Taxi Driver Online

I had a meeting with the head of regulatory services regarding fee setting last Wednesday. This is a copy of the proposal he will be putting to the Licensing committee meeting in September.
Do you think the Ombudsman has been it touch with him?

Thanks for coming in and for such a candid discussion, and at such short notice. From the notes I took at the meeting I have worked up the following text in preparation for the Committee in Sept. and would welcome your comments:

Taxi drivers advise that their main objection to fees is that the evidence to support the charges for licenses is questionable. They understand that it is a proportion of the overall costs of the Licensing budget but consider this to be inadequate because:
• They do not register or record the actual time taken to produce a badge or distinguish between the different elements of work carried out to directly or indirectly support this activity.
• The time recording figures are out of date, dating back to 2008 and there is no evidence to confirm the view that they remain accurate in 2013/14.
Drivers will be happy to pay fees that are a true reflection of costs incurred, but until this is proven there remains objection to the level of fees and any proposed increase(s).

The Committee is advised that the appropriate legislation (s 53 and s70 of the Local Government (Misc. Provisions) Act 1976) provides the remit for the setting of charges and makes separate provision for Operator’s, Driver’s and vehicle licences. Accordingly, the approach of assigning 40% of costs to the overall Licensing function – whilst of merit in terms of the ‘ringfencing’ the taxi licensing element of the function from the remaining licensing activity – is not considered to be sufficiently detailed to determine how much resource each of the types of the licences demands and, in turn, how costs should be apportioned.

It is therefore considered that detailed time recording is necessary to determine the correct proportion. It is therefore recommended that setting of the charges is postponed until a sample period of time recording has taken place which addresses in more detail the demands made on resources (and therefore recoverable costs, under s53 and s70) of the individual types of licences for the ‘Q3’ period (October – December 2013) and that the Committee revisits this issue after that has taken place, in order to be able to set fees on a better informed basis.

Do you think the Ombudsman has been it touch with him?

I'd suggest you point them to the case of Westminster City Council having to refund huge sums to licenced sex shops over the years. a similar argument, it's on the legal page here.

oh dear another failure by an individual as predicted ,, when will you ever learn GET UNIONISED

He hasn't failed, its just the Ombudsman is leaving him to deal with the council on his own.

And on his own he is doing a lot better than some of the f***wit union people we have down here.

You might want to ask them for the minutes of when they adopted the 1976 act?

I know that this was a while ago and I can't remember if i posted anything about this but I did ask for the minutes and I received a copy. It was in January 1981. I have checked the local newspapers in the library archive and i can't find any public notice referring to the adoption of the act. I have asked the Council about this and asked them to check yet again but they don't seem interested. It seems to me that they will only act on this if we make a legal challenge, which they know, we can't afford. I intend to write to all the parish councils to ask them to check their records to see if they received any correspondence about this.