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PostPosted: Thu Mar 29, 2018 10:40 am 
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ill 5hit up county and ask for any contact details for this "fund"

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 29, 2018 11:08 pm 
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Sounds like a good plan. :)


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PostPosted: Fri Mar 30, 2018 10:58 am 
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cant be "by price" that 1 CT wins about 10 runs out the same school on a fleet of 2017 plated lwb buses and cant be coincidence...


10 drivers and 10 Escorts dont come cheap either

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PostPosted: Sun Apr 15, 2018 12:36 pm 
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Okay, having done a bit more digging around, I remember reading a case regarding Glockner Ambulanz in Germany dating back to 2001. The similarity there was a private ambulance company providing urgent and non-urgent patient transport, competition laws and the like. a paragraph in that case stuck in my mind defining what is construed in the UK as "hire and reward". It is defined as "economic activity regardless of the status of the operator".

The Glockner case relied on case law dating back to the case of Pavlov & others in Holland, which then relied on earlier case law dating back to 1978. This link is from the Pavlov case"

74 The Court has consistently held that, in the context of competition law, the concept of an undertaking covers any entity engaged in an economic activity, regardless of the legal status of the entity or the way in which it is financed (see, in particular, Case C-41/90 Höfner and Elser [1991] ECR I-1979, paragraph 21, Joined Cases C-159/91 and C-160/91 Poucet and Pistre [1993] ECR I-637, paragraph 17, Case C-244/94 Fédération Française des Sociétés d'Assurance [1995] ECR I-4013, paragraph 14, Albany, paragraph 77, Brentjens', paragraph 77, and Drijvende Bokken, paragraph 67).

75 It has also been consistently held that any activity consisting in offering goods and services on a given market is an economic activity (Case 118/85 Commission v Italy [1987] ECR 2599, paragraph 7, and Case C-35/96 Commission v Italy [1998] ECR I-3851, paragraph 36).



So as these CT outfits are working for "economic activity" they come under the same competition laws as the rest of us! No ifs or buts, it is cast-iron case law.
It could also be argued that volunteers providing patient transport for 45p a mile and doing taxi/ph drivers out of fares are an undertaking engaged in economic activity. What they are doing is anti-competitive by avoiding licencing regulations.


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PostPosted: Sun Apr 15, 2018 5:05 pm 
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There's actually several aspects to this matter. First, hire and reward. There is a basic misunderstanding across the board of the meaning of Hire and Reward. Some think if the driver isn't being paid then it's not for hire and reward, as the driver isn't being rewarded. The other is "is the vehicle being used for hire and reward?" So we can have the situation of a volunteer driver driving a CT minibus that people have paid the CT operator money to travel in. Is it hire and reward? The answer is Yes, because the operator is making a charge for it. If a PSV driver volunteers to drive a minibus for free, is he driving for hire and reward? Again the answer is Yes because the operator is getting paid for hiring the bus out.

It is only if the minibus is operated and owned by something like a scout group and makes no charge for anyone travelling that it is not for hire and reward, regardless of whether or not the driver is being paid. If the scout group charges its scouts for going out, then it is hire and reward as it is for financial activity, regardless of the status of the operator.

The operator will need a PSV O licence, a transport manager, be of financial standing and obey all the PSV regulations. the only slight difference is on a restricted licence where running a minibus is not a major part of the business. So the old folks luncheon club will need a restricted O licence if they only have one minibus, more than one is not allowed.

The other major factor is the various competition Acts both in European and UK law. As I pointed out in my previous post there's case law going back to 1979 which defines that. So when it comes to the UK Government arguing the case for keeping the s19 minibuses, case law from all round is against them. They don't have any idea of their own laws.

The simple answer for the CT operators is obey the law, get properly licenced. There's currently an unknown amount of c19 permits in issue, the DfT haven't got an idea of how many, possibly up to a million not all in use. As for drivers, they haven't got any idea. How many minibuses? Again not a clue!

As for licenced PSVs, theres about 90,000 PSVs licenced at the moment with around 120,000 psv drivers and about 70,000 operators on the books. So that gives some idea of the scale of the problem.


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PostPosted: Fri Apr 27, 2018 4:48 pm 
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Here's a copy of a letter I've just had published in Bus & coach Buyer this week (27/4/2018) This has been cut down slightly for the published edition:

The s19 debacle is a mess. There has been a basic misunderstanding for years as to what is “hire and reward”.

