Taxi Driver Online

I've lost touch with some of the legal niceties since the Dereg Act. Sorry!

Is it still the case that the ops licence and PHV licence are both issued by the same LA?

Does the ops licence have to apply to an ops base in the same LA?

Is the address of that ops base one of public record?

Is it possible to have an ops licence in one borough applying to a base address in another borough?

Our LA are of the opinion that they don't have to disclose the address of a particular Private Hire Operator. This could be because, to the best of my knowledge, the operating base is about 30ft outside the borough.....according to the signs on the roadside and the borough boundary map! Egg on face, methinks!

Yes.


Yes.


Should be.


No.


If it's a person's own address then maybe there are data protection issues. Why not just do a FoI asking if they license any PH operator outside of their licensing district, and, if they do, ask under what provision in what act allows them to do so.

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IDFIMH

We have 2 company's here with Rutland private hire vehicles and neither of them have a base in Rutland.

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Grandad,

But you have a knob head of a licensing department.

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IDFIMH

subtle

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

An earlier post recommended putting in a FOI request which we had already done.
Our Request was:-
Under the Freedom of Information Act I request the following information:-
With regard to the Uber Private Hire Operators Licence in Fareham:-

1. What is the full trading name, company number and registered office address for the company?
2. What is the address in the Borough where Uber are proposing to run their private hire business?
3. Please give the full name of any director or secretary of the company.

Answer was:-
Freedom of Information Request

I confirm that the Council holds the information you have requested but is unable to disclose the information to you at this time. We believe this information is commercially sensitive in accordance with S43 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosure will prejudice the commercial interests of Uber.

S43 states that “information held by a public authority is exempt information if its disclosure under (the Act) would or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person (including the public authority holding it)”.

I have consulted with Uber and enquired whether they are happy for the release of the information to you. As Uber have had a negative response from existing operators in other areas including physical violence they consider this information to be commercially sensitive at this time.

Under the FOI Act, section 43 is a qualified exemption. This means that even if information falls within an exemption, a public authority is under a duty to consider whether disclosure should nevertheless be made in the public interest. The public interest test is considered below:

The Public Interest Test

In determining whether or not the public interest in withholding information outweighs the public interest in disclosing information, the Council considered the factors favouring disclosure and the factors against disclosure.

Factors considered in favour of disclosure:

1) None – We have confirmed Uber have an address in the Borough.

Factors considered in favour of withholding the information:

1) As Uber are not yet operating in the Borough there is a real risk that they will suffer a negative reaction including physical violence should that address be made public at this time

Having considered the exemption under S43 and the public interest, the Council’s decision is to not to disclose the requested information. This decision is based on the grounds set out above and it is considered that the factors in favour of withholding the information outweigh those in favour of disclosing it at this time in this particular case.

The suggestion was to ask questions on a different tac to what was asked and refused.

If you change your request to what was suggested they could not claim an exemption.

A simple list of all held PH ops licences would be start

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most