Without even bothering with an unmet demand survey! They haven't even tried to make this seem legitimate.......almost as if they want the sheriff to grant the appeal.
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| No demand evidence - Council denies licences anyway http://www.taxi-driver.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7853 |
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| Author: | jasbar [ Wed Jan 30, 2008 10:17 pm ] |
| Post subject: | No demand evidence - Council denies licences anyway |
January 30th At the 11th hour for considering 5 taxi licence applications, City of Edinburgh's sub-licensing committee denied 5 licences under section 10 (3) of rthe Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982. No information about demand levels was provided. The Jacobs 2005 survey and Jacobs 2007 Interim survey, and other documents, were not given to the applicants. Instead the council appears to be relying on its own recent internal survey advised to this applicant 48 hours before in an internal, unadopted document and buried at the back of a report by the taxi licensing officer. This new survey offers no qualitative or quantative information, contains no data that cab be readily assimilated to show demand, and was adopted around one hour before being used to deny licences. This adoption consisted of Robert Millar - Counci, Solicitor talking for 6 minutes. He admitted that whereas such a report would previously have been emailed to councillors to allow them time to peruse it, on this occasion it had only been provided with the papers for the meeting. Despite the lack of opportunity to consider the report, following Millar's 6 minute talk the committee asked no questions about the content of the report. Yet, to a man, they used this information to deny five licences. Having asserted in the presentation document below that the council had run these applications with predetermined intent to deny them, the council then proved the case by doing precisely that on the flimsiest of information. So now this application goes to appeal, Only there are now five applicants contributing to the case. Opposition is building. Here's the document. Comments would be welcome. Conflict of Interest – City of Edinburgh Council The City of Edinburgh Council (the council) owns greater than 90% of Lothian Buses. This company, and therefore the council, is a direct competitor of the taxi trade. It is in Lothian Buses’, and the council’s, commercial interest to restrict the competing number of taxis. The council is in the unique commercial position of being able to use legislation, and control council procedures, committee structures and decisions, to promote its commercial interest by restricting the number of operating taxis and the competition they give to the council’s own bus company. An example of this is the introduction of the council’s bus company’s introduction of its taxibus service, and its recent expansion, which competes directly with taxis. City of Edinburgh Council is manifestly unfit to maintain a policy of quantity restriction of taxis as is proven by how its consideration of taxi licence applications is compromised by the actions of its unelected and elected officials pursuing a deliberate programme of “plausible” denial of taxi licences. Conflict of interest – Councillor Keir Cllr Colin Keir is the convener of this Licensing Sub-Committee, charged with implementing the programmed “plausible” denial of taxi licence applications, in defence of the council’s policy to restrict the quantity of taxi licences operating. Cllr Keir is an employee of Lothian Buses, substantially owned by the council – over 90%. Cllr Keir has a direct conflict of interest in view of the benefit that his stewardship of the council’s policy to restrict taxi licences has for both Lothian Buses which employs him directly, and the council which “employs” him indirectly. In view of this clear conflict of interest, and in the public interest, I make formal request that Cllr Keir stand down from this hearing of these licence applications By allowing this meeting to progress without him standing down, Cllr Keir confirms that he refuses to acknowledge his conflict of interest and his readiness to allow that conflict of interest to affect the decision of the committee. Council Committee structure The council has come under recent challenge from a number of licence applications. As part of the defence of the council’s restriction policy, the council has instituted some changes to the committee structure charged with dealing with licence applications. This has resulted in a new committee structure. The Full Council – responsible for setting policy. The Regulatory Committee – charged with determining policy. The Licensing sub-committee – charged with applying policy. In view of the limits placed on it by the restriction policy set out by the council, this Licensing sub-committee may not grant any licence except where there are “special circumstances”. (ref:- Cllr Whyte email attached) These licence applications, without special circumstances pre-declared by the applicants, are inherently institutionally prejudiced through being heard by a committee that is not empowered to grant them. The creation of this new structure is a deliberate act by this council in support of its strategy of programmed pre-determination to refuse taxi licence applications. This is in direct contradiction to the rights of individuals to apply for a licence under the terms of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982. Point of Law 1 The council knows that it is required by the Act to consider licence applications within three months. The council also knows that it is directed, by recent appeal court decision, to reach a decision within six months “… with a determination”. The council is also aware of court opinion which says that demand information should be available when