There is the concept that it is whether or not the driver gets paid. That is my opinion is a false belief. I run a couple of vintage buses which rarely make a profit and there is no money to pay me to drive them, yet I have to have the PSV licence and DCPC. I am not driving for hire or reward. The company “could” be viewed as one of the “not for profit” concerns, but as it is a registered private company with a couple of shareholders, it is viewed as running with a vied to making a profit.

The other concept of “hire and reward” is for the hire of or right to travel in the vehicle. This I would suggest is a more realistic view and is also in agreement with various laws both in the UK and in Europe. The UK laws and case law date back to the early days of horse-drawn buses and hackney carriages, back to the 1862 quaintly named Town Police Clauses (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act which dealt with hackney carriage licencing amongst other things. Various Road Traffic Acts have dealt with the construction and use of motor buses, the licencing of them (not always as crystal clear as they could be), and various High Court interpretations of those laws. In almost every case “hire and reward” has meant to pay for the right to be carried by bus, coach or taxi.

There is also the matter of unfair competition, a more recent entrant into the argument.

Since then the European Courts have more clearly defined matters in various cases dating back to about 1979, before the UK was fully in the common market. If we look at the case of Glockner Ambulanz, referral there is made to the status of “undertakings” https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content ... 9CJ0475#MO.


Paragraph 19 clearly defines an “undertaking” for the purpose of competition laws.

Applicability of Article 90(1) of the Treaty (now Article 86(1) EC)

19 As regards the first of those points, the concept of an undertaking, in the context of competition law, covers any entity engaged in an economic activity, regardless of the legal status of the entity or the way in which it is financed (Joined Cases C-180/98 to C-184/98 Pavlov and Others [2000] ECR I-6451, paragraph 74). Any activity consisting in offering goods and services on a given market is an economic activity (Pavlov and Others, paragraph 75).


Therefore we can safely say that as CT groups engage in economic activity, regardless of the way they are financed, they come under various Competition laws.

If we look at the ECJ Lundberg case, this deals with the requirement for tachographs when conveying own goods in lorries. The law has been reported by the EU as applying equally to conveyance of passengers and helpfully defines what we call “hire and reward” actually is.

We also have the case of Rout-v-Swallow Hotel in the UK courts where a restaurant provided free coach and minibus transport for its customers. It was deemed that as part of the cost of the meal went to pay for the free coach, an Operators Licence was required as it was “hire and reward”. So this would also blow out of the water the DfT’s argument for old folks luncheon clubs! There is one near me on the Romney Marsh which operates a fleet of 3 minibuses at £5 a trip taking people to and from their day centre. That is, according to the above laws, “hire and reward”.

I don’t think there’s any PSV operator who would want to see the CT groups put out of business as most of them do a good job. But they need to obey the law, and the UK government needs to realise that their guidance is often wrong or misleading, usually to suit their own ends. Maybe some of the billions that have been raised over the years and given to CT groups could have been channelled into proper PSV driver training instead of the watered-down version their drivers have undergone. Has anybody actually worked out the economics for running a CT group? For instance in my area there’s a number of charity sponsored minibuses that sit around all year doing very little. Maybe if the groups that “benefit” from those buses had hired one from a PSV operator, it would have been far cheaper.

There’s been hearsay reports of second hand charity minibuses being sold after 10 years with very little mileage on the clock! On the other hand there’s CT groups with over 500 minibuses, usually coming with highly paid executives using volunteers to drive the minibuses! It is time for them to get legal and get their own house in order and to obey the law. If any PSV operator ran in those circumstances, it would have been shut down years ago. It is also time the CT groups read up on what the law actually says rather than using rhetoric all the time.


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PostPosted: Fri Apr 27, 2018 5:14 pm 
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Good on you.

Please keep up the good work.

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PostPosted: Fri Apr 27, 2018 8:06 pm 
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Thanks, but we've got Martin Allen and Ian Ashman to thank for most of the hard work on this.

Heard recently that Medway have terminated all the contracts held by Medway Norse, a CT company jointly owned with Norfolk County Council. No further details yet.

