Taxi Driver Online

this just gets better.....

http://makeashorterlink.com/?E12E22CBC

CAB SURVEY FORMS 'FAKED'

12:21 - 03 March 2006
Questionnaires which formed part of a survey the council is using to support its decision to limit the number of black cabs were forged, an employee who helped compile the data has told an appeal hearing.

Elizabeth Hamilton-Bruce claims she was asked to falsify hundreds of questionnaires by the director of Mayflower Recruitment, Christopher Moore.

Mayflower was given the task of employing people to compile questionnaires and surveys on taxi use in Plymouth last year.

Transport Planning (International) Ltd used the data to compile a report which Plymouth City Council used as evidence that there was no significant unmet demand for black cabs in the city.

The council has an upper limit of 359 on hackney carriage licences.

Taxifast, run by John Preece, is appealing against a council decision, taken in 2003, to refuse it 30 hackney carriage licences because of the limit.

Miss Hamilton-Bruce said Mr Moore asked her to falsify names, dates and responses on reams of questionnaires - about 250 in total - and then 'shuffle them up to make a variety of answers'.

She said: "I was quite shocked, but because he had said the forms had to be completed and could I fill them in, I did it. He put me in a situation and I felt I had to do them."

She did not say that the surveys of taxi ranks used in TPi's report were falsified.

Mr Moore is also expected to appear at the hearing, taking place before Recorder Jonathan Fuller QC and two magistrates, which continues at the Guildhall today.

Oops

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

After this forgery expose I doubt very much this survey will be allowed to stand.

I wonder what councillors will think if they lose and get a bill for costs approaching 300 grand? Will they say they took this course of action to restrict taxi numbers in the interest of the Plymouth public in order that they could have a better taxi service? lol

It will be interesting to see what reasons Plymouth council have given as to why the public are best served by restricting numbers?

Regards

JD

No that was done by the big issue sellers who recorded different rank movements whilst surveying the same rank at the same time.

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IDFIMH

TAXI SURVEY FORGERY DENIAL

A company director denied claims he forged questionnaires which helped support Plymouth City Council's black cab limit, at an appeal hearing yesterday.

Christopher Moore, director of Mayflower Recruitment, was responding to claims made by a former employee that Mr Moore had asked her to falsify hundreds of questionnaires relating to public attitude towards hackney carriages.

Mr Moore told yesterday's hearing that Miss Elizabeth Hamilton-Bruce had offered to do some of the surveys, but that he did not ask her to falsify any of the information.

He said: "I did not instruct her on filling in the forms."

Miss Hamilton-Bruce had told the hearing on Thursday that Mr Moore had asked her to fill out about 250 of the forms which made up part of a report by consultants Transport Planning (International) Ltd.

She said she and two other employees were asked to sit in the office and fill out batches of forms with the same answers on, and these were then shuffled around so they appeared random.

Hand-writing expert Adrian Forty, from Bristol, told Thursday's hearing that, having studied batches of the questionnaires, he found that different forms of handwriting appeared on individual questionnaires which might indicate people were filling in forms and shuffling them.

The TPi report, based on questionnaires and taxi observation surveys also carried out by employees of Mayflower, found there was 'no significant unmet demand' for more hackney carriages in the city.

The council is relying on the report to back up its black cab limit of 359.

Taxifast is appealing a council decision to refuse it 30 black cab licences in 2003.

At yesterday's hearing, Mr Moore said it was also 'not true' that he asked Miss Hamilton-Bruce to complete the questionnaires inside the office.

When asked by Alan Newman QC, the lawyer representing Taxifast, whether he saw people filling in forms in the Mayflower office, Mr Moore said: "Absolutely not."

Mr Moore also said he conducted a number of taxi rank observation surveys himself. He admitted attributing the work to other people, placing their initials at the top of forms in order to 'maintain a good impression' with TPI. But he insisted that the data was 'absolutely correct'.

He said: "On reflection it was an error but I was very keen for them (TPi) not to know I was employed on the survey."

The hearing continues on Monday.

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IDFIMH

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IDFIMH

Naturally he would claim that wouldn't he?



So there is no denial by Mr Moore that Miss Bruce did do some of the questionnaires, indeed he could not deny she did them because her handwriting is on many of the documents. The only question is, did Mr Bruce asked her to do the forms or did she volunteer?

