Taxi Driver Online

correct - like their wages relied on it

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

I have received an email today regarding the charges for credit/debit cards from a chap in the licensing department. He was saying that such charges may be discussed during the next fare review in April/May. The email mentioned that we may be awarded a fare rise in line with the RPI at that time. So it seems that we can have the RPI but the council are increasing their fees by 25%. It would also seem that there is not going to be any consultation on this increase either.

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

Seems to me someone needs the sack - if the 25% increase is all worked out and justified by their figures - it surely means last years and the years before were very wrong indeed!

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

I think some drivers need to, as TT would say, get organised. I have sugested that maybe membership of the NTA would be a good move. One of the drivers is already a member.

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

one born every minute

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

I challenged my LA's charge for debit and credit cards and told them i would not pay it as it is illegal. I won.

Did you win because the council decided not to charge you or did you win by order of a court?

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

Reply from our licensing officer to my first letter.

Thank you for contacting me regarding the charges set for taxi licences below.

The charges are based on cost recovery basis in the manner that your e-mail describes and for context and information, I would advise that the Council is under pressure from Central Government to make full cost recovery for all the services for which it makes charges (other than those prescribed by law, such as planning applications and Licensed Premises – although there are suggestions that these may follow suit in the next few years), rather than subsidise them from Council Tax revenues.

To demonstrate the reasonableness of the charges, I have set out the financial background below:

Total cost of service = £79,000

Total revenue from charges= £19,000

Accordingly, full cost recovery would result in an increase of over 400%.

When these facts were considered by the Committee we were able to present argument in mitigation of the increase that enforcement costs should not be included because, whilst an integral element of the service, these are not directly related to cost of providing a licence.

This argument was accepted and the effect was that only a two-fold (100%) increase was needed to cover the remaining costs. However, we were also able to argue that this was too great a step to expect operators to meet, andin mitigation the Committee agreed that there should continue to be a substantial subsidy from Council Tax payers, which has enabled charges to be set at a level well below cost recovery, and an increase of only 25% (i.e operators licensing requirements will be subsidised by Council Tax by around 40%, instead of the previous level of 50%.)

I can confirm that benchmarking was undertaken prior to this exercise and this showed that the charges made by XXXXXX XX were exceptionally low compared to other areas: the 3rd lowest in the East Midlands and less than half the cost of areas charging the highest amounts.

On consultation I would advise that the advert to which you have responded allows for a period of objection to the new level of charges, and any comments made will be considered prior to the new charges taking effect.

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

First thing has got to be to reduce the cost of service. I would want that £79,000 broken down.

How many taxi/PH are licensed in your manor?

Secondly the costs of badges, and your LO should know this, can only be the actual cost of processing. No enforcement costs can be recovered via drivers badges.

If things are a bit tight for your council then they should be merging services with your neighbouring councils.

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IDFIMH

The email does say that they have taken out the enforcement costs. That reduced the cost by around £40,000.
We have 19 private hire vehicles, 53 hackneys, 11 private hire operators licenses that are for 2 years and 82 drivers badges.
How many man/woman hours does it take to process 72 vehicle plates and 82 drivers badges in a year? And we have to give them 5 working days to be able to issue one. It takes a day to get the paperwork from reception to the licensing people up one flight of stairs. No seriously you can take your paperwork in at 9.00 in the morning, have everything photocopied and signed as a true copy and it won't get to the top of the stairs until the internal mail delivers it the next day.

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

Oh, I forgot to mention that everyone in the licensing department are now part timers and none of them work on a Friday and only one seems to be in on a Monday I think there are 4 or maybe 5 members of staff in the department.

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

If I was guessing I would say taxi/PH licensing money is being used to pay for other licensing functions.

It shouldn't take more than a weeks worth of time to process that amount of drivers licenses, so you should be paying 1/52th of the officials wages in process costs, but the cost of product.

If we say the cost of product is a £10, and the LO is on £30,000, then your drivers license should cost no-more than £20.

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IDFIMH

And there lies the problem.

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IDFIMH

So how much are the driver;s licences; the operators licences, and the vehicle licences? Do you have to pay separately for the vehicle tests?

The council have to keep two copies of accounts? One for the licensing of badges and one for everything else, the questions below should give you all the answers?


a) Please provide a copy of any report submitted by Licensing officers to the Head of Function or any Council body to request authority to implement the most recently revised scale of fees.

b) Please provide a copy of the financial estimates for the operation of the Taxi Licensing function for 2012/13

c) Please provide details of the number of vehicle licenses, driver licenses and operator licenses the Council envisages issuing in the current year.

d) Please provide a copy of the Job description of each member of staff wholly or partly employed in the carrying out of the vehicle, driver and operator licensing function. For staff not wholly employed on such activity please advise the percentage of time charged to the taxi and non-taxi activity in their job descriptions.

e) Please advise details of the staff and management structure in respect of taxi licensing.

f) Please advise details of staff costs charged directly to the licensing account
NB. I only request details of the posts and the aggregated total annual forecast cost including all Employer’s on-costs.

g) Please provide a copy of the Subjective Cost Centre(s) Budget(s) for taxi licensing activity showing the estimated costs and income for 2011/12 against each relevant nominal ledger code. Please also supply a copy of the year to date outturn to the last available accounting period and any forecast outturn for the current financial year.

h) Please provide details of how recovery of corporate overhead and any other indirect or apportioned charges are calculated for the Taxi Licensing Subjective cost centre(s).

i) Please advise, under the Council’s Constitution and scheme of delegation, which
Cabinet member(s) and Officers have responsibility for the determination of the
Council’s policies and practice in respect of any matters relating to its powers
under the Town Police Clauses Act 1847 and The Local Government