year have been used to partially offset
the shortfall in income caused by lower than forecasted applications.
For the current financial year we are projecting a budget pressure of £52 ,300.
We are further able to reduce this using the rolling cumulative surplus from the previous two financial years
and land at a final figure, adverse figure of £11 ,660.
pounds. This has been factored in when considering the budget and recommended
fees for 26 -27. To maintain a cost neutral position for the next financial
year is proposed that a 3 .5 percent increase is applied to all taxi and
private hire licencing fees and charges. As part of the forecast for the next
three financial years a robust forecast model has been used has been made using
three years of historical data in which we've analysed renewal data, renewal
trends and use this data to project future income. We have also considered the associated
increases in salary costs and expenses ensuring that our financial predictions are as reliable
as possible based on the information we have. Pages 14 to 16 of your report which is sections
2 .22 to 2 .31 is in relation to benchmarking. We have benchmarked our fees against 11 of
neighbouring authorities. It also highlights the intensive level of
enforcement activity required to maintain safety and ensure compliance
with our taxi and private hire licencing policy. This includes large -scale event
enforcement, joint operations with Thames Valley Police,
Equalities compliance cheques, school contract monitoring, complaint handling,
fitness and propriety determination and regular out -of -hours operations. The
The table in section 2 .23, which is on page 15, may help to demonstrate this in an easier fashion where fees have changed or stayed the same in each authority area.
The information details here refers to the information within appendix B, which consists of two pages which are also available on your desks, which were originally pages 25 and 27 of the report.
You will note that all of the authorities listed here are yet to review their fees and seven authorities have not reviewed their fees since 2024.
However, it is highly likely that these fees will be subject to review in line with their budgetary cycle.
This comparison provides a valid baseline and demonstrates that our proposed fee sits broadly in the middle of the regional range for most licences and in many cases lower than the average, especially for new vehicle applicants.
You may also note that TfL has been included in the report, however is not detailed in
Appendix B. Fees charged by Transport for London have been excluded from the calculation
of average fees because they are not comparable in terms of scale and operation.
For operator licence fees, our proposed rates are cheaper for operators with one vehicle
up to ten vehicles and for operators with ten to fifty vehicles, but more expensive
for operators with more than 50 vehicles. However, our fees remain lower than some
neighbouring authorities at a local level with Milton Keynes, Windsor and Maidenhead and three
rivers charging consistently higher fees. On page 17, section 2 .31 of this report
details the costs associated with a new five -year operator licence.
You will observe that these increases are fairly low when reviewed on an annual basis.
For driver licence fees, benchmarking indicates that the proposed driver fees will increase
slightly from current levels and while more expensive, as previously mentioned, the comparative
fees used have not yet been subject to a revision. The proposed driver fee is for a three year
licence, however when reviewed annually, the cost would be £134 which is an increase to
£5 per licenced year. For vehicle licence fees, the proposed fees are marginally more
expensive for new private hire licences but cheaper for private hire renewal
and new and renewal Hackney carriage vehicles. It is important to note that
direct comparisons can be difficult as some authorities include or exclude
certain costs such as English language tests or knowledge tests for drivers and
possible additional testing for vehicle licences according to their respective
policies. So next steps. If the proposed fees are approved they will go through a
statutory advertisement period as required by section 70 of the Act. This
involves publishing a notice in a local paper and the council offices and
allowing at least 28 days for comments from the licenced trade and other
relevant parties. The proposed fees will also be published on our website. The
taxi and private hire trade will be informed of the proposals and how to
respond. A follow -up report will be brought to the committee in March 26
including any feedback received and any recommended changes. If the committee
approves or amends the final fees they will come into effect on the 1st of
April 2026. Fees will then be reviewed annually and further reports would be
brought to the committee each year. So in conclusion and finally to summarise
we're asking the committee to agree a 3 .5 % increase in taxi and private hire
licencing fees for 26 -27. This increase is necessary to ensure the service
remains cost neutral and continues to meet all legal and safety requirements.
Significant savings have been made in salaries and expenditure and together
with previous year's surpluses helped to offset the deficit and keep
costs down for licence holders. Our fees remain competitive with those
of neighbouring authorities as explained in section 2 .23 of the report and we are
committed to monitoring the financial position closely and reviewing fees
annually to ensure we remain on track. Thank you for your attention. I'm happy to answer
Cllr Heather Wallace - 0:14:33
any questions. Thank you. Thank you, Shirley. I've got a question
and then I'll open to the rest of the floor. What do you think is driving the increase
in the charges, in the costs? What's the main increase?
So the main increase would be the running costs in terms of the salaries.
Michelle Shelly - Taxi Licensing Officer - 0:14:56
The staffing is the main biggest cost to the service.
And what have we done internally to try and make savings or reduce costs?
Cllr Heather Wallace - 0:15:05
Michelle Shelly - Taxi Licensing Officer - 0:15:08
Yep, so we've made some efficiencies over the last year in terms of some of our internal
processes which means that we can reduce time dealing with things at the front end which
in turn then leaves time for other things.
So yeah, we've made some really good progress on those this year.
That's great, lovely.
Cllr Heather Wallace - 0:15:25
Okay and obviously that English language test that's now reduced cost to the
people need to pay that so that's also good. Okay so any questions?
Councillor Stutchbury then Councillor Hinde.
Yeah thank you very much for the report.
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 0:15:40
I'm happy to propose a agreed report. There's a couple of questions of clarity for my own mind.
You stated in response to the Chair that you were, so in these figures here, did these figures appear on SARS, appear at the budget scrutiny meetings and budgets last week?
and am I, when it says staffing, are we keeping the same current members
of staff or is there a staffing reduction in this because it'd be used
to know that that makes staffing reductions can affect your ability to be
able to work and carry out the workload which you already expressed being high.
second question. Should we answer the first one first? Yes.
Thank you captain. I think Lindsay will probably take the first question.
Michelle Shelly - Taxi Licensing Officer - 0:16:37
Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport - 0:16:42
Yeah so fee setting for licencing is a non -executive function sits with the
with the licencing committee so you are responsible for making the decision
which is why the information and the figures are in front of you as a
committee tonight. So these figures don't go to cabinet.
You may have seen in the appendix to the cabinet meeting and I would have to go back and cheque
it, but you will have seen I think a suggestion that where fees are not statutorily set that
they increase by 5 % except in circumstances where benchmarking indicates that it may be
appropriate to set a different fee. But it's your responsibility as a licencing
committee to set the fees and charges for licencing.
Partly answered and thanks for that and for our second question is the staffing issues.
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 0:17:30
Staffing numbers.
Shall I take that?
Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport - 0:17:37
So I think what Shelley's explained through the presentation of the report is that we
seek to make savings on staffing costs where we're able to do so and often that will result
from vacancies so you know when we have a member of staff leave the team we'll sometimes
consider whether or not we need to fill that vacancy immediately, whether or not we can
hold that vacancy. If we are able to function and deliver the
service we need to with a reduced level of staffing and that means we can reduce the
costs to the trade, then we try to do that. You will see some reduced running costs and
expenses, staffing expenses in the report that's in front of you.
I don't think that there is a proposal to reduce staffing costs within the future arrangements.
So as Shelley's explained we're looking to increase the fees by 3 .5 % to offset
inflationary and staffing costs as you would expect moving forward.
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 0:18:32
Second question is the regulations that we were working under was under the 2009
regulations that changed under the 2018 Act which was the government decided to
leave the European Union and then we ended up with the regulations changing
but also the government stated in the contents to the LGA at the time that they
were still reviewing what they were going to do with services and I think
assurance that none of those things has had a detrimental and erroneous effect
on your ability to be able to deliver the service. I think it's important we
understand that it hasn't affected it because the regulations in the 2009 Act
were thus and the regulations in the withdraw Act in 2008 were provisions of
of regulations which were linked to the 2009 Act. So I think it's important and
they made statements about non -profit which is linear across the two pieces of
legislation but I think it when discussing these things and reading it
it's really worth knowing whether there was a direct effect on our abilities
through the Act or whether everything was covered because the government did
state that it was going to conduct a review of the regulations intended to reform the
provision of services. So that clearly wasn't carried out because it states in the LGA papers
within the folder. So I'm interested to know, it may be a techie question, but it hasn't
affected your ability to be able to act. Two, with the comments that they were going to
review it which must be still ongoing are we to expect changes in the future
around the way licencing will act because it will come here if it does it's
in the pack in the paperwork so it's all in there if you wonder where it's coming
from it's just in the back so just interesting to know how you how you feel
about that. There was a question there if you listen. Sorry Chairman I'll just I
Alaka Tomlinson - Legal - 0:20:50
I don't know whether I'm hitting the right note or not, Councillor. So in terms of the
regulations, if you look at paragraph 2 .3 of the report, it does say that the power
to deal with fees, which as Lindsay's already pointed out is a function of the licencing
committee within paragraph 2 .3 it does set out that it's the local authority functions
and responsibilities England regulation 2000 which give the licencing committee the power
to regulate fees in this area. I'm not sure that I can really answer any further in terms
of the fee setting exercise here this evening. If there's a wider question I don't know
if you want to if I can invite you perhaps to email me outside of the
committee if there's a wider question around whether our leaving the EU has
impacted on the fee on the regulations around the setting of fees is that the
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 0:22:08
question? Let me try and rephrase it 2 .7 as your report. Point sorry paragraph 2 .7
2 .7.