One point to remember, is that all these definitions of "hire and reward" etc also apply to taxi and private hire services, so in effect all the hospital cars at 45p/mile should be licenced PH or hackney with properly licenced drivers.


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PostPosted: Mon Apr 30, 2018 11:22 am 
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Quote:
The company “could” be viewed as one of the “not for profit” concerns, but as it is a registered private company with a couple of shareholders, it is viewed as running with a vied to making a profit.


thats whats here

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/comp ... 7/officers

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PostPosted: Mon Apr 30, 2018 10:29 pm 
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Not so, there's no shareholders. see the other page on the Companies house website.

Company type
Private Limited Company by guarantee without share capital use of 'Limited' exemption

No share capital. However, this doesn't mean the company can't trade and make a profit. Any profit has to be ploughed back into the company for its benefit. Capital Gains Tax must be paid on any profits made. I've been on "the committee" (the board of directors) of limited liability companies in the past so know how they work. Do a bit more digging and you may find that company has some other companies that ARE trading companies, but the only shareholder may be the "not for profit" company! This is how charities get round the law on not being allowed to trade. they own a trading company and all profits get donated to the charity. Simples.

A company limited by guarantee limits the liability of its "shareholders" (members) to a fixed amount, typically £1, in the event of the company being wound up or liquidated. Members do not own any shares in such companies, but may benefit equally in the event of the company being wound up.

An instance is a model railway club I belong to in London. It owns premises in Kings Cross, now worth probably £2m-3m, but bought as a bomb site in 1960 for peanuts. If it closed down and sold the premises, I would benefit to the tune of the sale amount divided by the number of paid up members, typically about 130 people. That's a good reason for paying the subs every year. :)

All these CT groups operate for fiscal activity and need to be properly licenced.


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PostPosted: Fri May 04, 2018 12:17 am 
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roythebus wrote:
Thanks, but we've got Martin Allen and Ian Ashman to thank for most of the hard work on this.

Heard recently that Medway have terminated all the contracts held by Medway Norse, a CT company jointly owned with Norfolk County Council. No further details yet.

One point to remember, is that all these definitions of "hire and reward" etc also apply to taxi and private hire services, so in effect all the hospital cars at 45p/mile should be licenced PH or hackney with properly licenced drivers.


Martin is doing all the leg work while the others look on ready to pounce and make money when it's all sorted out.


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PostPosted: Fri May 04, 2018 9:56 am 
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Yes, Martin has devoted the last 5 years of his life to this. I've been in contact with him all that time helping to spread the word. I don't want any glory, that is Martin's and Ian Ashman who has also been instrumental in getting this matter sorted.


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PostPosted: Fri May 04, 2018 11:22 am 
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Nidge2 wrote:
roythebus wrote:
Thanks, but we've got Martin Allen and Ian Ashman to thank for most of the hard work on this.

Heard recently that Medway have terminated all the contracts held by Medway Norse, a CT company jointly owned with Norfolk County Council. No further details yet.

One point to remember, is that all these definitions of "hire and reward" etc also apply to taxi and private hire services, so in effect all the hospital cars at 45p/mile should be licenced PH or hackney with properly licenced drivers.


Martin is doing all the leg work while the others look on ready to pounce and make money when it's all sorted out.


I emailed him and had no reply

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PostPosted: Fri May 04, 2018 10:06 pm 
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He's a busy man I know! Have you used his current email address? I can send it by pm if you want.


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PostPosted: Wed May 09, 2018 8:59 am 
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While dropping off on my School run today I noticed a gleaming new Local Authority Minibus sitting there, Didn't seem to Pick up or Drop off but It could have been doing a trial run, it had the Usual Yellow School Children signs on the rear window, had to be a 16 seater...Yet when I check the GOV.UK "Find lorry and bus operators" I see no PSV licenses registered to my Local Authority...100s of HGVs yes but no PSVs...makes me a bit suss about their plans.

Can LA's carry out School contracts with 9 t0 6 seaters without them Having a PSV operators license or a Restricted license and the Driver PSV licensed? If they had a PSV licence it would show on the GOV.UK site surely.

I'm just wondering what they are up to now..they used their own Minibuses about 8 years ago to do a few School runs but with the EU Rulings with regard Hire and Reward those would not be legal today without fully licensed Bus and Drivers..is that correct?


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