Taxi Driver Online

This is quite a difficult read, and some of it seems a tad misleading. An overseas check for anyone outside the UK for only six months does seem quite onerous, but it's not a subject I know a lot about


Criminal record rule change to help potential taxi and private hire drivers from overseas get licences

https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glas ... p-25474577

Concerns had been raised with the council over potential drivers being excluded from applying to work in the city under the old rules.

Glasgow’s licensing rules on criminal record checks will be changed to help potential taxi and private hire drivers who have lived abroad.

Concerns have been raised recently that potential drivers have been banned from applying due to the current procedures.

People who have lived in the UK for several years but cannot get a criminal record check from a country where they previously stayed for six months or more have been unable to submit a licence bid to the council.

Now, the city’s licensing committee has agreed to change the rules so that criminal record checks in countries where a new applicant has lived for six months or longer, since the age of 16, are only needed if they have not lived in the UK for five consecutive years.

If the applicant has previously held a licence in Glasgow, a criminal record check would only be required for any period, of six months or longer, they have spent outside the UK since the last licence expired.

A council official explained: “If you are a first time applicant and you have lived in the UK for a period of five consecutive years prior to applying, you do not need a criminal record check.”

All drivers of taxi and private hire cars must be considered a “fit and proper person” by the licensing authority.

Applications are passed to Police Scotland for consultation but when an applicant was born, or has lived, outwith the UK, the force is “unable to provide comment on when an applicant entered the UK and/or whether or not the applicant has accrued any convictions outwith the UK.”

Before January 2010, only applicants born outwith the UK had to produce a criminal record check from their country of origin, translated into English. At a meeting in January 2010, the committee agreed to extend the need for a criminal record check to all applicants who had lived outside the UK for six months.

Criminal record checks are expected to be dated within six months prior to an application being submitted. Where the check is from an EU country and is not in English, a multilingual standard form or a certified translation carried out by a person qualified to do so under the law of a member state must be included.

Checks from all other countries must be translated into English and verified by the relevant UK based embassy, consulate or high commission.

It's presumably obvious what the official is getting at here, but reading it literally, what they say is surely incorrect - it makes it sound like you don't need any vetting checks at all if you've lived in the UK for at least five years

so Glasgow are going to make it easier for foreign criminals to get a badge

coming soon to Glasgow taxi wars that'll make the ice cream wars look like a dust up in a school playground

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

Spot the deliberate mistake at the top of the thread earlier, which has been amended by adding the highlighted words

Meant to say an overseas check for anyone abroad for only six months sounds a bit onerous, but it sounded like I was saying an overseas check is too onerous under any circumstances

As always there are two sides to this.

Is it fair that an applicant that was born and bred in the UK can be checked back to birth, yet a person not born and bred here is only going to be checked for as short a time as five years?

But is it fair that an applicant coming from a country that has dubious human rights, with no viable vetting procedure, is basically prohibited from ever getting a license?

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IDFIMH

Yes it is fair . On this site we read too many reports of Taxi Drivers from overseas being involved in sexual assaults and
various other crimes, if they had a deeper background check they may have been weeded before gaining an lisence.

I think the problem is having a hard and fast rule.

Councils should, IMO, judge every application on its own merits.

Should a council automatically turn down an application for an 18-year-old, who has been in the country 5 years, but is struggling to get a check from the country his family fled in fear for their lives?

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IDFIMH