the licences “… fall to be considered”. The Law therefore dictates that this, and other, applications should logically have been considered within three months from the date of application (1st August 2007) and any demand information should have been available at that time. The reason why these applications have been deferred until the last possible time for consideration to comply with the Law, is clearly because it did not fit in with the council’s deliberate programme of “plausible” denial to consider them earlier. Demand request – Regulatory Committee As part of its restriction policy defence of programmed “plausible” denial, the council’s Corporate Services Department has taken every step possible to hinder the legitimate right of potential and actual applications to access the information it holds concerning demand for taxis in Edinburgh, whatever that was at any time. A request to the council elicited a response from council solicitor Robert Millar an astonishing 18 hours after the request was made. This was unprecedented and hasn’t been repeated. Any appeal to the Courts will reveal the reasons behind this. However, the response was to simply refuse the request for information under Freedom of Information legislation. Despite the intentions of Freedom of Information legislation to encourage open government, it is being used here by this council to restrict information and conceal it from an enquiring public. Clearly the council’s own commercial interests, and its deliberate policy to restrict the flow of information renders it unaccountable to those it is charged to serve. Demand request – Cllr Hart Subsequently, I contacted my ward councillor, Cllr Norma Hart, to ask her to obtain the information for me. Following no action from my first email, I received a response to the second request. It was an unsigned response, from an unknown council official which gave no information concerning the questions asked. Once again, the council’s deliberate programme of “plausible” denial of taxi licences had kicked in and no potential advantage given to a licence applicant. It beggar’s belief that the Law could possibly allow this council to take £1205 from applicant’s for applying, then keeps that money when they refuse those applications. Isn’t this just institutional theft, masquerading as democratic right and achieved by an out of control council remaining unchallenged? Document receipt No 1. Dated: 21st January 2008 Posted: 22nd January 2008 Received: 23rd January Postage type: Recorded delivery Postage paid: Appropriate for contents Contents: Letter of notice of meeting Guidelines for applicants Objection from Central Radio Taxis Objection from City Cabs Copy of Licence application Comments: No valid information about demand provided. The statutory notice in this case offers no opportunity for the applicant to lodge submission for councillors to read and note prior to the hearing of the application. This betrays the council’s position of this application being an assured licence denial and knowledge of any potential submission unnecessary in this context. Action: Attend meeting notified. Document receipt No 2. Dated: 24th January 2008 Posted: 25th January 2008 Received: 26th January 2008 Postage type: Standard First Class Postage paid: Appropriate for contents Contents: Accompanying letter Copy of Taxi and Private Hire Licensing – Best Practice for Licensing Authorities 2007, issued by the Scottish Government Copy of Director’s report considered by the Regulatory Committee on 23rd January 2008. Note of RC resolutions adopted. Comments: No valid information about demand provided. Information contained herein not provided within the statutory period of notice of meeting that detailed relevant documents to be used by the council in consideration of the licence application. Action: None required at this time. Document receipt No 3. Dated: 23rd January 2008 Posted: 24th January 2008 Received: 28th January 2008 Postage type: Standard First Class Postage paid: Appropriate for contents Contents: Accompanying letter Internal document – Unadopted Corporate Services Director’s report, with appendices, in respect of CAB4U LLP licence application. Internal document – Unadopted Taxi Licensing Officer’s Quarterly Report Comments: Contents provided outwith the statutory period for notice of meeting that detailed documents to be used by the council in consideration of application. No valid or adopted demand information provided. Internal council, non adopted documents – no legal imperative to consider at this time. Action: None required at this time other than to attend the meeting. Point of Law 2. Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 – Section 10 (3). “Without prejudice to paragraph 5 of Schedule 1 to this Act, the grant of a taxi licence may be refused by a licensing authority for the purpose of limiting the number of taxis in respect of which licence are granted by them if, but only if, they are satisfied that there is no significant demand for the services of taxis in their area which is unmet.” Comment: It is legally incumbent on the licensing authority to prove to a reasonable standard that no significant unmet demand exists. It is not legally incumbent on applicants to prove any such unmet demand for taxi services exists. The measure of whether the required test for demand is proved is satisfied by the licensing authority inquiring into, and researching, the circumstances of demand in the area and adopting the surveys and other information to support the policy of restriction. In the consideration of licences where it is intended to use such information to consider them, it is incumbent on the licensing authority to advise each and every applicant of valid information resulting from their inquiries, at a reasonable statutory period prior to the meeting at which the application is to be considered, in order to allow a full examination of