The story ends if it can be proven he asked her to do the questionnaires. That would of course make him liar and lead one to assume that Miss Bruce's version of events is more acceptible?



What did he say to her, When she asked could I help? Him being the boss and seeing these documents were urgent isn't he more likely to administer tasks rather than rely on volunteers?



Two or three different sets of handwriting would lead anyone to believe multiple persons filled in the forms.



So where does TPI fit into all this? They asked an employment agency to count a few heads getting into Taxis on certain taxi ranks. They then make up a grandiose report based on the information of this employment agency of facts, figures and graphs that looks professional and all they have done is sit on their azz and wait for that information to be sent to them. The whole crux of this survey will rest on not what is in the report but the way the information was gathered and by whom?



So it begs the question if Mr Moore did the observations himself, why he did? Was it because he couldn't get enough casual labour to do it? Or did he prefer to do it himself and pocket the money from TPI? Names and addresses of these casual employees should have been obtained by the applicant for verification. Perhaps that's what happened?



So mayflower did the taxi survey and all TPI did was present a report based on the numbers that Mayflower gave them. This goes right back to the article I wrote two years ago when I highlighted the process these so called survey companies use in employing inexperienced casual labour from employment agencies. I think it is worth another highlight.

Regards

JD

In December 2004 in a thread entitled "advice for Mr Preece" I wrote the following information which at the time was an opinion on what he needed to do in order to obtain his 30 licenses. The next few days will throw up some remarkable revelations that will probably astound most people at the steps taken to disprove this manifestly flawed survey, which was presented by TPI.

It doesn't matter what the verdict of the court might be, the TPI survey has been well and truly highlighted as being flawed and manipulated. It would appear the only input TPI had was to sit behind a desk and make a report on figures complied by an employment agency who knows nothing whatsoever about surveying the area as a whole? It begs the question, how many times has TPI used this agency to concoct surveys in other areas?

The figure of 775 hours observing Taxi ranks and the figure of some 300 hours conducting questionnaires will be shown to be totally unrealistic, viewed in the light of the payment made to this agency for their services.

The survey cost 22 grand, it is understood that TPI pocketed in the region of 15 grand, this would leave around 7 grand for the services of the agency, which amounts to 6.51 maximum per hour. One wonders how this agency was able to make a profit from this exercise?

Mr Preece has spent a lot of money and done an extremely good job in highlighting the flawed and corrupt process of surveys, I have no doubt whatsoever after these revelations that the DfT, OFT and the Government will act on setting new guidelines for surveys, sooner rather than later.
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December 2004. Taken from the thread "advice for Mr preece".

Considering that very few people have offerred detailed advice to Mr Preece, I have put together my own contribution as to how he should consider going about his legal challenge. I hope Steveo prints this out for Mr Preece because he may find it helpfull.

No one really knows if Mr Preece is deadly serious with his legal challenge against Plymouth Council but if he is serious he may wish to take on board the following information.

It would appear that Mr Preece is a man of adequate financial resources and that if need be he could soak up any incurred losses quite easily. Financial resources however will not necessarily gain him victory. He must have a legal team who is more competent and knowledgeable than that of the other side, namely Plymouth council. Mr Preece should also familiarise himself with the legal options that are available to him.

Mr Preece may or may not be aware but he has at least one unique joker in the pack of his legal challenge. That Joker is the employment status of EU citizens from outside the UK.

The Council will no doubt have informed the company who is undertaking the survey that they are under a legal challenge for more licenses and that they expect the completed survey to conclude no overall unmet demand. In other words they are telling the surveyors what they want. It’s a case of he who pays the piper calls the tune.

Mr Preece should therefore expect this survey to come back with a provision that says no unmet demand but to counter any future demand they recommend an increase of ten licences.

Now that’s what this survey will say. I don't know the exact number of licenses it will recommend but I will stake what little reputation I have left on that being the case.

Mr. Preece should have already calculated for this eventuality. Whether Mr Preece will benefit from the Issue of licenses depends on the way the Council issues those licenses. Let us consider the consequences if he doesn’t benefit.

We have a situation where the Council has just undertaken a professional survey and they will no doubt rely on that Survey in a court of Law to help them maintain their chosen policy of restricting numbers.