Journal Methodology.
You go to that document, Methodology, and you state in there you published the Open Business of the RGA.
And my questions were, and in your own report it states the changes from the 2009 legislation to the 2018 legislation.
The first part of the question was has it impacted on your ability to deliver services
because I think it's a reasonable question to ask as it's in the report.
And the second one was it states within that report that they were going to carry on reviewing
and come back.
Council should note that the Government has been conducting a review of it.
So does that mean that we were likely to see more stuff come to us and change in licencing?
I wouldn't raise it if it wasn't in the report so if you tap on the link you can see it.
This is me. I think Lindsay can you answer that?
Yeah so the Open for Business LGA guidance is what the LGA published for local licencing
Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport - 0:23:13
authorities to help them with fee setting so it's a statutory guidance document.
We do have reference to it but it's a starting point as we've said because there are some
exemptions around taxi and private hire vehicle licencing. And therefore we use
the kind of broad principles within it to help us with our fee setting and I
think Shelley set them out but they're here in 2 .8 so non -discriminatory,
justified, proportionate, transparent, those types of objectives. I mean I've
been working in taxi licencing along with many of the others here for several
several years as far as I'm aware and I'm looking to Simon because he would be
sort of similarly cited on it. We've seen no significant change in the way that we set fees
or the legislation and the framework around it in you know the several years that I've been working
in licencing prior to the formation of this council actually. I don't know if you'd agree
with that Simon. So I don't know if that provides some assurance.
Yeah thank you it does it's each clarity around the active question that there hasn't been an
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 0:24:19
back thinking it's in a report and we agree in a report we should ask the
questions and you've asked them very well that it hasn't actually changed any
way that we conduct licencing. The review what they state will...
Not for tax.
No.
Okay thank you then. So we'll go on to Councillor Hinde please.
Thank you.
Cllr Heather Wallace - 0:24:40
Oh it's gone okay.
Cllr Matthew Hind - 0:24:43
Okay do comparisons on prices which is really interesting do comparisons on how
they operate compared to how we operate? Do you carry out that sort of comparisons as
well? Thank you, Councillor. Yes, we do. However,
it's... Sorry, hang on. Can you turn your microphone
off? Oh, sorry.
Michelle Shelly - Taxi Licensing Officer - 0:25:00
And then I think you can turn yours on. Okay. I think it's on. Is it? Okay. Thank
you for your question. Yes, we do. However, it's really difficult because the way different
licencing authorities are kind of set up, some of them will... Each authority has different
and different policies which are their objectives to achieve.
So for example, some authorities will include things like English language in their overall application fees and some don't.
So in terms of looking at operationally how we work, we all kind of work the same way.
You know, we all have the same rules to apply, you know, abide to.
However, trying to do direct comparisons on what we do versus what they do and on price is very difficult.
I recently did some work on other authorities of similar sizes and it's still very vastly
different. So it's quite difficult to nail it down when you're looking at different authorities.
We do all work to the same statutory guidance. It doesn't necessarily mean we're all doing
Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport - 0:26:04
everything the same. So there's still, as you know, an ability to set your licencing
policy locally and later we will come on to our second report tonight which is around
the taxi and private hire licencing policy.
As a committee you will provide feedback around that.
The taxi and private hire licencing policy is set locally.
There are statutory guidelines in place and we should nationally be following them particularly
where they relate to fitness and propriety to hold a licence which is where public safety
is really important and that's what the Government has been quite focused on over the last few
years.
Cllr Matthew Hind - 0:26:42
So I wouldn't know specifically about western North Hands but if you were to take a much
smaller licencing authority in another part of the country for example they may have quite
a different approach.
They are local drivers.
I mean when I say drivers I don't mean actual drivers.
I mean kind of the things that are shaping their service and that may be different to
our to what's you know what's happening in Buckinghamshire. I mean Simon I don't know
you do it quite a lot on the national kind of stage I don't know whether you've got a
view on that.
Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer - 0:27:16
No I think I mean that's a very succinct answer that's the position really I mean it'd be
interesting to see what happens so we've got the bill going through with the House of Lords
at the moment around introducing mandatory national standards. It's quite possible if
that legislation goes through that we will see more benchmarking across local authorities.
I suppose just to add, we're very transparent in Buckinghamshire as members will know, we
present a report twice a year with our enforcement outcomes. I'm not aware that many other authorities
do that. The second question was following to that. I know there was talk some time ago
Cllr Matthew Hind - 0:28:05
about what I would consider the Wolverhampton connexion where people were getting licenced
in Wolverhampton then coming down and working in Buckinghamshire. It looks from the figures
that it would be better almost to be working to licence in West North and West North Ansells
or central beds for example, which are relatively close and working in Buckinghamshire.
Do you see much of that? Is there much? Would you know if the people were doing that?
Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer - 0:28:37
So it does happen. We do have drivers working in the county that are licenced by Wolverhampton
and a number of our operators.
I'm not thinking Wolverhampton, I'm thinking of the local authorities.
As a preference to get licenced there as opposed to Buckinghamshire.
Yeah I suppose the point that perhaps isn't reflected in the papers, and this is again
really difficult to capture, but it's the turnaround times. So we are very quick at
processing our applications through the resources that we've dedicated to turning around applications
because we know from our trade representatives and our trade meetings how important turnaround
times are. So if you obviously the longer a driver of vehicles off the road it's
not earning money so we put a lot of energy into those those turnaround times
and we have seen stuff published in the press nationally around some of the
bigger authorities that are struggling to keep up with demand. In some instances
there's weeks, months drivers you know waiting to get licenced so again that
that's another factor.
Okay, thank you. Councillor Hussain.
Cllr Heather Wallace - 0:29:47
Thank you Madam Chairman. I think my question was partly was answered by,
Cllr Mahboob Hussain JP - 0:29:53
to raise my Mr. Hinn, but I just do say that concern are being raised by the people that,
why we are charging different other authorities on the area. But my question is now, because
it's been partly answered, I don't know if you want to say anything more on it, but it's
the new AI system, does that make any impact or anything
onto our system to reduce the charges?
Yeah, do you want to take the AI element?
Yeah.
Thank you for your question.
I'd just like to clarify in terms of the AI,
Michelle Shelly - Taxi Licensing Officer - 0:30:29
in what respect we do, we are actually taking advantage
of some of the AI, some of you will remember
when the English language test came to committee
in September, we're actually making use of some of that AI integration. Was it something
specific you were?
No, no, no, I'm just wondering, does that make any impact on the charges? I mean, does
that make any, we can have a new reduction in the new?
Cllr Mahboob Hussain JP - 0:30:54
So Shelley, I think, yeah, I think on the English language, just coming back to that,
Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport - 0:30:59
the costs have decreased as a result of implementing an AI approach in that English language space.
We are still doing quite a lot of work as a council around how we implement and use
AI in an appropriate way.
We have got IT colleagues set up to deal with innovations and approaches and with the right
governance etc.
And we look and learn, don't we, Shelley?
So we spend quite a lot of time taking part in those groups, looking at what is being
rolled out in other services, understanding whether or not we can utilise it.
I would say we are not utilising it to a great extent in this field at the moment and it
might be something we can continue to look at that would drive further efficiency.
So I think it's a good flag.
The other point I was just going to make when you were sort of and I think with Councillor
Hynde as well when you were just reflecting on benchmarking is just the point that Shelley
made around the fact that we're first out the gate this year on fee review.
So you can expect the other local authorities to review their fees but they haven't started
that process and they're not published.
So we know I think from the work that Shelley did that a number are considering fee work
at the moment and the officers are working on it but they haven't taken those papers
through their licencing committee process yet.
And what that means is we can't see them.
So you can expect to see fees increase in some of those other neighbouring authorities
over the coming months as well because we're all in the kind of budget cycle.
It's just that we tend to be quite organised and out the gate to make sure that we're there
for the start of the financial year.