the information. Objections The applicant acknowledges the objections made on behalf of the taxi companies trading as City Cabs and Central Radio Taxis. The applicant avers that these objections were acknowledged by the objectors as having been lodged “late” and that they are therefore irrelevant for consideration of this application. The applicant notes that inclusion of such late objection may be made at the discretion of the licensing authority, and also avers that such unusual allowance of inclusion in this case reinforces the applicant’s premise of the council’s programmed “plausible” denial of licences in protection of its policy to restrict the number of taxis operating in its licensing area. The applicant notes that these objections, although alluding to there being “no unmet demand for taxis” in the area - their single point of objection, no accompanying information about demand which would prove their point of objection has been provided. The applicant highlights the vested interest of both of these objectors, and note that this is manifested by the £40 million of artificial plate values that has been gifted to them by City of Edinburgh Council. The applicant asserts that any information voluntarily provided by these objectors, which alludes to any aspect of demand concerns, is wholly unreliable and irrelevant in this and future considerations for taxi licence applications. The applicant draws attention to the commonality between both of these allegedly independently lodged objections. The applicant notes that such value was £20 million when the council last issued a taxi licence because of a perceived increase in demand, six years ago. Also that such gifted artificial plate value is increasing. The applicant notes that such gifted plate value amounts to £70 million when extrapolated to the whole of the licensed taxi trade, and that plate “values” are increasing at a weekly rate approaching £90 per week – an extraordinary act of beneficence from the council. The application This application is made by CAB4U LLP, a Limited Liability Partnership properly incorporated at Companies House, hereafter referred to as the applicant. The partnership is a wholly separate legal entity. The partnership has not been legally and properly advised by the licensing authority of any information about the demand for services of taxis in its area, in which this application is made. Despite repeated requests asking for same, the applicant is unaware at the onset of attendance at this hearing of any properly validated and adopted demand information available to the council. The applicant avers that no such properly validated and adopted information has been provided to them by the licensing authority within the reasonable timescale that such information should be supplied to them in accordance with the Act, and certainly not prior to attendance at this hearing. In view of the lack of any information about demand being legally available to the council in its consideration of this application, the applicants aver that Section 10 (3) of the Act is inappropriate to the council’s consideration of this application, and that the Licensing sub-committee should rightly, properly, and forthwith, grant the licence applied for. NOTE:- Notwithstanding that the applicant does not recognise the existence of any validated, or properly adopted demand information, or the legality of any improperly advised information in contravention of the terms of the Act, concerning demand for taxi services in this licensing area which the council may rely on in the determination, and consequent refusal of this application, the applicant formally reserves the right to contest such information in the event of, and during, any consequent appeal and or other legal proceedings. Summary The applicant abhors the actions of this council’s strategy, directed by its Corporate Services department, of receiving applications for taxi licences, using every power available to it to ensure that such licence is not granted under any reasonable circumstances, then retaining on the assured “plausible” denial the unreasonable and exorbitant application fee of £1205 it charges. The applicant acknowledges, and deprecates, the readiness of elected council officials to subscribe to the scurrilous machinations of Corporate Service’s carefully crafted “plausible” denial process. Also, that the elected officials have made no reasonable effort expected of them to properly debate the issues surrounding applications being made at this time, and their stoic acceptance of the untested, uncorroborated and factually incorrect assertions of the council’s Corporate Services Director in the many documents of drivel he has placed before elected council officials for their “consideration”. Additionally, that in all of this the Corporate Services Director persists in his clear intention of cluttering the argument, confusing the elected officials, the public and the media, while discouraging and stifling any willingness on the part of those who decide such matters to consider them fully and properly, for whatever questionable reasons. In short, what has been demonstrated through the council’s handling of this, and other applications is the serial incompetence of the Corporate Services Department, headed by Corporate Services Director – Jim Inch. But then, isn’t Jim Inch an honourable man? Finally, the Scottish Government has chosen to sit on the sidelines and avoid the conduct of this, and other councils in these matters. Isn’t it long overdue for it to sit up, take notice and undertake take the action necessary to protect the public interest? |
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| Author: | gusmac [ Wed Jan 30, 2008 10:48 pm ] |
| Post subject: | |
Without even bothering with an unmet demand survey! They haven't even tried to make this seem legitimate.......almost as if they want the sheriff to grant the appeal.
