Taxi Driver Online

As many will know the operators applied for, and got, a temporary delay for some drivers doing the CRB. In other words they could work without getting checked.

That delay was meant to end at the end of next month, but they have asked Ken to delay the delay until December 2006.

But Comrade Terry of the GMB is on the case, so hopefully the March date will be kept too.

Ollie

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Happy to be legit.

I cant think of a single reason for a crb to be delayed.
only the normal delay in the crb themselves should be acceptable, and then only for renewals.

One of TDO's archive tales gives a better insight into this mess, but you are spot on, there is no reason to not CRB.

http://www.taxi-driver.co.uk/minicab.htm

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IDFIMH

i think if our local ops had there way there wouldnt be any standards.
same with cab owners.
all they want is drivers for therew motors.

Hi Guys

My understanding of the PCO and driver licensing is as follows.

Firstly all existing PHD were issued with a tempoary permit, some of these are still valid, dependent on when they were applied for.

I am just in the process of changing over myself from temporary to full what some 3 yrars after the legislation started to apply.

I have taken on new drivers who are issued with a 3 month tempoary permit straight away whilst the proper licensing proceedure is taking place, the permit of course does not guarantee they will get a PHL.

IMHO registering 60,000 PHD & PHV in London is an enourmous job for one govering body who effectivly are made up of 22 Borough's. It is therefore taking in some cases four to five months for the process to be propery administrated and the full PHL to be issued.

I think it is as simple as that PCO having having to balance the saftey of the general public against the right to earn a wage.

The other thing that differs here is the full PHDL will be valid for 3 years at a cost of around 350 Quid once youve paid for the medical photo's CRB and the like.

It took 2 years to fully license operators and a further 3 years for the drivers, 5 years to date, whereas by comparision, when they took spethorn borough out of London and made it stand alone the whole process was seemlessly in place within one year.

I know this does not help in cases of rape and the like, don't get me wrong, however I am of the belief those drivers who do this type of thing would not apply for a license in the first place they would just carry on touting.

FYI

Some of the larger operators in London are being asked by the PCO to piolot a scheeme where they take the long term unemoloyed off benefits and issue them immediatly with a PHD permit, pay for their license fee and give the operator money to employ them for a trial period of six weeks, effectivly paying the operator to train them.

I can ot see this working myself as a large number of the long term unemployed are either in ill health or have a criminal record, but there you go

Take care

Eric

Erik

Did you say that you, an operator, has been driving only on a temporary badge for 3 years?

Why?

I amkeen to get drivers on the road asap. But we follow our council's rules to the letter (not that the council's do sod all about those that don't, another story).

We now control the proceedure as much as possible. When someone is offered a job they come to our office and complete the crb with our help, we deliver it to the council and ring them 48 hours later asking for confirmation the crb has been sent to Liverpool. We then ring Liverpool 3 or 4 days later and check they have received it. We then ring and follow it progress. When we hear it has been sent to our local police force we ring them and check they have it. They tell us when it goes back to Liverpool.

We get CRB's clear in 3 weeks on average, 10days is the record.

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

But in this case are LPH any further on than minicabs?

Seems crazy to me that the PCO wont allow an un-licensed vehicle to do a booking, but will allow an un-checked driver.

The LPH trade either want to be considered as licensed and checked, or they don't. Best they make their minds up.

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IDFIMH

Tom Thumb wrote:



Simple Tom I could not apply for a full license until it was my turn, imagine the PCO having to license vet and check 60,000 drivers in three months.

So this is what they did.

Stage one send out temporay licenses to all operaters, all you had to have to qualify for this was a landline number and planning permission to operate private hire from your base, OR a letter from the local authority to say you did not need it.

It then took two years to inspect these companies and issue them with a full operators license. If for any reason the operator did not qualify for the full operators license then they issued another tempoary one
This was to give the operator time to streemline his/her operation to their requirements.

once the majority of operators had there proper PHL they then Identified the drivers, through the operators, every PHD who applied for a temp permit was given one automatically under the grandad legislation. the only thing they to do was declare they were fit and proper people.

Each temp permit had a number on it mine was applied for the day before the deadline therefore it was around the 38,000 figure.

You could either apply for the full PHDL when you were invited to do so in other words when your number was up or you could apply for it earlier, I saw no point in paying for something sooner than it was required after all I was perfectly legal.

Over the next few years every so often we would be notified of which numbers were comming up and warned those temp permits had expired.

Again it is sheer volume of applications that are the problem here, further to which after a certain date new drivers would not be given a temp permit but instead would have to apply for the proper PHL from day one with Cristmas looming and operators crying out for drivers and the PCO taking in some cases 12 weeks to process a new application they reverted back to issuing temp permits to new drivers so they could still work whilst they were being checked.

I applied for my PHDL in november when invited to do so got another temp permit valid until 30th April 2006, hopefully this will be enough time for them to check my application and issue the PHDL

Does that answer your question Tom

Take care Eric

I think it might be accepted that brand new license applicants should obtain a CRB check before they are allowed to drive a licensed hire vehicle. However those drivers who are already licensed and just need a renewal of their CRB check, in my opinion should be allowed to drive until that renewal has been processed.

There are many licensing authorities who have a rolling CRB check system where the CRB form is sent out with your application renewal and all that is required is the appropriate fee and the council will do the rest. If this is not the normal practice then the licensing authority should give you at least three months warning that your CRB check is up for renewal. Anyone who has a problem with the way CRB checks are conducted by their council should write to them and inform them that the system is not working and it needs to be reappraised so that it benefits all concerned.

Regards

JD

JD Wrote:




That my friend is precisly why the PCO can not cope they have taken on too much and have tried to replicate a tried and proven system which exists outside London and put it inside London 22 local authority area's all classed as one

Too many consultation papers regarding what we want how would we know what we want never been licensed before

you only know what you want once you know what you don't want, so why ask us in the first place

It is what is known in the business as a logistical nightmare, in the meantime we all just smile and sigh oh well more red tape and agro, but it's the people who fall by the wayside that we never hear about that are ones I feel for here.

Regards Eric