Taxi Driver Online

Taxi drivers face two DBS checks a year under Teesside council's plans

https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/tees ... s-22313673

Redcar and Cleveland Council has moved to strengthen licensing standards

Redcar and Cleveland Council has moved to strengthen licensing standards adhered to by taxi drivers in the borough.

Members of the council’s regulatory committee have approved a new draft policy resulting from new statutory guidelines published by the Government last year, which were intended to be implemented by the end of next month.

They aimed to weed out rogue drivers such as ‘black cab rapist’ John Worboys, who sexually assaulted multiple young women after collecting fares in London, and child sex gangs who use taxi vehicles to groom and attack their victims.

A report said the council had already put in place many of the Government recommendations, which reform the way the taxi and private sector is regulated, but licensing chiefs had taken the opportunity to review other standards.

The changes will mean licensed drivers will have to submit to criminal record checks carried out by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) every six months, rather than the previous three years.

Licensed drivers must within seven days disclose to the council in writing the details of any conviction or caution imposed on them by a court.

Annual criminal record checks will also apply to vehicle proprietors, while there will be obligations on private hire operators to conduct basic criminal record checks on staff responsible for taking bookings and dispatching vehicles.

The council has also reviewed the standards in relation to the age of taxis able to legally operate as either hackney carriage or private hire vehicles.

Currently, vehicles should be less than three years old when first licensed and less than six years old when the licences are renewed unless they are ‘exceptionally well maintained’, in which case they can continue to be licensed indefinitely.

The council said this latter criteria was too subjective and had not always been applied as originally intended.

The proposed new standard will mean that all vehicles should be less than six years old when first licensed and less than 12 years old when licences are renewed.

The report said: “This will allow the council to apply a consistent standard for vehicles while reducing regulatory burdens to promote business growth by ensuring requirements are reasonable and justified.”

So DBS looks set to move from three-year checks to every six months.

But vehicle age rule to be signficantly relaxed from 3yo on and 6yo off, to 6yo on but 12yo off

But are six month DBS checks pretty widespread now in England, or have I not being paying enough attention?

6 months here.

_________________
Grandad,
To support my charity text MAYORWALK to 70085 to donate £5

really so 6 monthly DBS checks would have caught out warboys and the Rochdale Paedos who had a clean CRB/DBS before they went perverted ?

_________________
Taxis Are Public Transport too

Join the campaign to get April fools jokes banned for 364 days a year !

They are but most of us don't know anything about them as the council just check behind the scenes.

So unless a driver moves or changes name/gender they will never have to fill in a DBS form again.

_________________
IDFIMH