So it's just to bear in mind that you're comparing a whole year previous to what we're proposing
and that you could see some change there.
// Thank you.
// Thank you.
//Mayor Burton.
Cllr Heather Wallace - 0:32:39
// Thank you.
Cllr Chris Chilton - 0:32:43
// You mentioned that we've had lower than forecast applications and I noticed it cost
us about 100 ,000 pounds.
So that's presumably really quite a fairly significant reduction in applications.
applications. I've got to link that to my next question which is what feedback
have we had in the past from taxi operators and taxi individuals
about our fees and what feedback would you expect to get from them about the
new fees and I'm wondering whether there's a link between the level of the
fees and the fact that there's a reduction in the number of applicants.
Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport - 0:33:25
She may want to come in on this because she is the lady that deals with this day to day.
She knows what is going on in the service.
We have and you will see it in your enforcement reports as well.
When your enforcement reports come in front of you, you will see that we have had a reasonable
number of applications where somebody has made an application and then not finished
it.
They submitted it and it is partially complete.
there's quite a lot of activity that then has to go on in the back office where we've got an incomplete application
to close that down return that back to the applicant, you know to chase them up on the things they haven't provided.
Now we've managed to reduce that quite a lot through some sort of efficient digital processes.
But what I also know about that
from being in that operational space is that you can have an
application come in in one financial year and it can be granted in the next. So sometimes when you're looking at your forecast
and you're setting your budget for the future year, you're looking and hoping
that all of your applications come in when you're expecting them to come in
and that you grant them in the same financial period but actually that can
look quite different. So you may find that actually you have a gap, you know,
someone doesn't renew their vehicle licence, they go away maybe for three
months, they take the vehicle off the road and then they put their application
in for a new licence three months later than you're anticipating or you have a
driver application come in.
They have a number of things.
They've applied quite early, but they've
got a number of things that they need to do with external suppliers.
And then they perhaps go and do those things, and then they submit the stuff,
and then you process the application three months down the line.
So although we do our best with the data that we've got,
and I think we've got much better at that,
and I think you won't have been party to the previous committee,
but we struggled, I think, post unitary with lots of different district
data coming together. We now have a single sort of data set.
So we are much better at that. We are forecasting what we think is going
to come in, what actually comes in can look a little bit different.
We are mindful of that. So you will see those savings through the
year which is a risk balance approach for us to make sure and as Shelley said we manage
and forecast it right through the year. It is not just an end of year thing.
So I think there is some of that to take in there as well.
Feedback from drivers, Simon and I have done this a few times.
it's Shirley's first time bringing the report but we've done this a few times.
Drivers and operators and vehicle licence holders are the same as all of
us. We don't want to see costs increase do we? Feedback generally when we go out
we advertise. We're legally obliged to advertise any fee over any
yeah quite low, £20 -25, very old legislation. So we go out and advertise
the fee. You'll commonly see feedback received through that process that
indicates that people don't really want an increase to their fee which you know
I think that we can all understand. I think what we've tried to do this year
and you'll see in the report is we've really hopefully evidenced the
amount of work that's gone on to look at what a reasonable uplift is this year
and it is different to the cabinet sort of general approach across the council.
it is reasonable covering inflationary costs and staffing.
It's 3 .5 instead of 5 % so it's really good. Work very hard to keep it down.
So you know we do the best we can but you know it costs a lot to run the service and you know you'll know as well through the enforcement reports how much work the team are doing in that public safety space.
So, you know, it should be cost neutral for the taxpayer.
If we don't have the money to fund the staffing, that's ultimately what's reduced.
And then either the level of service is decreased, so the timeliness is reduced in terms of
Or not so many enforcements.
Yeah, or we have less enforcement activity happening.
Which is detrimental then to the public.
Yeah, so that's the kind of position really.
Thank you.
Councillor Do.
Cllr Heather Wallace - 0:37:21
Thank you very much, Chan.
Thank you for the report, Michelle.
Cllr Shade Adoh - 0:37:24
I think it was well put.
And when I read it, I thought it was really good.
I mean, this is my about this year.
So I'm kind of getting better understanding of licencing,
which is good.
I'm just reflecting on we doing the first.
Is there any impact to us being the first
to get out how they gain to it in one way or the other?
Or is it what's waiting for other people?
No, I don't think so.
I think actually it puts us in a better position
Michelle Shelly - Taxi Licensing Officer - 0:38:05
because we're able to use that data really quickly.
You know, we can look at what, start forecasting
and you know, the trends that come through.
We can analyse those with the new, you know,
the new fees will allow us, you know,
the service to be able to operate,
you know cost neutral I think it would be beneficial for us to be first out the
gate I don't think it's there's a negative I mean I think for councillors
I can see that it might be difficult because you're trying you're you're not
Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport - 0:38:31
comparing apples and pears in your benchmarking so I can see that that might
be that might be more challenging I think the issue might be that if we
delayed it we may struggle given the governance that we have to go through to
get a fee rise to get a fee increase in for the 1st of April and the issue then
is that we're potentially on the back foot going into a new financial year
without a budget set for the service.
Cllr Heather Wallace - 0:38:55
But I think even where we are we would still do the same due diligence and we'd probably still come out with the same thoughts.
Councillor Stachbury, thank you.
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 0:39:06
I'm happy before I speak to say I've proposed that we accept of it.
just following on from Councillor Hines' comments around HATNI caps and
caps is coming into us and other authorities there is something that we
have little control of that we must be aware of it is the issues around prevent
and the fact that we may do everything we can do reasonably around prevent
within our own wherever we don't actually have sight of those areas from
coming from other local authorities and it is very current these issues are
being raised and it's all around Hackney -Cabson, Hotel Watch and things like
that. I know the officers monitor this in Buckinghamshire for what I think
listening to Councillor Hines point about people coming in it's not just the
income, it's the regulatory thing in this country that there isn't a national regulatory
thing and our data is our data and I believe in their data is their data.
So there is that whole complex issue of monitoring which I think officers have to manage and
it's worth mentioning here that that is a thing that needs to be watched is prevent
around people coming into this area.
It's not in the report but it was triggered me when you mentioned that and it made me
think about that and I needed to say to seek assurance that we are monitoring
that situation. If it turns out that there is a known issue of people coming
into Buckinghamshire and being whatever we need to take that external there's
nothing the local authority can do about what we need to have those external
conversations with upper tier people in Westminster if that proves to be an
issue. I haven't got the evidence but we could we could construct a view that it
be an issue. So I think prevent is something very big that we do under licencing as well.
Thank you.
Cllr Shade Adoh - 0:41:14
Councillor Lestogia's question. If people come here then we have box residents to go
elsewhere. So how does that fit into that question as well?
In relation to the right to roam, so the ability for them to work cross -border.
Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport - 0:41:32
Yeah, so I'm going to pass to Simon because it's one of his expert questions, cross -border working.
Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer - 0:41:37
Yeah, we'll start with the question on the cross -border working.
So, right to roam, it's a perfectly lawful for drivers, vehicles, operators,
and different authorities to work cross -borders.
So, for example, I live in Milton Keynes and one of our drivers lives in Milton Keynes.
He can apply to Buckinghamshire Council, get a Buckinghamshire Council vehicle licence,
a driver licence and providing that he works through a Buckinghamshire Council operator
a licence, he never needs to come into Buckinghamshire Council's area and it works both ways. So
we have people that live in Buckinghamshire that are licenced like we said earlier, for
example in Wolverhampton, they only ever go to Wolverhampton to pick up their licence
and they spend the rest of their time working in our area and other areas. It causes some
confusion because it is complicated and people sort of see the, for example, I don't know
use Wolverhampton a lot because it's the one that's in the media but you see a
Wolverhampton vehicle and you kind of assume that the driver of that vehicle
is from Wolverhampton. They live here but they go there to get their licences.
Does that help explain the...
So to address the concerns because obviously this is a big debate,
the Transport Committee have been spending a lot of time investigating
this, hearing from all the various agencies that are involved in the taxi licencing regime.
There's a few measures in the pipeline, so one of them you might have heard about
is the proposal to move licencing functions to local transport authorities. Other measures
as I mentioned earlier include mandating minimum or national standards, should say minimum
national standards. In terms of a safeguard probably worth noting that we
do have the statutory recommended standards from Department of
Transport. Most if not all licencing authorities have incorporated those
recommendations into their policy and that will include things like safeguard
training and for example our safeguard training includes measures like prevent CSE awareness
those sorts of things. I think I'd probably say most if not all licencing authorities
have mandated safeguard training so all licenced drivers to varying forms will have undertaken
some form of safeguard training and disability awareness training.
