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I compiled this myself in July 2011 from many sources and it relates to the Brum trade;
Illegal Plying for Hire and Taxi Touting
Discussion Points;
• There are two different offences involved with illegal street hirings by vehicles, or persons, other than licensed Hackney Carriages being driven by Hackney Carriage drivers, which are the only ones licensed to accept street hirings within their licensing authority's area. These offences are plying for hire and taxi touting.
• Illegal plying for hire is at pandemic proportions nationally.
• Taxi touting is also widespread nationally.
• These two illegal practices are more prevalent in large cities and towns such as Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Bristol, Milton Keynes and the like.
• There are massive problems in London too.
• Under the legislation, illegal plying for hire is enforced by council licensing enforcement officers. No licensing authority of any council in the UK has found an effective way to deal with this problem.
• Under section 167, (‘Taxi touts’ - ‘Touting for hire car services’) of The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, taxi touting is an arrestable criminal offence. As such, I believe only a police constable can enforce this legislation.
• As long ago as 27th November 2003, the Home Office announced that taxi touts faced being fingerprinted and having their DNA recorded on the national criminal database. This should have encouraged a greater response from the police, but alas it has not!
• In fact it appears that the police ‘turn a blind eye’ to plying for hire and taxi touting when pubs and clubs are closing. It would appear that the police have a different agenda at these times; getting the streets cleared of the public as quickly as practicable, so as to reduce the risk of public order offences as much as is possible.
• Under the Magistrates’ Court Sentencing Guidelines (May 2008), the maximum fine for taxi touting / soliciting for hire is £2,500. That should be a strong deterrent, but it clearly is not.
• Under the current legislation, illegal plying for hire is impossible to eradicate; it’s like emptying a swimming pool with a teaspoon.
• In Birmingham the problem of illegal standing and plying for hire and taxi touting by Birmingham and ‘foreign’ licensed Private Hire Vehicles and by ‘foreign’ licensed Hackney Carriages is totally and utterly overwhelming. On a scale of one to ten it’s at 14! These violations not only involve Birmingham licensed vehicle, but licensed vehicles from neighbouring authorities and farther afield too, including, but not limited to, from Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull and Walsall. As an example, Hot Line Cars of Streetly are licensed by Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council. Their office is on the Walsall side of Chester Road, Streetly, approximately 30 metres from Birmingham. Walsall licensing department allows their licensed Private Hire Vehicles to display roof signs. Every weekend Hot Line Cars ply for hire and tout in large numbers within Sutton Coldfield town centre and the surrounding area and generally operate just like Hackney Carriages, with roof signs that attract the public to hire the cars illegally.
• The licensing enforcement department are now using, or have been using, the ‘Woodings’ case law (Nottingham City Council –v- Woodings) to prosecute for illegal plying for hire. This does not involve ‘test purchases’ and is much simpler to administrate. Accordingly prosecutions have increased.
• Until Graeme Blakey left the licensing enforcement team recently, prosecutions for plying for hire were reasonably high when compared with other local authority licensing enforcement departments nationally. But even then, these efforts were just scratching the surface. The Hackney Carriage trade reserves judgment on the levels of prosecutions that will be taken post Mr Blakey’s era.
• Reciprocal arrangements between neighbouring council’s licensing enforcement departments and even within a 30-50 mile radius of Birmingham are to be encouraged to try to tackle these dilemmas and the scourge of illegal plying for hire and taxi touting. Such arrangements already exist in the Merseyside region, with licensing enforcement officers from Liverpool, Sefton, Knowsley, Wirral and St Helens having reciprocal licensing enforcement agreements. These were initiated by John Thompson, the Principal Licensing and Enforcement Officer for Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council, who is also the Secretary of NALEO, the National Association of Licensing and Enforcement Officers. His direct line telephone number is 0151 933 4301 and I am sure he would be most helpful in this matter. Ultimately, the ideal situation would be for all licensing enforcement officers to be able to act reciprocally on a national, rather than a regional level.
• Furthermore, there are also the effects of the recent Guildford Borough Council decision by the District Auditor to consider in relation to the funding of Hackney Carriage driver enforcement and Private Hire driver and operator enforcement through licence fees. This decision resulted in a partial refunding of unlawfully collected licensing fees. Briefly, following objections in August 2009 by the chairman of Guildford Hackney Association on three issues relation to Hackney Carriage and Private Hire licensing fees charged by Guildford Borough Council, the District Auditor investigated these matters. The District Auditor’s decision and reasons were contained in a 10-page letter to Guildford Hackney Association dated 10th September 2010. In that letter the District Auditor wrote;
‘Having sought and considered legal advice on this point, I do not agree with the Council’s position that enforcement costs (control and supervision) relating to operators’ and drivers’ licences are recoverable under the Act. In relation to licences for drivers, section 53(2) only provides that the costs of issue and administration are recoverable. Section 53(2) makes no reference to any other type of cost being recoverable. In relation to vehicle and operator’s licences, section 70(1)(c) provides enforcement costs are recoverable for vehicle licences only. It does not refer to enforcement costs being recoverable for operator’s licences. In my view, enforcement costs in respect of drivers (section 53(2)) and operators (section 70(1)(c)) are, by their omission from the wording of the legislation, not recoverable under the Act.’
