Taxi Driver Online

Just when I was saying that the Scottish system was better than the English hotchpotch - all badgeholders here got a more or less automatic £1,500 - Dundee City Council has put a bit of a fly in the ointment by announcing a £1,000 top up

Not that I'm objecting to more money, obviously, but whether other councils will follow suit isn't clear. Maybe they'll all do similar, or none of the others will offer a bean. Suspect it could end up somewhere inbetween, so to a degree like the English system.

But for the Dundee trade, at least it looks more or less automatic if they've already got the £1,500 grant, and looks as if they barely need to even put in a fresh claim

And presumably if it's again just anyone with a Dundee badge then it won't matter where they live.

Pity the Scottish Government hadn't just announced a £1k top up for the whole Scottish trade, though


£900,000 cash boost for Dundee taxi drivers hailed as national example

https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/fp/9 ... l-example/


Image: Evening Telegraph/DCT Media

Dundee taxi drivers will receive £900,000 in financial support from the city council, after bosses approved a grant scheme from Scottish Government funds.

The cash boost has been hailed as a national example by unions, amid calls for the grants to be rolled out across Scotland.

The money will provide a discretionary top-up of £1,000 in addition to £1,500 which has already been paid out.

Mark Flynn, convener of Dundee City Council’s city development committee, said: “This £900,000 extra will help address the ongoing challenges that the sector is facing as a result of the pandemic, in particular restrictions on travel and reductions in footfall.

“There is no need for drivers to contact the council or reapply, we will be in touch with eligible drivers to arrange the top-up payments to be made into their nominated bank accounts.”

Dundee has received a total of £2.4m from Scottish Government in discretionary funds.

The main discretionary fund remains open for other businesses which have not received other support since October and can evidence a loss of income linked to Covid-19 restrictions.

Trade union Unite Scotland welcomed the support for taxi and private hire drivers, and is now calling for all local authorities in Scotland follow the lead of Dundee.

The union has called for the suspension of licensing fees by all local authorities to assist drivers.

‘Desperately needed’

Willie Thomson, Unite industrial officer, said: “We welcome this support from Dundee City Council.

“It’s desperately needed for many drivers whose income has been and continues to be decimated by Covid-19 and the current restrictions.

“Other councils including those of our largest cities, Glasgow and Edinburgh, must follow Dundee’s lead and do more to help workers and families in the taxi trade.”

Discretionary Fund applications can still be made at the Dundee City Council website.

The more money that goes into drivers pockets the better.

The trade has been decimated over the last 13 months, and every penny the trade gets the better.

_________________
IDFIMH

Well it's getting better...or worse, depending on where you are.

Angus Council has trumped Dundee by offering a £2,500 top-up, so that's £4,000 in total. No doubt other councils will follow suit, and no doubt others will be offering nothing.


Haven't really been following all the other grant stuff up here, so not sure where all this cash is suddenly appearing from.

But the taxi unions are now talking about a postcode lottery for grant funding, and they're right

Unite Glasgow have posted this on their Facebook page:



This seems to be the email Angus drivers received from the council:

The money from the UK Government has to be paid out by a certain date. It can't be used for anything other than grants to businesses. So maybe those councils have it left and don't want to give it back. Which is fair enough if it comes to the taxi/PH trade.

I'm guessing that some councils, maybe Glasgow, don't have anything left in the pot so they can't give anymore to the taxi/PH trade. And bearing in mind how many hackneys and PH Glasgow have it would cost them millions and millions.

_________________
IDFIMH

Indeed, but government funding should roughly correlate with population, and population should roughly correlate with badge numbers, therefore it shouldn't matter how many badges there are in total.

It is certainly the case that city/urban areas tend to have more badges per population than more rural areas, so that would at least help explain the pot available in Angus, which is quite rural. If all councils got roughly the same funding based on population, a similar percentage allocation to the trade would result to a bigger grant per badge.

But that doesn't explain Dundee's extra £1k grant, as the Dundee council area is almost wholly urban, therefore quite a high proportion of badges per population.

The scheme was hardly based on need as it was - for example, the weekend, beer/holiday money brigade who don't even run a car were entitled to the same as maybe an Edinburgh owner-driver with an LEVC. But at least everyone got the same amount, and it was reasonably transparent and straightforward.

Now even an owner-driver with an older cheap saloon in Angus will cop £4k in total, while someone in Edinburgh with an LEVC will be stuck on the £1.5k as things stand. Saw one on social media who said his cab is just out of its three-year warranty, yet he's still owing £36k on it

Apparently Perth and Kinross Council have also paid out a £1.5k top-up.

Saw this on Twitter, which was only posted around midnight:


Not sure precisely what the source is for that, but it sounds like it's from someone who knows what they're talking about, so here's hoping

(Cosla is the Scottish equivalent of the LGA.)

This appeared on the Press and Journal's site this morning:


Call for £1,000 grant to get Aberdeen taxi drivers through lockdown

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/ne ... -lockdown/


Image: Chris Sumner/DCT Media/Press and Journal

Council chiefs are being pushed to provide further financial support for ailing taxi drivers in Aberdeen, with the trade badly hit by the pandemic.

And, hey presto, this was sent out a few hours later. If only it was always that easy, eh?



No official word yet that it's being centrally co-ordinated, though, so no guarantee that we'll all cop another grand or so

According to Unite Glasgow there was a £57m fund for the original £1.5k per badge support, but a £20m underspend.

That would roughly equate to the ballpark 72% claim rate I worked out for Dundee and Aberdeen.

And the underspend would also roughly equate to a £1k top-up for each claimant

The thing is why shouldn't drivers be getting this sort of money.

If Westminster has given it to Scotland to give to councils to give to drivers, then it should go to drivers.

Maybe the UK government should have just bypassed all these levels of bureaucracy and just given it straight to drivers.

_________________
IDFIMH