Cllr Heather Wallace - 0:44:42
Okay, thank you. Right, okay so are we happy enough to go to the recommendation in the report?
So, okay, so I'll read it as verbatim, which is that the proposed fees and charges set out in Appendix A are agreed prior to statutory advertisement.
Do we have a proposer and a seconder? Proposer?
Sorry, Michelle you were going to make some minor amendment to the wording to
Alaka Tomlinson - Legal - 0:45:08
Appendix A. Sorry councillors there's just if you just turn to your Appendix A
yeah pages 21 to 24 of your report it's very minor.
Yes, I think it's probably on page 24 maybe or 23.
It's the section headed variation and orders, operator licence variation.
Michelle Shelly - Taxi Licensing Officer - 0:45:36
So you'll note in the box there's three options, minor variation, major variation and then
the bottom one which says fleet size change.
we just want to clarify that that fee is made up of the the variation fee which
is the major and the difference between the brackets of operator vehicle size so
for example if you had one vehicle or up to ten and you
change from one to the other you pay the difference in the fee on top of the
major variation fee so we're going to change the wording that will read
variation fee and difference between operator bracket price. Okay, thank you.
Cllr Heather Wallace - 0:46:21
Thank you. Thank you for spotting that. Well done. Thank you. Right, okay, so the recommendation that the proposed fees and charges set out at
Appendix A are agreed prior to statutory, statutory advertisement. Proposer,
Okay. I think that's passed. Right.
Lovely. Thank you very much, Shelly.
Right. Okay.

5 Taxi and Private Hire Licensing Policy Review post consultation

So moving on now to appendix sorry, item number 5, which is a report for the taxi and private
higher licencing policy review post consultation from Simon.
He's got a report today.
Thank you, Chairman.
Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer - 0:47:11
So this report presents a summary of the outcomes from the public consultation on the Council's
current Hackney carriage and private hire licencing policy.
Details officers recommended responses to the various matters consulted upon, including
proposed amendments to the current policy as considered appropriate or necessary.
Members are asked to consider these recommendations and then it is proposed that revised draught
version of the policy incorporating these recommendations with any
modifications raised by councillors and this be brought back for approval at the
next meeting of this committee prior to implementation. At this stage members
will also be presented with a proposed policy implementation timeline for
approval. So by way of background Buckinghamshire Council adopted its first
Hackney carriage private hire licencing policy back in February.
Yeah okay thank you. Yeah okay thank you. Yeah so as I was saying by way of
background, Buckinghamshire Council adopted its first TACNA carriage private hire licencing
policy back in February 2021 and that took effect the following September that year.
And this important document underscores the Council's commitment to public protection,
offers transparency for applicants and licence holders, guides decision -making processes,
facilitates enforcement actions and provides a safeguard against legal challenges.
Furthermore, the policy aligns with the council's key priorities of protecting vulnerable people,
enhancing the environment and advancing the local economy.
The policy is subject to review every five years.
Back at its meeting of the 18th of July 24, this committee received a report following
publication of the Department for Transport's latest Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Licencing
best practise guidance which was published back in November 2023 and
replaced the previous version that was published in 2010. And whilst it's
non -statutory the best practise guidance is intended to assist licencing
authorities by offering guidance from the Department of Transport on areas
that have caused difficulty in the past or that of particular significance. This
includes such matters as promoting accessibility, approaches to enforcement,
licence holder requirements and vehicle suitability. At the meeting in July 24
the members heard feedback from stakeholder engagement sessions that had
been carried out by the licencing service in response to the publication
of this latest best practise guidance and agreed to the recommended key policy
areas for further review and public consultation and as a consequence a
public consultation exercise was carried out between the 16th of September and
the 24th of November, 2024.
That consultation included, uh,
an online public survey with instructional videos,
direct engagement with local counsellors, town and parish councils,
the licence holders, licenced trade representatives, passengers, uh,
and community transport groups and key agencies such as the police fire safety,
the NHS and education, um, departments.
Information was also shared via social media, press releases and meetings with
representative stakeholder groups including private hire drivers, private
hire operators, executive operators, Hackney carriage trade, the council's
equality diversity inclusive network, passenger user groups, wheelchair user
groups, the South Central Ambulance Service patient transfer service and
Council officers themselves. At the time of the original consultation it was
agreed that Appendix 4 of the current policy would be excluded pending
publication of new revised suitability guidance by the Institute of Licencing.
Appendix 4 of the policy details the Council's policy approach to take in
towards determining whether applicants and licence holders with history of
criminal behaviour can be deemed fit and proper to hold a licence and its content
is largely based on the approach set out in the Institute of Licencing suitability guidance.
This same suitability guidance is endorsed by the Department of Transport in its recommended
statutory standards which licencing authorities are expected to follow unless there is compelling
local reason not to. The Institute of Licencing released a revised version of this suitability
guidance back in November 24 and accordingly officers conducted a further consultation
exercise from the 27th of January through to the 9th of March 2025 to gather feedback
on this specific area. The original best practise guidance consultation exercise received 294
individual responses to the online survey. We also received an additional letter with
73 signatures from the uh, the carriage trade, um, in uh, in support of a, sorry, in support
of a letter prepared by um, the trade representative operating predominantly in the south of the
county. Um, the second consultation relating to the Institute of Licencing suitability guidance
um, received 191 responses to an online survey. This report presents the results of both these
consultation exercises including officer assessments and recommended actions in
response to the consultation feedback and with the committee's approval the
officer recommendation subject to any further amendments agreed upon by this
committee will be incorporated into a draught revised version of the policy for
consideration and adoption at the next next meeting in March 26. A summary of
the current policy approaches consultation feedback and officer
recommendations can be found in 2 .12 of the report which is page 34 onwards
appendix 1 attached to the report provides a more detailed and
comprehensive analysis of the consultation responses with detailed
officer recommend commentary and the rationale for the recommendations
Appendices two and three show an analysis of the responses to the first consultation online survey.
Appendix four shows the letter from the Hackney carriage trade with 73 signatures.
Appendix five shows benchmarking information from neighbouring licencing authorities,
comparing the various policy approaches taken.
Wolverhampton Council has been included in this document as it's the largest licencing
authority outside of London. Appendices 6 and 7 provide a summary analysis of the responses
to the secondary consultation exercise, the one relating to the Institute of Licencing
and Suitability guidance. And as stated, the table at paragraph 2 .12 sets out the key
recommendations following the consultations and each recommendation
aims to enhance public safety, improve accessibility, the efficiency of the
licencing process and ensure the highest standards across the sector. Members are
invited to consider these proposals in their deliberations. As stated
appendix 1 contains a more comprehensive background detailed analysis which has
been prepared by officers that explains the reasons behind each of these
recommendations and the relevant paragraphs from appendix one are
referenced within the summary table at 2 .12. There are 19 recommendations in
total for the purpose of this introduction I was just going to focus
on six of these that I think are likely to have the most impact. So with regards
to medicals recommendation one whilst it's recommended that drivers continue
to be assessed medically against the DVLA's Group 2 medical standards. These are the same
standards used to assess other driving professionals such as bus and lorry drivers. It is also
recommended that the means of assessment be revised to offer increased flexibility. The
price and turnaround times for Group 2 medical assessments varies considerably between GP
surgeries. Allowing drivers to use any council approved GMC registered doctor to conduct
assessment rather than their own GP is likely to reduce costs and risk and delays for a number,
a significant number of our drivers. This approach also benefit, potentially benefits local NHS
services as drivers can choose to go to a specialist medical provider freeing up GP time
to deal with other medical matters. It's proposed that burdens could be reduced further by removing
requirement for drivers to provide a full medical history record for each medical assessment
where the assessing doctor has previously had sight of these and instead the assessment
can be used based on a summary care record.
Recommendation 3 relates to the intended use policy. So under the present legislation drivers
of licenced tachny carriages can work as private hire drivers without the need for an operator
licence. Furthermore when working outside the county they are not bound by the
maximum fare structure set by the council for hackney carriages. The
Department for Transport's best practise guidance highlights the risk that this
presents and that drivers living outside the county may obtain a Buckinghamshire
Council hackney carriage licence with the intent of purely working as a
private hire driver in another authorities area. This means that not
only are the local population deprived of local acne carriages, for example at
ranks, but also that these drivers and journeys are not subject to the usual
rules that apply to regular private hire work, such as mandatory record -keeping.
The introduction of an intended use policy helps tackle this issue by
favouring applications for vehicle and driver licences from
Buckinghamshire Council residents who are more likely to work locally,
supporting local enforcement and economic activity. It's recommended that
officers prepare an intended use policy for members to consider as part of the revised new policy
relating to Hackney carriage owners and their drivers.