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| Author: | Sussex [ Wed Jan 30, 2008 11:16 pm ] |
| Post subject: | |
gusmac wrote: Without even bothering with an unmet demand survey! They haven't even tried to make this seem legitimate.......almost as if they want the sheriff to grant the appeal.
I think there is an element of truth there Mr gusmac. But it's typical of the way that council act i.e. gutless b******s. 
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| Author: | jasbar [ Thu Jan 31, 2008 3:24 am ] |
| Post subject: | |
Of course they may well claim that the internal survey they've organised is their demand information, sufficient to deny licences. We will have to see the content of their rejection letter. I wonder whether the key here is that they ratified the information and then denied licences just over one hour later. Before they ratified it, we will argue the in formation is not valid, after they ratified it they failed to notify us of it within any reasonable timescale. But the breathtaking aspect is the f**kwit dwarf Cllr Mowatt, the one prone to yawning, putting her head to the desk in feigned sleep and chuckler telling us that we should be providing her with information about demand. She thinks the onus is on the applicant. Of course we re-iterated that the onus is on the council to prove there is no unmet demand and, not surprisingly, Millar made n o attempt to correct her flawed assertion. These licences weren't denied because of any flaw in the argument, they were denied because the council can. They are still buying time. The appeal will be made. May looms on the first case, where we will be concentrating our efforts meanwhile. I've written to Millar to ask precisely what an applicant needs to show in order for the council to grant. Anyway, for this appeal there is no Jacobs on the table' No taxi plan, nothing except the internal survey, which covers 0.05% of the available time during the six weeks covered by the survey, missing out half of November and the whole of December and managed to essentially miss any time when there is peak demand. 
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| Author: | jasbar [ Thu Jan 31, 2008 6:26 am ] |
| Post subject: | |
Incidentally, Millar made a comparison between the new evidence and previous evidence, saying that the new one measured latent demand etc according to the Scottish Best practice guide. Of course it doesn't really, anyway no previous info on the table, this new survey stands alone. With nothing to compare it with, .... how can they reach the conclusions they did? |
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| Author: | Sussex [ Thu Jan 31, 2008 7:43 am ] |
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jasbar wrote: Incidentally, Millar made a comparison between the new evidence and previous evidence, saying that the new one measured latent demand etc according to the Scottish Best practice guide.
It would be interesting to see how he assessed latent demand as I'm not sure the survey people have mastered that one yet.
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| Author: | JD [ Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:01 am ] |
| Post subject: | |
I think it should be made clear that the evidence gathered wasn't a survey of any kind. There were a few limited observations taken from certain taxi ranks within a very limited time window by a company who just counted heads and nothing more. The evidence was gathered from video cameras and then passed on to the licensing department who interpreted the evidence to fit in with their stated policy of issuing no licenses under any circumstances. What needs to be obtained is the videos given to the council by the company who supplied them and on which they based their reasoning and the name of the person or persons in the licensing department who actually evaluated that evidence. That is the very first thing that should be done. I might add that the evidence on which the council based their reasoning should have been made available to the applicants however the council tried to make out in their less than factual report that the company who supplied the video evidence made a recommendation on demand when in fact they never made any such recommendation or even commented on the presence or absence of demand? The evidence from the two vested interests namely the local hackney radio companies actually prove just how flawed the 2005 Jacobs s survey actually is. Interesting times ahead if the council lose this one in court then they have no place to hide. I think the rest speaks for itself. Regards JD |
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| Author: | JD [ Thu Jan 31, 2008 12:59 pm ] |
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Ian Millership wrote on behalf of Jacobs in respect of the 2005 survey of demand. During the course of discussion with the Trade offers were made regarding access to the radio company offices to allow extraction of data about how their fleets operated, but these offers were not considered necessary. Ian Millership then went on to say that, The 8% sample for radio bookings appeared to be rather low But thanks to at least two of the radio companies concerned We are now able to judge just how low that figure actually was, especially now that two of the Radio companies have published their monthly figures. Remember what Jacobs said? The public attitude survey suggested that demand was made up of 32% by stance, 60% by hailing and 8% by phone, Millership then said that he he thought 8% was rather low, so what he did was adjust the figure upwards by doubling it to 16% but without downscaling any of the other figures. He then said the radio hire figure should be half that of the rank hire figures which would give a combined 15,500 jobs per week. I highlighted this massive discrepancy when the Jacobs report was first made public and pointed out that it was one of the major flaws in the report. The Edinburgh Radio companies have done us a huge favour by confirming the Jacobs figures were plucked out of thin air. Remember that Jacobs said 15,500 hires were undertaken by radio companies, The actual figure according to information based on two of the three Edinburgh radio companies for the month of November 2007 is near to 90,000 hires per week or approx 360,000 hires per month which is three times that of rank hires and greater that street hailing hires. When I appraised the situation in 2005 I gave a conservative estimate of around 45,000 hires per week for radio work which was far greater than that guessed at by Jacobs. However now the facts have come out we can see just how flawed Jacobs figures actually are. Regards JD |
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| Author: | Sussex [ Thu Jan 31, 2008 1:40 pm ] |
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JD wrote: Remember what Jacobs said?