So is a Survey the only information a Council can rely on to help it maintain it's chosen policy? On the face of it that would appear so. No doubt the Council may put forward social and moral arguments with regard to current licensed Cab drivers but I'm afraid in a court of law what matters is the Law, not what is morally right or wrong.

The dangers of going down the moral road is that a court may find it is morally wrong to deny people the basic right of obtaining a license just so others can enjoy the fruits of inhibited competition. So not only would a court not take into account the moral argument from a vested interest point of view, the court in its wisdom may decide that the moral issue resides firmly with the many and not with the few.

So Mr Preece you have only to prove that A survey can not only be flawed but it can be manipulated to read what anyone wants it to read.

So how does Mr Preece go about breaking down a survey in the light of the OFT findings, that all surveys are flawed, inaccurate and misleading.

I suppose he could start at the very beginning by asking how many staff undertook the survey and how many were actually employed in the field obtaining data?

Mr Preece also needs to know how many hours they worked and on which days.

Mr Preece then has to enquire about the professional status of those people in the field? In other words, were these people casual workers taken from local employment agencies or were they professionals with related qualifications. If they were casual, it would probably mean that they know nothing whatsoever about latent demand. It was just a case of them putting down figures on a sheet of paper at a certain point, of how many Taxis came and went in a particular time frame. Their observation would also include how long customers had to wait at the specific locations in question.

It would appear that by calculating the number of field workers who actually stood at Taxi ranks, with the number of hours worked, would give you an overall accurate picture of the time scale in which the Survey was conducted.

Some surveys costs have been quoted as being as low as 6 to 8 thousand pounds. It makes one wonder how many field workers this amount of money would generate and still leave enough for the Surveying Company to make a profit? Calculating the cost of the survey, with the total amount of employees, gives you another field by which to calculate the number of hours worked.

Calculating the number of hours worked by the number of Taxi ranks surveyed will give you a definitive answer as to which areas were not capable of being surveyed. A large area such as Plymouth will not be surveyed properly because these surveying companies will not submit the resources to survey the area as a whole.

What the Survey Company will do, is Survey the city centre and make a calculation based on the activity of Cabs at certain ranks at certain times of the Day, based of course in the city centre.

In the past, It has always been the case that the field workers employed in taking statistics have come from the casual labour Market. There is no check on these people as to what they write, therefore it has to be taken at face value that their figures are correct. The only way to disprove these figures, is to either have your own field worker doing the calculating or video a particular Rank, for the same number of hours as that of the field worker.

Never the less, in order to attack the survey as being flawed Mr Preece will have to get hold of every scrap of data that this survey was calculated on. The Freedom of Information act is on the statute this week so that should not be a problem. In any case, that information should be readily available as a matter of course. A Council who restricts numbers has to show why it restricted numbers and the data it used in coming to that decision, whether accurate or flawed.

Mr Preece has to obtain the information of the Number of Workers employed, the time frame in which the survey was completed, the cost involved and the total area surveyed. This information is extremely important if you want to discredit the survey findings.

It is impossible to survey the area as a whole within the time frame in which these surveys are conducted. It sometimes takes Cab drivers a long period of time to establish where demand and latent demand exists, or indeed if any latent demand exists at all? Knowing the area one works in is something that a Survey Company will never get to know because they do not venture out into the area as a whole.

The advantage that MR Preece has is that he knows the area as a whole and he can perhaps present his own evidence that demand does exist both inside and outside the City Centre. What Mr Preece has to do is sit down and ponder the points I have presented to him in particular regard to conducting an accurate survey.

He must take on board that he does not need to prove unmet demand, it is for the Council to prove there isn't any. He need only prove beyond doubt that the survey is flawed and that it not only fails to address unmet demand in areas outside the City centre, it also fails to address latent demand in the area as a whole. He will need to show that only a minute area of Plymouth was surveyed and that those undertaking the survey were inexperienced casual workers who may have lacked incentive to carry out an accurate and professional survey. Bring into question the competence of the field workers and you bring into question the competence of the whole survey.

Mr. Preece may consider producing his own figures that show demand far exceeds that which is limited to Taxi ranks. He needs to raise doubt on the study of people at particular Taxi ranks and that such studies are flawed. Studying one or several Taxi ranks in such a small area of perhaps one square mile is not an indication of demand as a whole. Such data only shows it represents the level of demand at an isolated place at a particular time and may or may not reflect demand at other times of the week, month or year.