The purpose of this policy will be to place a burden on Hackney carriage applicants to demonstrate their bona fide intention
to work within Buckinghamshire Council's area with a person's home address being used as a means of validating this intention.
Recommendation 4 relates to certificates of good conduct.
Under the current policy applicants and licence holders are required to produce
a certificate of good conduct or police certificate if they've been absent from
the UK for any period of three months or more since turning the age of 18. This
policy was introduced in 2021 and has been proved problematic for a
considerable number of reasons as detailed in the licencing committee
report from the 18th of July 2024. The proposed amendment means applicants and licence holders
will be required to provide a criminal record certificate from any country where they have lived
obviously outside of the UK for 12 months or more whether continuously or in total within the past
10 years and for periods when they've been over the age of 18. This proposed change is in line
with Home Office requirements when vetting visa applicants and Home Office guidance when
employing workers from overseas. The proposed change will simplify the vetting process and
significantly reduce delays in costs for many applicants and licence holders who have spent
time abroad, often many years or decades ago. Whilst it's clearly important to safeguard
the public and ensure those holding licences have been thoroughly vetted, as is reasonably
and awfully practical the new suggested approach allows officers to continue to
do this but in a more focused and efficient way.
Recommendation 6 relates to vehicle age limits and under the current policy like the majority of
local licencing authorities, Buckinghamshire Council has adopted a
maximum age polity in respect of licenced vehicles with the effect that
applications will not be accepted generally for vehicles over the 10
over 10 years of age with the exception of ultra low emission vehicles,
zero emission vehicles and wheelchair accessible vehicles
which are accepted up to the age of 15 years.
The policy does also allow for unique limousine style vehicles to potentially be licenced
up to the age of 15 as well.
Just to mention at the time that the current policy was adopted it also
included a minimum age policy of five years for first -time licenced vehicles
however it was subsequently agreed not to implement this aspect of the policy
to support the trade recovering from the COVID -19 outbreak and it's never been
considered necessary to implement a minimum age policy allowing all vehicles
under the maximum age limit to be considered for licencing.
The survey responses to this aspect of the consultation were varied and we received lots
of different opinions. The officer analysis in appendix one proposes that decisions about
vehicle age limits should be a balance of safety, economics, environmental outcomes
and accessibility. Safety data shows that although older vehicles generally have lower
MOT pass rates, recent improvements particularly linked to the adoption of the Euro 6 compliant
vehicles indicate that well maintained vehicles continue to meet required standards beyond
the 10 year cut off point. From an economic perspective a strict 10 year limit places
substantial financial pressures on licence holders, although evidence does also indicate
that on average vehicles are naturally replaced before reaching 10 years. It could be considered
that extending the limit to 12 years eases costs without undermining fleet quality.
From an environmental perspective, maintaining a maximum age limit remains important to ensure
that fleet transitions in line with evolving emissions standards, including the potential
forthcoming of Euro 7 requirements, but whilst allowing compliant Euro 6 vehicles to operate
for an additional two years, offers flexibility without compromising air quality ambitions.
And in terms of accessibility, retaining exemptions for wheelchair accessible vehicles helps encourage
the uptake of these specialist vehicles, reducing the risk that disabled passengers will be
impacted by a reduction in the availability of these vehicles.
Collectively these considerations support a balanced and proportionate approach, leading
to the recommendation that the maximum age limit for standard licenced vehicles could
be extended from 10 to 12 years providing they continue to meet Euro 6
standard as a minimum and pass all of our usual required inspection
requirements. In terms of wheelchair accessible vehicles which is
recommendation 14, the key point of contention is likely to be the proposal
to end grandfather rights for Hackney carriage owners without, we currently
don't have wheelchair accessible vehicles. The proposed change would require all
all HACNA carriages to become wheelchair accessible on
licence renewal. This rationale is grounded in the need to improve
accessibility to the estimated six and a half to seven and a half thousand
wheelchair uses in Buckinghamshire. Particularly in areas where there is
currently a lack of provision. In terms of statistics around a third so about
thirty two percent of our Hackney carriages are currently wheelchair
accessible so that's just over a hundred out of three hundred and twenty nine and
only eight percent of our private hire vehicles so that's 177 out of just over
2 ,000. And the other point worth noting is that most of our Hackney carriage
wheelchair accessible vehicles are clustered in specific locations and many of our private
hire wheelchair accessible vehicles are not made available for general hire and tend to be used for
home to school client transport type work. We've carried out extensive stakeholder engagement on
this issue including with the trade passenger groups and disability representatives and this
has been taking place over the last couple of years and whilst all the stakeholders
recognised the problem no consensus or alternative solution has been found. The proposed approach
aligns with the Equalities Act 2010 and Department for Transport's guidance and benchmarking
shows that most neighbouring councils already require all new Hackney carriages to be wheelchair
accessible. To support affected proprietors of Hackney carriages that potentially would
be impacted by this proposal. The proposed extension to vehicle age limits
for saloon vehicles from 10 to 12 years offers a extended transition period. Our
data shows that the average age of Hackney carriages is currently just over
eight years which means with a 12 year age limit on the saloon vehicle most
owners would have three or four years to plan for the replacement. Additionally
it's also proposed that we look at developing a new more prescriptive
wheelchair accessible vehicle specification to further improve
accessibility and safety and it's suggested that once this policy is
adopted the specification is adopted the vehicles meeting this higher enhanced
specification not be subject to an upper age limit. Just finally looking at
19 which concerns the criminal records and unacceptable behaviour policy. So
Appendix 4 of our current policy sets out the council's approach taken when
considering applicants or licence holders who present evidence of criminal
behaviour which may include non -conviction information. The appendix
Appendix 4 sets out categories of fences or behaviour and provides a clear
indication of the time frames that are expected to have elapsed before a person
who has been found to have committed criminal type behaviour can be considered suitable for
licencing. The more serious the criminal behaviour the higher the perceived risk to public safety
the longer the period before a person can be considered suitable for licencing. For
the most serious offences there is no period of rehabilitation that can be considered acceptable
and accordingly no licence will ever be granted. The guidelines within Appendix 4 are drawn
directly from the suitability guidance first published by the Institute of
Licencing in 2018 and as I mentioned earlier this is approach
also advocated by the Department for Transport and its statutory standards.
Since the council's policy was published a revised version of the suitability
guidance was issued back in November 2024 and responses to the consultation
of the second consultation that we did were overwhelmingly supportive
of the proposed approach in the latest version of the guidance. The latest
version is broadly similar to the original version with expanded focus on
various categories of offences and non -criminal behaviour. Categories of
offences have been expanded to include new categories such as discrimination
and alcohol misuse or dependency. The latest guidance maintains the same
timescales as the original version but offers more detailed explanations and
justifications. Just to focus on the probably the one noticeable
difference in the change of approach in the latest version relates to the
treatment of motoring offences and the new suitability guidance suggests a more
moderate approach the accumulation of DVLA penalty points for minor motoring
offences. So under the original guidance drivers who accumulate seven or more
DVLA penalty points for minor motoring offences cannot be expected to be
licenced for five years until the completion of any sentence and
that's the approach taken in our current policy. In the latest version it is
recommended that drivers who accumulate seven or more penalty points on the DVLA
licence should be required to undertake a further driving assessment to the
council's satisfaction and failure to comply with this requirement within two
months should result in a period of 12 months without a licence, subject to no
further offences and the successful completion of the additional or further
driving assessment. The latest guidance also includes a section on non -criminal
behaviours that could be a potential cause of concern. This includes behaviours
such as inappropriate physical contact, asking personal questions and other
predatory type behaviour. Given the overwhelming support for the approach
and the endorsement of the Department of Transport and the recommended statutory standards.
It is proposed that a new version of Appendix 4 be drafted
incorporating this, the latest IOL suitability standards for approval by the Committee.
As I mentioned, I focused on key, six of the key areas of recommendations which arguably represent
the the largest impact. However, just to remind you there are 19 recommendation areas in total.
Overall, the recommendations strike a balance between supporting the trade and fulfilling
the Council's legal and ethical obligations. They offer cost -saving measures, promote inclusivity
and enhance public confidence in the licencing system. The phased implementation and transitional
support demonstrate a commitment to fairness and sustainability while ensuring that the
Transport Service remains accessible, safe and reliable for all of our residents. It
It is proposed to incorporate these recommendations subject to member comment, feedback into a
new revised version of Buckinghamshire Council's Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Policy for
approval at the next meeting of this Committee.