The District Auditor also made the following recommendation in his decision letter;
Recommendation 5: Exclude enforcement costs from drivers’ and operators’ licence fees.
All of which seems to ‘drive a coach and horses through’ the funding of Hackney Carriage driver and Private Hire driver and operator licensing enforcement nationally.
• The Hackney Carriage trade is aware of a very recent case in Birmingham involving a Private Hire driver who was convicted of illegal plying for hire and then had his Private Hire driver licence suspended for six months by the licensing department. Subsequently, the driver successfully appealed this decision in the Magistrates’ Court.
• At present the reasons for this reversal are sketchy, but apparently the Magistrates believed that he did not benefit from a fair hearing, whatever that may mean. It would appear that whatever Birmingham City Council’s Licensing Committee may try to do for the good of the public the courts do not always see it that way.
• From what appears to be known about this case, the belief is that the Licensing Committee made a decision some time ago to suspend all Private Hire driver licences of those drivers who had been convicted for illegally plying for hire. It is believed that this suspension of licence was then delegated to the licensing department. If this is the case then as a quasi-judicial body the licensing committee may have fettered their discretion in not hearing each case as an individual hearing and deciding upon the facts and merits of each case.
• The idea of introducing immediate revocation of a Private Hire driver’s licence on conviction for illegally plying for hire is generally supported by the Hackney Carriage trade and is certainly supported by the majority of our members.
• This new approach may well be more reliable, because the Licensing Committee are then deciding in the light of a conviction for illegal plying for hire, whether the Private Hire driver remains a ‘fit and proper’ person to hold such a licence. The idea of a suspension of a licence always begs the question, ‘why is a driver not ‘fit and proper’ to hold a licence today, but will be in six months’ time?’
• However, there are now problems with either of these policies in light of the recent Berwick-upon-Tweed and Stockton-on-Tees cases. The scenario is very simple to envisage. A Private Hire driver licence is suspended or revoked on conviction for illegal plying for hire. The ex-licence holder applies to any licensing authority in England and Wales, with the exception of London and Plymouth, to license his saloon vehicle as a Hackney Carriage and obtains a Hackney Carriage driver licence from the same licensing authority. The driver is then able to re-commence working for the same Birmingham licensed Private Hire operator that he previously worked for prior to having his Birmingham Private Hire driver licence suspended or revoked.
• It should be remembered that the licensing authority of Berwick-upon-Tweed Borough Council - which is now part of the unitary authority of Northumberland County Council who are the new licensing authority - issued over 700 Hackney Carriage vehicle licences in just a few years. Almost all of these licensed Hackney Carriages are still working for Private Hire operators remote from their licensing authority, with approximately 400 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, six or so in Chester and Paignton, and handfuls of these vehicles dotted about all over the country.
• The scenario for Birmingham, the UK’s second city, over the next few years is frightening. This phenomenon has just been discovered in these parts and the loss of revenue for Birmingham’s licensing department could be catastrophic. Proprietors and drivers could be looking for the cheapest, least regulated licensing regimes in the country and still be able to continue working in Birmingham, for a Birmingham licensed Private Hire operator, but now with a roof sign displaying ‘TAXI’.
• The good work done by conscientious licensing authorities would be undone in favour of the poorly regulated councils with cheaper licence fees and less rigorous application and grant procedures.
• And briefly London and an insight into how they are trying to tackle the problems of taxi touting and unlawful plying for hire. Since the introduction of the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998, the capitals problems have grown rapidly to the point of almost complete saturation at night, with clipboard operators, known as ‘clipboard Johnnies’ standing in the streets outside popular venues, literally touting for business.
• The Metropolitan Police are very much involved in arresting taxi touts and have produced extra-large windscreen and back window stickers measuring approximately 1 metre by 40cm which read, ‘Driver Arrested on Suspicion of Touting’. These are affixed to the windscreen and back window of the arrested driver’s vehicle and the vehicle left in the road for maximum effect.
• Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, has recently written to the Secretary of State at the Home Office with some excellent, albeit Draconian ideas. These ideas would need amendments to legislation and include, increasing penalties for touting and unlawful plying for hire offences, powers to seize and dispose of vehicles used for touting and unlawful plying for hire offences and clearer definitions and penalties for touting and unlawful plying for hire offences.
• The ‘Rout the Tout’ campaign in London was launched in the summer of 2007 and continues to evolve. But even with the employment of all these resources, there is minimum progress on the evils of plying for hire and taxi touting in London. Hence the Mayor of London’s recent letter to the Home Office.
• And finally, very strong representations should be made by Birmingham City councillors to the Secretary of State for Transport, Members of the House of Commons Transport Select Committee on ‘Issues relating to the licensing of taxis and private hire vehicles’ and the Secretary of State at the Home Office on these very serious issues relating to illegal plying for hire and taxi touting. The more pressure that can be put on Ministers and government departments the better.
_________________
Kind regards,
Brummie Cabbie.
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