The public attitude survey suggested that demand was made up of 32% by stance, 60% by hailing and 8% by phone, Millership then said that he he thought 8% was rather low, so what he did was adjust the figure upwards by doubling it to 16% but without downscaling any of the other figures. So in fact Jacobs are saying that there is an extra 8% mythical taxi fleet. 
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| Author: | JD [ Thu Jan 31, 2008 2:44 pm ] |
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 ...
Chart 1 shows the original figures based on the Jacobs Attitude survey. The focal point is the stance survey figures because these are the figures which Jacobs used as the central mechanism for measuring demand. You have to remember that Jacobs didn't do any street hailing observations so they couldn't base any evidence of demand on that and they never took up the opportunity offered to them by the Hackney carriage radio companies so they couldn't base any evidence of demand on that. That just leaves the one flawed element of video observations of "CERTAIN" Taxi ranks for a limited period and that of a so called attitude survey. The question arises can demand be accurately measured by evaluating all other methods of hire based on limited perceptions at certain Taxi ranks? The answer to that is an emphatic no because Taxi ranks only take up a small minority of all hires undertaken, as the evidence in these charts clearly identify. Chart 1 shows that 8% of those questioned in the attitude survey normally hired a cab from a radio company. Chart 2 shows the upgraded figure of 16% radio hires because Mr Millership didn't believe the attitude survey figures to be correct. Notice the widening discrepancy but you will also notice that unlike me, Mr Millership deliberately failed to downscale the other figures accordingly. Notice my downscaling of the hailing firgures from 60% to 52%. Perhaps Mr Millership doesn't believe in 100% whole numbers? ____________________________________  ...
With charts three and four we get down to the nitty gritty. Chart 3 throws in the added element of the Airport, which Jacobs suggests generates 2,100 vehicle hires which works out at just short of 2% of all total hires based on Jacobs wild inaccurate assumption that 107,000 hires are undertaken each week. In order to accommodate the 2% I had to shave 1% of each of the stance and hailing hire percentages. The total absurdity of Jacobs figures can be seen in the last chart which reflects the accurate information of Radio hires submitted to the council from computer records offered by at least two of the three Edinburgh Radio Companies. There isn't a great deal between any of them when it comes to radio bookings but the figures they produced prove that Jacobs survey of 2005 as we have always said is grossly flawed and inaccurate and based on nothing more than guess work at best. The last chart speaks for itself and no matter what adjustments are made to Jacobs own figures the end result is that the data is massively flawed. If you are going to start from a point of definitive accuracy then you need a definitive accurate figure on which to proceed. Jacobs failed to understand this because they believe that all they had to do was produce a report made up of unsubstantiated figures which in the main looks impressive but one which no one really understands or is likely to question? Jacobs didn't bargain for one JD and neither have Edinburgh Council as can be seen by the Salteri case. So although I don't really enjoy doing research anymore I'll make a point of making sure the court is fully aware of the flaws not only in the Jacobs survey but also in the evidence recently gathered by Edinburgh council. Regards JD |
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