It is also proposed, as I mentioned, to present members with an implementation timeline for
approval to allow those impacted by the changes adequate time to prepare.
So the recommendation is to note the proposed amendments that the Buckinghamshire Council
Hackney carriage private hire licencing policy is set out in appendix one which will be incorporated
into revised policy for consideration by the licencing committee. Thank you councillors.
Cllr Heather Wallace - 1:10:47
I'm happy to take questions. Lovely, thank you Simon. So we have one question from Councillor Ade.
Thank you very much, very detailed.
Cllr Shade Adoh - 1:10:55
I have, I had some questions but I just want to clarify if this proposed amendments are
covered or taken into consideration. And it's one of the recommendations too. My question
initially was going to be about the driving licence because it didn't state without,
my question was would it be without points, it doesn't matter, but then with this proposed
amendments you mentioned about seven points if somebody has seven points so is that covered
so if we go to
to two
i can get to two
page 35
19
Okay, now six. So because it states there… Which page are you on, sorry?
Recommendation two. Recommendation two, yeah, on page 35.
I don't think I can get into pages on this iPad.
That's all right. So it's about driving experience, isn't
Yes, so it is recommended that the policy require drivers to have a full GB driving
licence for at least 12 months prior to applying. What does full driving licence mean? Does
that mean you have points? If you have points it doesn't matter. But I think in your proposed
amendment you said something about seven points. So I don't get that covered now.
So yeah and this will be part of the that last recommendation about part of
Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer - 1:12:55
that policy when we come back will contain more detail but just sort of by
way background from a legal point of view to apply for a private hire
driver's licence you need to have been authorised to drive for at least a year
under our current policy we require drivers to have had three -year driving
experience. What we're recommending is that that could be reduced in line with
the statutory requirement but only for drivers that are over the age of 21. The
second part of that relating to the GB licence, the reason that's in there is
because it's very difficult, so we do all our drivers that apply on first
application and renewal, we do a DLA licence cheque to see whether they've got
points and if you don't have a GB driving licence very difficult for us to
know whether you've got any histories at the moment driving come fly with us
providing they've been driving for three years we don't and that could be a
foreign driver licence so there's this rules are quite complex but if you've
got like an EU driving licence for example you can come to this country and
drive until the age of 70 on that driving licence the problem is if you
then get infractions, motoring offences, whatever else. It's quite difficult for us because
it doesn't come up on the DVLA cheque code when we ask the providers. In theory we can
get that information but we have to write to the DVLA. For drivers outside of the EU
and economic area it becomes even more complex. So the proposal is that kind of almost like
compromise position that we insist that drivers have a GB style licence for at
least 12 months so at least that way we've then got some history of driving
does that help? Yeah that's helpful I was just yeah because you need to know what
Cllr Shade Adoh - 1:14:54
people have done what they've not done they're going to be having people in
their cars so that's my concern my other question if you allow me chair please
It's a recommendation for criminal record.
You've got 12 months on the criminal record and I'm thinking why not less?
Safety, safeguarding, why does it have to be 12 months?
Because you can have a really bad criminal record for six months
and what's the safeguarding around that?
Yeah, again, very good question.
Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer - 1:15:28
And this again is an area that's proved quite complex.
So when we adopted the policy back in 21,
took a very firm line on it.
And that line is that essentially anybody
that's been out of this country for three months
since the age of 18 needs to get a certificate of good conduct
or police certificate for every country
where they've been in for three months, which in theory
sounds great.
in practise it's proved very difficult. Bear in mind like the average age of our
drivers around 46 a lot of our drivers might have not been out this country for
you know 20 years or so but we're asking them to go back to this country that
they went 20 -30 years ago for three months on an extended holiday for
example to provide a certificate and it can take months for them to get the
certificates from the embassy so what we're proposing is a more moderate
approach which is the same approach that the Home Office use when vetting for
example visa applicants or their guidance for employees when they're
employing people that come from overseas that it's any if you've been out the
country for more than 12 months or in a country for 12 months in the last 10
years. Bear in mind we have all of our other vetting procedure still so we
still require the enhanced DBS cheque and all of those things the safeguard
training etc etc and the other I mean the other background cheques we do we do
other home authority cheques with drivers have been licenced by other councils for
example or if they've applied to other councils we will do home authority
cheques those sorts of things as well
Thank you. Yes, Councillor Gibbon.
Cllr Heather Wallace - 1:17:21
Cllr Kathy Gibbon - 1:17:29
I'm a little bit concerned about this recommendation too, where it says that they have to have
held a full British licence for 12 months. But is there sort of any way of knowing how
much they've actually driven because they obviously need the driving experience before
they're safe on the road. I mean once you've passed your test you're not competent, you need to drive
for quite a while so do they have any sort of other tests to make sure they are
actually experienced drivers rather than just had a licence and not given for six
seven months at that time they've held it? Good question.
Yeah so in response to that all our drivers have to do mandatory driving
Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer - 1:18:05
assessment through council approved driving assessor so it's a bit like an
advanced driving test so just if we don't just take it on face value that
somebody's got a driver licence we also assess each driver so they have to go
through proper formal driving assessment.
Cllr Heather Wallace - 1:18:29
Yeah thank you for the work on the report. A couple of things I wanted to
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 1:18:34
question. If I listen to you correctly in the report that we've extended the
necessity to upgrade a taxi disability access 12 years and the figures you gave
out were quite very short with people with disability access. Us is because
anybody pushed a wheelchair which I have and my late wife was in a wheelchair and
and it's quite difficult per se. Though I understand the logic of what you're
and I'm concerned that it's a further delay in getting that equality.
I know the economic argument and I accept that but this is if you're a person who can't get to work
or you can't get access to your services maybe the economic argument for the person
when they're business is outweighed by the equalities argument that the people who are disabled
who are quite a growing number in our community are being affected by that
because they can't drive so they're quite reliant on public taxes so we're
really it's we got the balance right there against the disability and the
economics of the Hackney carriage drivers because you are you know I
question where we have got the balance right because if you can't go out you're
housebound and if you can't get access, it doesn't matter what we've done today.
Nothing we do today will make change overnight.
But I think that 10 years probably seems about right and 12 years just puts it into the long grass a bit.
That's my personal view. From my life experience, I'm happy to be told I'm wrong, but I don't think I am.
I don't think there is a, you know, ideally we would like to see that transition earlier.
It's been put forward as a, you know, proposal, but certainly welcome feedback from members.
this is an area that we we know either way you know which you know whether you're
a disabled wheelchair user or a member of the Hackney carriage trade, they're kind of
polar views on the subject but it's it's a difficult one. I mean I'm
certainly you know open to suggestions from members.
And if I'm on my own on this I'm happy to be on my own on it. I've been quite often that's the way.
but I'd like to propose that we bring it back to ten years because it tends to be
quick as that time frame up anyone who works in you sit in other places on this
council you see how these burdens are on the society and also we've got children
get to school and other things and it just brings it that bit closer to the
event arising when change happens I'd like to if well we can propose that for I
ask the second question if that's not how we can do things you tell me that's
not how we can do things but I think it's something we need to really consider.
What difference does it make? What's the data? What's the evidence behind it?
Cllr Shade Adoh - 1:21:58
Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer - 1:22:01
Simon I think there's something for me in that question just around that they are two separate things so
although they are intertwined the age limits and the wheelchair accessible
Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport - 1:22:06
vehicles you're looking at two separate things and so they might perhaps
need to be dealt with as two slightly separate things. Do you agree with that?
Yeah, yeah it's yeah it's it's a difficult one we because we looked at
Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer - 1:22:22
the age limits as a separate issue and then the wheelchair accessible vehicles
question came up and it kind of one flowed into the other. I think in terms
of the transition, the eight years was mentioned, that's an average, and obviously there will
be vehicles that are older and vehicles that are younger, but we will start to see that
transition.
Question whether ten years is preferable, I think we would, you know, I think we would
all like to see that, but also we have to bear in mind the economics of replacing the
vehicles there is an increased cost associated with wheelchair accessible
vehicles and this was felt was a sort of reasonable kind of
compromise position if you like but. I completely understand your point and I don't agree with it but I completely understand your point.
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 1:23:20
We are supposed to be the we home of the Paralympics and all these things and
and I think this is the stage to make a statement that we are pro looking after disability people.
Yes there will be a discussion about the economics of it, but if you provide a taxi you provide a service.