He may wish to cast doubt on the time scale of such a Survey? He may wish to demonstrate that coming to a city for two weeks in every three years and proclaiming there is not unmet demand by a process which he and the OFT have already demonstrated as beyond flayed is beyond the bounds of credibility.

You have been told how to discredit a survey Mr Preece, you may take comfort from the fact that no one has ever challenged a survey with the accuracy in which I have offered to you. The ball is now firmly in your court. You should remember this, no court has scrutinised or dissected the way surveys are conducted you now have a unique opportunity to put that right.

The Joker in the pack, which you are probably aware, is the European Factor. When I first started posting on this forum I highlighted the observations which came from the Trial Judge in the Dublin case. In that case the Judge went out of his way to inform both parties that in his learned opinion refusing applicants a license when those applicants are equally qualified, was a breach of EU law.

He is of course right, there is no doubt about that.

Mr Preece has to consider whether or not to ask one or more of his European employees to apply for individual Hackney Carriage licenses. I think he should consider the benefit of this approach in the light of building a three pronged attack on the decision of the Council to refuse a licence.

We have already fired the opening salvo to penetrate the councils defence. It is now up to the Admiral to lay down another Broadside that will render the vessel dead in the water.

In order to enhance his chance of victory Mr Preece has to introduce the European factor. That means getting these Eastern Europeans to apply for individual licenses. Unless the council lifts numbers control it will eventually refuse the EU applicants. Once a refusal has been given you can then proceed with a joint action. Mr Preece and his fellow applicants stand a far better chance of success if they work as a unit.

I suggest Mr Preece reads the Dublin Judgement very carefully and that he gets advice from a good competent EU law firm, who can advise him on the best approach.

The final coup de grass comes by way of the Government guidance. A council has to justify its policy of limiting numbers and that by limiting such numbers the public will be better served.

Logic dictates that public deprivation benefits nobody except perhaps in this case where it could be argued that public deprivation benefits those persons actually doing the depriving. To deprive means to limit, to limit means to deprive. The sad thing about deprivation in this instance is that it is not only the public who are being deprived but also those persons wishing to pursue a better standard of living, namely prospective Taxi drivers.

Get this message across in a court of law and it may be your best form of attack. The only question mark, is how will a court of law view the government guidance in legal terms?

I suspect a court may put as much weight on the inference that a council should only limit numbers, where it can be proven to be beneficial to the public, to that of a flawed survey.

Therein lies your case, you have a three pronged attack the council only has a flawed survey to compliment its policy of restriction. Remember that restriction is a Councils policy, Councils who retain numbers are bias in favour of restricting licenses, otherwise there would be no need for surveys.

Convince the court of the points I have raised and you can't fail to blow a great big whole in section 16 of the 1986 Transport act.

Best Wishes

JD.

I've got a funny feeling that when the judgement finally comes copies of it will be sent to all those councils that have used TPI in the past, and to those currently using them.

TPI has done those of us who want to see the end of quotas a service, and a very big one at that.

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IDFIMH

This crown court case always rested on the accuracy of the survey, a judicial review would take account other reasons before the survey was commissioned.

I have no doubt that TPI have used the same technique in practically all of their surveys because it has always concerned me how they could be conducting so many surveys at the same time?

Out of all the surveys conducted in the original 150/1 authorities that were asked to reconsider their quantity control policy TPI is up there as having surveyed the most.

The full extent of third party use will soon be known and authorities such as Barnsley, Braintree, Chester le street, Harrogate, Kirklees, Newcastle under lyme, St Helens, Teignbridge, Torridge, Portsmouth, Wakefield and Worthing are just a few who should be concerned right now.

Regards

JD

Hmmmmmmm.

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IDFIMH

This post was right on the button but the part that is probably most appropriate is the section above.

Regards

JD

if John Preece needs 30 or 50 or 80 licences, why after BUYING 17 licences from Mr Dave Trace has he started selling them off. Surley TAXIFAST OR pREECE could not be in financial trouble could they ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Maybe he thinks they might not hold a value for much longer?

Regards

JD

Not if you belive the events and going's on in his personal life