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Wayne’s World
By
Wayne Casey
All I ever seem to write about are my views on the damn app or the deregulation act, and being the very bastion of consistency I am going to write about them again this month as it seems what I wrote in previous issues of this paper and other magazines, appears to be coming to fruition.
I did actually predict a race to the bottom a few years ago. During these past few months we have seen some local authorities lower entry requirements, topographical knowledge tests being dropped as drivers were merely licensing themselves in other areas to return with their ‘out of town’ licenses.
Whilst this situation was already there in terms of out of town hackney carriages, with areas such as the now defunct Berwick Council, but more recently Rossendale, Gedling, South Lakeland, Copeland and South Cambridgeshire making themselves opportune flags of convenience. The deregulation act brought i the realm of private hire into the cross border mess.
During December, the papers in the South East reported two former Southend private hire drivers who had their licenses revoked, returning to the town in TFL licensed vehicles.
Knowsley district near Liverpool dropped their knowledge test for new applicants during the back end of 2016; they were inundated with applications, so much so, they had to call a temporary suspension on issuing licenses due to the sudden deluge.
A similar thing happened with Trafford Borough Council, with a waiting list of almost 3000 applicants.
You can actually understand a councils thinking in this. It’s not as if the new applications are truly new applications in any sense of the word, the majority of drivers are already working as licensees, just not licensees in these particular boroughs.
Indeed, some councils may be being honest and see a lowering of standards, but the bringing of drivers into their effective control as a worthwhile end goal and hence a worthy price to pay in respect of the lowering of standards. Others, no doubt, see the drivers as sources of income and an income that they should rightly control.
A number of things in this annoy me greatly.
Primarily the out of town phenomenon isn’t particularly new, it’s an issue that certainly my own body (the National Taxi Association) have taken to government on many occasions, pointing out the affect of such a flaw in the system.
Secondly and in respect of the deregulation act. It was pointed out to Baroness Kramer, the liberal peer who pushed the act through, that allowing private hire to operate across district borders would undermine the power of local authorities – she ignored what we said and ploughed on regardless.
Thirdly, those local authorities are lowering their standards.
Notice I wrote their standards, the local authorities put the standards in place, not me and not you, they did it. Very often the licensed trade are consulted on changes, and in being the diverse industry we are there are very often different thoughts.
Personally i have never thought it necessary for private hire to have knowledge tests. Private hire is private hire and therefore a contract between the passenger and the private hire operator. Additionally private hire is pre booked, the driver isn’t instantly hired, the topographical knowledge isn’t therefore (in my view) a great necessity as the driver could route plan upon receiving the private hire.
Naturally my view isn’t shared my all. Some council’s have gone through the process of making private hire drivers pass topographical tests as part of the application process. The decision to bring in knowledge tests are invariably done because of consultation exercises and finalised by council committee.
The same committees then drop the requirement, which makes me wonder how important the requirement was in the first place. We could carry on from there and ask how important age limits (upper and lower) are on vehicles, driving tests for drivers, group two medicals and so on.
The Derby Telegraph this past weekend ran with the furious headline ‘Shock £138,500 cost of new Derby taxi licensing system could force up fees and fares’ in a story surrounding the cost of the new points system that was passed by councillors in order to reduce the number of committee meetings dealing with driver misdemeanours.
My view on these points systems is well known, i see them as an emphatic waste of time and effort, but the article was quite amusing for at least one little gem of information gleaned.
The article stated; ‘It was revealed that almost £140,000 is needed to pay for five additional staff to run the system, which is meant to be self-funding and intended to stop rogue taxi drivers operating in Derby, at a meeting of the city council's licensing committee’.
Apart from me laughing profusely at the cost of the scheme and the apparent additional staff required, I do wonder how on earth it was supposed to stop rogue taxi drivers operating in Derby because surely the previous committee system also had a similar ethos.
The article continued; ‘The new system was originally introduced by Councillor Baggy Shanker, responsible for taxi licensing in the city, who said that it would "provide extra protection for the public".’ I do wonder about these things, perhaps someone from Derby Council could write in and advise me about the ‘greater protection for the public’ the scheme would allow.
The article continued with more dubiousness, ‘It came after a review was carried out following a damning report stating failings in Derby City Council's taxi licensing system. Expert auditors found that the authority's taxi licensing sub-committee had allowed licences for people with criminal records who had committed offences including "hate crime, harassment, intimidation and making improper comments to young women".
In one instance, a taxi driver was granted a licence despite "publishing material threatening or intending to stir up religious/sexual hatred". In the new points-based system, criminal convictions for the most severe crimes including rape and murder will trigger an automatic lifetime disqualification.’
If the above was mentioned in a auditor’s report then the councillors concerned with the granting of licenses should truly take a long look at themselves in the mirror.
However, i wonder if i’m being unduly unfair in that assessment, there isn’t, after all, any indication how far back the criminal records checks went, if they were enhanced checks then you could be judging someone aged 50 for an offence committed when they were a teenager.
There isn’t any information reported on how the drivers with convictions, once granted licenses actually turned out and if they were convicted of further offences whilst driving licensed vehicles.
There is no reference in the article to the actual law, if a council refuses and application the driver has the right of appeal to the judiciary. Indeed as mentioned further up in this article, what’s to stop the driver license themselves in another area and return courtesy of the deregulation act?
Furthermore, a council committee could consider certain previous criminal convictions with the same seriousness as any licensing officer pre-assessment, indeed if a licensing officer was unsure of licensing someone then surely they have a duty to refer the application to a licensing committee.
Reassuringly the £140K cost of the scheme would not be passed onto local taxpayers, instead the council were expected to pass on the costs to the licensed trade, thus the cost of license fees would have to be raised.
In turn, it is easy to suggest that a prohibitive cost of a license would duly make any applicant or indeed existing driver to consider licensing themselves elsewhere, and returning under the relaxed cross border licensing rules.
Let us not forget that whoever is in charge of the department should be in line for a decent pay increase, after all, they now have more responsibility and more responsibility begets more staff under their control.
I mentioned a situation in Southend earlier where two drivers who had previously had their licenses revoked by the local council had returned to the town by virtue of licenses granted by TFL, they have apparently been working for a certain damn app company.
Calls have been made for the damn app company to be banned from the town, which is remarkable in itself because they don’t hold an operator’s license in the district, presumably there’ll be roadblocks on the approaches to Southend.
The above aside the way licensing law operates its the office that accepts the call that must be licensed, in the case of the damn app, presumably the button is pressed on the customers phone and the car request goes into the sky, ending up in some office in London, who then dispatch the vehicle. Nothing illegal with that, under the law as it currently stands.
The crux really comes with the mess the government left and the lack of guidance they offer. It’s one thing for a government minister to stand up in the House of Commons and suggest a scheme like they appear to have in Merseyside, where officers from one area can question drivers licensed by other Merseyside authorities, but quite another to put it in print and come up with a practical scheme.
Why should the licensees of Southend, the tax payers of Southend or the council of Southend have to effectively police vehicles licensed by TFL, the same point applies to every single area that issues licenses knowing they’ll be used across the country.
As everybody knows the out of town thing just isn’t in Southend, its countrywide.
My presumption is that this has to be a deliberate ploy.
Noam Chomsky once wrote: "That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.".
As I’ve written before, whilst I was wondering how much of the recent changes to licensing has been made to undermine the authority of local councils. If they can’t be seen to be able to control licensing, then perhaps the government will hand the power to private capital.
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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin
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