And if you put in the economics of not getting ready to do something over the economics of people being cut out of society,
not been able to work, not been able to fit the economics of that to the
individual person far outweighs because there'd be more people who use it and
they might actually find their business increases if they offer this thing so I
don't know what the grounds are for them and I'm not, please don't think this is a
criticism it's a personal view. And I think that's why we bring it to you we
Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport - 1:24:18
want your input so we're interested in what the committee have got to say about
Is there a danger that, I'll get it straight, you're making it, sorry, making it only, producing
Cllr Matthew Hind - 1:24:30
it to ten years so that a car that was more than ten years old that was able to take a
wheelchair would not be able to because we'd put this limit to ten years. Is that what
I'm hearing it right or am I getting at the wrong end of the stick here?
Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer - 1:24:48
So what the proposal is, under the current policy arrangements, regular saloon vehicles
licenced up to 10 years, wheelchair accessible vehicles and the ultra low emission zero emission
vehicles are 15 years. And when the policy was brought into play, the original policy
back in 2021, a decision was made that all Hackney carriages would be, new Hackney
carriages would be wheelchair accessible and the, what we refer to as Grandfather
rights for the various district legacy councils stayed as were. So we had a
bit of an anomaly that, so for example in Aylesbury all of the Hackney carriages
wheelchair accessible. In Wickham it was a mixed fleet so the first 50 vehicles
licenced by Wickham historically were saloon vehicles and then any new
vehicles above above that that 50 vehicles were required to be wheelchair
accessible and then in the the Chiltern South Bucks area there was no
wheelchair accessible requirement on taxis so they were all saloon vehicles.
That was a position back in 2021.
Obviously fast forward now we're in 2026.
What we're seeing through the work that we've done with the working group is that we've
not seen any kind of transition.
So we've still got obviously Aylesbury predominantly wheelchair accessible vehicle taxis.
In our Chiltern South Bucks area there's negligible, there's no wheelchair accessible vehicles
working on the taxi ranks.
and then Wycombe we've got this mixed position.
So the proposal is that we remove the historic grandfather rights
so that going forwards on renewal of their licence,
all of the Hackney carriages that are currently non -wheelchair accessible
have to replace that vehicle with a wheelchair accessible vehicle.
As a secondary kind of consequence of the policy recommendation
around increasing vehicle age limits generally,
going from 10 to 12 years in effect it will mean that those taxi operators with
the saloon style vehicle will effectively get another two years before
they have to replace it as a wheelchair accessible vehicle.
Cllr Heather Wallace - 1:27:16
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 1:27:21
Before I move to the second question, so if I propose to bring the thing down to how do we can we do that or are we
have to make a recommendation to look at it that when it comes back you could give us options after looking at it
which I think is a fair way. You said we'd have to bring it back to the next meeting to agree the policy
I think the fair way would be to recommend that you go away and look at it and come back with options
so that we're not making a decision on the hoof. We've got the guidance from you should be able to make that
as a considered if we were considered to change it to make it more disability I
think that's a fair way of doing it rather than just change it tonight or
try to change it tonight without proper considered input if that was agreed if
it wasn't agreed it's not going to be agreed where we can do that.
Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer - 1:28:15
Just on that point obviously the details there it's it's the appendix one as sort
detailed explanation. I think the thing is the purpose of coming tonight was to
get a steer so that we know how to formulate the policy and obviously when
we come back members will get the opportunity to approve the policy or
indeed you know reject the policy or change it but I'm not quite sure what
additional information that we can provide when we come back that we
haven't provided this evening. It'd be helpful if we could get a steer.
If I could just, and it really isn't something about the policy, it's just a personal view
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 1:28:56
about increasing disability. If I was to give a steer, can we just go and look at it and
see as a suggestion of words, a solid suggestion then, that we go and benchmark it against
the Against Equalities Act to make sure that what we're doing is in keeping with the movement
of the Equalities Act around disabilities so that at least we know that it is, I'm trying
to think of a word to say around it, I'm not trying to find a means to look at it which
isn't emotive but can actually be critically examined against where we are.
Can I just come in? Sorry go on then. So I was just going to say Robin that the thought
Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport - 1:29:43
process you're having is what officers have been working around with the disability working
groups that we work with and also with the licenced trade over the last, well, nearly
two years. And they're good and valid balances to try and find, aren't they? You know, what
I think, and I don't want to put words in Simon's mouth because he and Joe have done
a lot of work in this space, but we've tried really hard to balance the two. So to look
I think that we need to look at the
equalities, our obligations as an authority under the equalities
act to try and balance the needs.
And I know that Joe and Simon have spent a lot of time
listening to actual people who are struggling perhaps to access
taxis in particular areas of the county.
And listening to them and trying to work through how we could move
vehicles for the trade. So I think Simon said the average age of the vehicles is eight years
on the hat and carriages. So some vehicle owners would have up to four years to replace
their vehicle with a wheelchair accessible vehicle if it's a saloon at the moment. But
there will be some whose vehicles are older who will have less time and some whose vehicles
are younger who would have long time. So you're looking at quite a staggered implementation
over that period of time. But as Simon said, I think we have done a lot of work on it and
there's a lot of information in the report and the appendices. So I think it's really
that steer and discussion that we want from you. Yeah.
I don't know, Alika, if you want to. I'm just going to bring in Alika, who wants
to, from the legal side. Yeah, I was just going to say that it was
Cllr Heather Wallace - 1:31:24
Alaka Tomlinson - Legal - 1:31:28
that point that the work had been done to reach the, the work has been done in the background
to look to try and achieve the balance as you rightly point out to improve accessibility
for disabled people and it is set out at 5 .5 in the report that the Council has taken account
of the public sector quality duty and also, you know, of course we all recognise that
you are disabled how important it is to have access to transport and it's with that in
mind that there is the proposal to replace the hackneyed carriages with wheelchair accessible
vehicles but there has to be a balanced stroke as well with the fact that these licenced
drivers are going to have to the operators are going to have to replace the vehicles.
So I think the point being made is that that work has taken place and the recommendations within the report that are being brought to you are the outcome of seeking to strike that balance and seeking to ensure that disabled people within the community do have access to transport.
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 1:32:44
Thank you I'm obviously losing the argument here in this little way but I
I felt that I didn't see in 2024 I wasn't here in 2024 I'm here in 2025 on
this committee so I didn't see it to comment on it I would have said the
comments I said now then. My second question which I'm sure can be answered
much easily is council agreed in its policy round white ribbon within taxi
driving and when 2024 this was discussed it's not made its way into the report it
was agreed to council that we'd look at that if there were reason it's not
worded in the report which is some context that we can note it was about
the safety of women and girls in cars and it was something that went through
Council really agreed unanimously in the previous council and having taken
the motion to council I probably feel I have some ownership of the argument so
it was agreed unanimously and amended and everyone on the same page just how do we
see that in this to be in context of what we agreed I think it might have been
2023 or the back end of 2023 if I'm wrong in dates I've been to a lot of
meetings. I might have got the dates wrong but I've got the facts right that we did agree the
policy can I just have some explanation why it isn't mentioned or is it is it
in kind mentioned in other things. We had the discussion about taxi drivers.
Ok should we let Simon respond or Lindsay do you want to respond?
Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer - 1:34:24
Yeah councillor yeah so if you look at the recommendation five and you're right that that was the basis of the
White Ribbon, all of that work and the motion that was agreed by council formed the basis
of this when we went out to consultation and there was a lot of support for the proposal
in terms of, because one of the motions was around asking applicants for licences to effectively
sign a declaration that the unacceptability of violence against women and girls.
and when we analysed the consultation feedback and the workshops there was a lot of discussion around this
and whilst there was universal support there was also a lot of feelings expressed that that should apply across the board
and that for example men can be victims of domestic violence as well
So the recommendation was amended to include an acknowledgement or a declaration that any
form of violence and abuse, emotional abuse or physical against anybody is unacceptable.
That's been put forward as the recommendation.
We still, that doesn't override our commitment to the White Ribbon campaign, we're still
working on that. We still publicise it, so all of our licencing landing pages, on
our taxi licencing pages, we publicise the White Ribbon campaign and encourage
operators, drivers to sign up, become ambassadors. But it's, yeah, so it's
still very much a live commitment. What isn't in there, I think, is
what you're driving at is that specific wording in terms of the the declaration
that doesn't specifically reference violence against women and girls.
Is that because it's been broadened out following feedback through consultation?
Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport - 1:36:31
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 1:36:35
Absolutely yeah. Take the respect of the consultation, take the respect that broaden it out.
The council took a decision on that and it was also to include bars and whatever
which was added from the other group which enriched the motion and made it more fuller.
That was a council's decision, consultation with the expertise.
I can remember this discussion dear old Barbara Castle had years ago when I read them about
it was when it was about equal pay for women and how it would be unseemly to go down this road
because it would impair men by not having better pay than women and I remember those discussions.
