Agenda item

Tom Ince (Principal Compliance Officer) has prepared the attached Taxi Licensing updates as at July 2023 (that was shared with Committee members via email) and October 2023 and will give an overview of the most recent update to the Committee.

Tom Ince (Principal Compliance Officer) referred to the taxi licensing updates circulated with the agenda and highlighted the following: 

·            During Covid there was a fall in drivers and vehicles, and this also had an impact on the Passenger Transport Unit and the ability to transport pupils to their education settings.  There was a targeted campaign to recruit more taxi drivers, and this was now paying dividends with significant numbers of new driver and vehicle applications – driver numbers had risen by 80 or 11% over the last 11 months.  There were driver applications from outside of Wiltshire and it was understood that neighbouring authorities were not currently licensing drivers and due to the taxi licensing teams current staffing issues this was putting pressure on the team to get the applications processed; 

·            There had been no increase in October 2023 in vehiclenumbers, but the positive news was that last week the Government had issued new best practice guidance for taxi licensing.  A lot of the recommendations made had already been implemented by the team.  There were now new powers to challenge those drivers from outside of Wiltshire who take on the bulk on their work outside of Wiltshire where the licensing team now have the authority to refuse the issue or renewal of their licence.  There had been an increase in drivers from outside of Wiltshire and this could now be challenged as to the benefits for Wiltshire; 

·            The team would be reviewing the best practice guidance and look to make any relevant changes to the Councils Guidelines for Hackney carriage/private hire drivers, vehicles and operators which would then be bought to the Committee for approval.  Consideration would also be given to the climate emergency and look at how they could encourage green vehicles with the possibility of moving to an emissions-based criteria rather than setting the maximum age of vehicle to be licensed; 

·            The team held the second of the newly established trade representative meetings in September 2023 where the trade raised concerns over window tints and a report proposing changes to this would be considered later at the meeting; 

·            The team continue to work on introducing a single licensing zone for hackney carriages in Wiltshire, however current workloads and the implementation of a new system do not provide the team with sufficient resource to implement a single zone at this time as the current focus was on processing all licensing applications within the required timeframes; 

·            The team continue to enforce the Council’s policies in relation to taxi licensing ensuring that there is a visible presence on the rank, however staff sickness had seen the level of enforcement reduce more recently and not what they would have liked to have seen.  A new Officer was due to start in the team tomorrow and the plan was to get them out visiting the ranks to be a more visible presence.  Penalty points were issued to 3 drivers during October 2023 and 3 drivers were suspended during that time; and 

·            There seemed to be a move away from the hackney carriage work of picking up passengers from the streets and off ranks and more private hire drivers as they can work anywhere in the country and that related to the changes in the economy and the lower footfall in our town centres and how society is changing. 

In response to questions from the Committee Members the following was clarified: 

·            All drivers are required to complete safeguarding training prior to the issue of their licence and every 3 years after that; 

·            The team did look at introducing a level of English but Transport for London had had to take that back after legal challenge – they would look at best practice standards for levels of English but there was no formal language test– this was being looked at nationally and they would follow any guidance that is shared on that.  All drivers do have to have a British driving licence; 

·            The Council’s Civil Enforcement Officers could carry out informal enforcement at taxi ranks if they were able to and could check on those parking in loading bays, displaying correct licence plates, smoking in vehicles and wearing their name badges etc; 

·            Vehicles are MOT tested every six months; 

·            Officers were not looking to reduce the age criteria of taxis to encourage more drivers as they wished to enhance the service provision to the passengers but there was a view that there could be a move to vehicles emission-based criteria for the licensing of vehicles; 

·            30% of private hire vehicles and 6% of hackney carriages were wheelchair accessible vehicles (WAV).  This relates to the type of work that they do as most wheelchair users would pre book a private hire vehicle as opposed to pick up one off the rank; 

·            There were 18% of private hire drivers outside of Wiltshire and 3% of vehicles were registered outside of Wiltshire.  There were very few electric vehicles.  Private hire vehicles could not charge their cars on a rank, and it was felt that there was a lot more work to do to electrify the Wiltshire taxi fleet but of course it was important to move forward with the electric agenda.  Other Local Authorities were issuing a grant offer of a free licence as an incentive, although this would not be that much of saving for a driver of £227 for a vehicle licence against a purchase of a £50k vehicle.  Capital bid funding would be needed to offer some sort of grant scheme to fund the installation of chargers in our car parks and on taxi ranks; 

·            For many drivers, school contracts form a large percentage of their income and there seemed to be less vehicles out on the road for the public as the demand had dropped; 

·            The Government best practice had highlighted the need for accessible taxi ranks and there was work to do on improving the numbers of WAV as there was an unmet demand for the school contracts and for the general taxi provision in Wiltshire; 

·            Data could be obtained on the miles travelled by taxi drivers from the data collected at the MOT tests but this was a very resource intensive exercise and was not possible at the current time.  Previous data had indicated that the around 12 million miles were travelled per year by taxi drivers;

·            There had been previous mention of having a Schools only licence for drivers but that had not progressed as there was not currently any benefit for drivers for this as they would still have to undertake all of the checks and training (apart from the removed knowledge test from the original geographic check)  and pay the same fee and then not be able to take on any other work if that was available to the – it would involve an element of trust and would be difficult to enforce so was not an option for the Council at this point in time; 

·            A number of taxis used to transport children in the north of the county were from Swindon so it would be difficult to enforce various things.  Child Sexual Exploitation awareness was part of the safeguarding training, and any incidents would be reported to the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) – the licensing team would obviously be involved if there was an allegation against a driver; and 

·            It was felt that hybrid taxis would be the next step and once Officers had completed a review of the Taxi Licensing Guidelines following the best practice guidance issued they would look at what they could implement to ensure that the trade is viable as they do need to strike a balance between the green agenda and allowing the trade to be able to operate at a profit. 

The Chairman commented that he had seen social media posts to remind patrons to not drink and drive and arrange safe transport home whilst out celebrating over the festive period and wondered if the taxi team would also be sending out similar messages.  Tom Ince reported that he would work with the Council’s Communications Team to share similar messages.   

John Carter reported that he was meeting with the Police this week and would also look to share similar messagesregarding drinking and driving. 

Resolved: 

That the Committee notes the Taxi Licensing Team updates.