Derby taxi drivers scandal: Auditors say changes needed to give public confidence againThe awarding of Derby taxi licences to criminals who are not "fit and proper" to hold them, has prompted auditors to say the council should look at new ways to decide applications.
It follows the experts from Grant Thornton finding that drivers with criminal records were, as recently as last year, being granted taxi licences by the city council's Taxi Licensing Sub Committee. Licences were given to people who had committed offences including "hate crime, harassment, intimidation and making improper comments to young women".
And the report says that, "on occasion, it was clear that councillors knew applicants on some panels and were keen to draw out the impact of withholding a licence on the applicants' livelihoods".
The auditors have drawn up a list of 12 recommendations for how the council can improve its governance. They also reflect several other problems the auditors found including:
•The mismanagement of a pay review at the council cost the taxpayer an extra £1.2 million as well as "imposing stress on staff".
•A project to replace the council's payroll system was not properly managed, leading to delays and extra consultancy work that cost the taxpayer £520,000 ahead of it finally being implemented in 2014.
There has been a "breakdown in trust" among the city's political groups. Now an action plan has been drawn up by the city council to look at the 12 points, which will be discussed at a special meeting of all the authority's councillors next Friday. The action plan has yet to be made public.
But the auditor recommendations around the taxi licence issues are:
•The council should ensure that it continues to monitor councillor interventions in operational matters relating to taxi licensing, and "takes robust action when they have exceeded their proper role".
•It should review the quality of decision-making by the taxi-licensing committee and take appropriate action if it becomes evident that poor decisions are being made.
•It should consider, whether different administrative arrangements, are required to "create confidence in the integrity of the taxi-licensing function".
The auditors said that the council had already been "proactive" in dealing with issues. Work has included getting officers to recommend to councillors what decision should be made on each licence applicant and expanding the size of the Taxi licensing sub-committee from three to five members in a bid to add "additional robustness to decision making". This would make it more difficult for a driver to avoid certain councillors being on their panel.
But the auditors added that it may be necessary to consider the "radical option" of having officers deciding applications instead of councillors.
Chief executive of the city council Paul Robinson previously said one option to "improve transparency" would be to introduce a points system, whereby a person must get a certain score in order to hold a licence. He said that would take criminal records into account.
Friday's meeting had, by law, to be held within a month of the auditor's findings being published.
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