Can you bring it to your point please?
Yeah, it is my point. I mean that we can very easily talk things down if most people are male.
And I think this is something that was about females and I accept your point Simon that men are vulnerable.
but the white ribbon campaign was about women not about men and diluting it
from women seems to be quite strange to me and I'd like to I'd love to have been
in the room to discuss it with them I'm sure I would have made some argument
against what they were actually portraying.
Cllr Heather Wallace - 1:37:56
Do you have any comments Simon? No again you know it's similar to the last point
Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer - 1:38:00
totally you know except except the point we just reiterate you know we do promote
the white ribbon campaign we've got a you know active programme that we are
following to do that with the tax trade rather other means for this specific
point in terms of the declaration on the we've made the amendment in line with
the majority of respondents and the strong views that were expressed during
the workshop meetings and it was reiterate that the feeling within those
groups was very much recognised the issue in respective of women and girls
but just felt that it should be broadened in scope to include all persons.
Okay thank you.
Thank you Simon. I'd love to have been there to discuss it Geoff. I think I might have made a different idea.
Cllr Heather Wallace - 1:38:48
Okay Councillor Ashman.
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 1:38:53
Cllr Kirsten Ashman - 1:38:55
Thank you. I think just following up on that point, do we have and do we publish any statistics
on I guess specific incidents around taxi related behaviour and women and girls? So
is there anything specific on that that we share or have access to?
At our last meeting there was the enforcement, wasn't there, results?
Cllr Heather Wallace - 1:39:13
Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer - 1:39:22
Not on that specific criteria, but it's, I think it's a good suggestion and we can certainly
include that in our, if you remember when we did our enforcement reports we've got all
the different categories of complaint that allow us to sort of profile complainants and
complaint types. I think we don't do it currently, but I think it's a really good suggestion
and so I think we can easily take that forward. Thank you, that would be helpful. I agree with
Councillor Stutchbury's point that by broadening the comments it is helpful because we do want
Cllr Kirsten Ashman - 1:39:53
to capture all of those people but it does take it away from the specific issue around
women and girls and the strength of feeling that seems to come through from the comments
that's implies that they don't recognise there's a particular
issue. And if the data says otherwise, I think it would be
worth reinforcing that in the future to make sure that we are
very clear that this is a specific issue that needs
calling out and not part of the broader issue.
≫ Thank you.
Cllr Heather Wallace - 1:40:24
Great.
Great.
Yeah.
Councillor Chilton.
Very quickly, recommendation 13.
Cllr Chris Chilton - 1:40:42
I was delighted to see it in contactless payment mandatory.
I would hate to think that a 20 -year -old debit coming out of a nightclub
was declined getting into a taxi because they only had a card
and didn't have cash.
We're now in the 21st century.
So I can see that there's trade concerns about fees.
I hope that we ignore those trade concerns about fees and absolutely make it mandatory to accept contactless payment.
Cllr Heather Wallace - 1:41:18
I think London taxis are all contactless aren't they?
So, Councillor Stutchbury.
One last question and it is back on the same point, I apologise.
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 1:41:27
What was the percentage of taxi drivers in that meeting which were men and the percentage of which people were women?
because I should imagine if there'd been more women in there you might have got a
slightly different view. Men have always been guilty of not seeing the necessities
of the rights of women. Do we have that? You know if they were all men I think we can
probably disregard it. Do we have that data? Yeah we can have a data. Is that even asked when it's...
Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer - 1:41:55
We might need to take that away Robin just analyse the
Cllr Heather Wallace - 1:41:57
consultation responses but because it was an online survey we do ask that
Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport - 1:42:02
information as part of through the Your Voice Brookes process about you know
gender etc so we should be able to match those two things up and we can advise you of that.
They do have the choice of putting other on top.
Councillor Doer.
Cllr Heather Wallace - 1:42:17
Cllr Shade Adoh - 1:42:22
I just want to support what Councillor Ashman and such have said.
So I've got question on gender, on keeping it real as it's been determined so we'll wait for
that feedback on that one.
And my other question is regarding recommendation 16.
Why is it optional?
Is that because we've mitigated, we've found out in the past
that it's not necessary to have CCTV in the vehicles?
Or why is it optional?
There must be a reason.
Excuse me.
Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer - 1:43:02
So yeah I think every time we've done a consultation we've included this question and I think the
statutory standards recommend that we do that, ask the question around CCTV. I think we will
recognise the benefits of it, it can protect not only passengers but also drivers, but there are
also people that a lot of passengers that don't want it. Whenever we've done a
consultation the responses is generally 50 -50 from a consultation point of view
it doesn't seem to indicate there's any sort of strong mandate either way. So
what we've always maintained our stance that whilst we would encourage it
we leave it to individual vehicle proprietors to make that decision we
just offer guidance, direct them to the Information Commissioner's office around
the requirements, so for example in terms of signage, those sorts of things. It's
again it's one of those things that you know comes with this cost implications
as well that need to be factored in. A decent system is going to cost you a few
hundred pounds. I have to say personally if I was a driver I would
have it myself, you know, and I always maintain that with the trade reps when we've
discussed it, you know my personal view. But yeah as I say this in terms of when
we do the consultation there's no sort of strong mandate either way on it.
Might be whether it's something that comes out through the national
standards that are potentially winding their way through the legislation,
whether it's something that the government look at as a legal requirement.
that we're thinking about is something that is something that
There are also quite obviously strict
Lindsay Vallis - Service Director, Integrated Transport - 1:44:54
requirements in terms of data security and data control around
CCTV images. So that's also something to bear in mind. So
the role of the operator in the management and holding of those
CCTV images is something that they need to be really mindful
of if they're thinking about implementation.
considerations so if a member of the public perhaps doesn't want to be on CCTV, the declarations
that are around it, the management of that data once it's held. So it is quite a complex
area. And as Simon said, in terms of mandating that, we've never really had a clear steer,
it's always a sort of middle of the road kind of approach on it, which I think to be fair
would probably be replicated in other licencing authority areas. I don't know Simon whether
you would have a view on that? Yeah I think there's just again anecdotally but
Simon Gallacher - Principal Licensing Officer - 1:45:51
no there's not that many authorities out there that have mandated CCTV. There's a
Cllr Shade Adoh - 1:46:03
few but not that many. I think I'm just concerned like from what you said if I'm you know a
driver I want my safety and the safety of the person I'm carrying but also I
I think, I don't know, I mean I'm not always good on mandatory or mandating things,
but safety reasons and safeguarding and that option of, I get into your taxi, Simon how
will you find, thank you Simon says, oh Shadi, you know, I've got cameras, my CCTV, do you
want it on?
Oh no, I don't want it on.
Oh yes, I want it on.
That option to be there, particularly if I've had a bit by 2am, I'm going home, who knows
what's gonna happen so I'm just like yeah I don't want it to be mandatory but
that option to be there because you know people do have right to privacy yeah so
they might not want their journey documented and then they're really
Cllr Heather Wallace - 1:46:54
stored by the operator for X amount of time so the option is then it's the
owners then on the driver to be remember to say shall I have it on shall I have
it on well yeah actually it's fair so if you have that option I don't know it's a tricky one and that's probably why we've
Cllr Shade Adoh - 1:47:06
Cllr Heather Wallace - 1:47:09
Cllr Shade Adoh - 1:47:11
always got 50 -50. And that's why I think bringing it into this space allows us to
have that conversation and is it something to be considered, is it
something to go back and look into. It doesn't have to be now, but you know gather
evidence, data, over a period of time. So maybe two years time we can think
actually we've been having 50 -50 now we're asking more users of the
service. Maybe change the question to get... Yeah something, I don't know. Anyone get
Cllr Heather Wallace - 1:47:37
Any more questions or should we just go to oh, did you want to come back?
Sorry, Simon.
OK.
Sorry, I got the impression you did it, but Lindsay wasn't sure.
OK.
So it's just a recommendation.
We're not voting on this.
So just please note the recommendations.
OK.
Right.
So that's the end.
So basically, that's the end of the meeting today.
The next meeting is on Tuesday, the 17th of March here,

6 Date of next meeting

or that room at 6 .30.
Okay, so I declare the meeting closed. Thank you.
I've got one question about the April meeting.
April?
Cllr Chris Chilton - 1:48:15
The April meeting, there's a difference between the Outlook invite which is being sent to us, which is for the 21st,
and the date on the official website, which is the 14th.
Democratic Services will look into that.
Yeah, can we please sort it out whether it's the 14th or the 21st?
It's not very different day of the week.
Cllr Heather Wallace - 1:48:32
Okay, so can we close off the recording now, please?
Thank you.