Taxi Driver Online

Huge backlog forces London cabbies off road as they wait for criminal records checks




London mayor Boris Johnson today called on Scotland Yard to urgently tackle the red tape chaos which has forced hundreds of taxi and minicab drivers off the road.

The drivers are caught up in a backlog of criminal records checks while they wait for their licences to be issued or renewed.

The Met said each driver's application was taking 54 days on average to process.

One driver, who asked to remain anonymous, told ITV news he was forced to stop working in August and still had no idea when his licence would be renewed.

"All I'm trying to do is get my licence. I've been re-licensed in the past with no problems at all. But just recently it's all gone to pot," he said.

"It's shocking. It was only when I tweeted that Tony had this problem that hundreds of London cabbies said 'we're in exactly the same boat'.

"Self-employed, no sick pay, no holiday pay and they're waiting now because of the ineptitude of this system, they're waiting for their jobs. They can't work, can't get money."

Boris Johnson described the delays as 'unfair'.

"I've asked the police to draft in a large number of people and get on and clear the backlog," the Mayor said.

The scale of the problem was exposed by ITV This Morning presenter Phillip Schofield when he told Twitter followers about his regular driver Tony, whose licence renewal was caught in the backlog.

"It's not fair either on private hire vehicles or on the black cabs who frankly ought to be able to ply their trade without having to wait endlessly for these checks."

A spokesman for Scotland Yard, which carries out the checks on behalf of government agency, the Disclosure and Barring Service, said: "We are actively working to recurit more staff to deal with the increasing demand by the DBS. However Disclosure and Barring Service checks are not simple administrative work.


"Staff are making decisions about the disclosure of information on MPS databases that directly impacts children and vulnerable adults and those who seek to work with them.

"For this reason, staff require three months specialist training and supervision by current, experienced staff to be fully productive weven at the basic level."

source: http://www.itv.com/news/london/2015-09- ... ds-checks/

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Mine took a fortnight.

Interested to find out why London don't issue a temp license whilst the checks progress.

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IDFIMH

A lot of Councils will not issue licenses until the DBS check has come back because of the recent sexploitation cases.

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Grandad,

We did, then Hendy the prostitute lover changed the goal posts.

Mines due next month, if they think I'm stopping because they can't get their act together ..... then I look forward to the court case.

they're hopeless, they wouldn't catch you anyway - I mean - I aint caught you for a return bottle of becks since the last century ffs

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Does he still owe you that drink?

And they say elephants never forget.

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Grandad,

or northerners - with Scottish blood

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Do they still make Becks????

OURS won't issue a badge untill DBS in BUT it is usually the police that cause the hold up as all the DBS do is write to the relevant police force to check if there is anything recent. If the police delay dealing with those requests you're stuck untilthey do

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

Why?

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IDFIMH

Pass.

We wonder about many of Hendy's decisions that he took over the years.

Might have something to do with the current Government cutting the Police budget back to 1979 levels?

I think that is almost certainly the case fewer support staff means that they can't deal with DBS checks quickly

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector