Agenda item

Tom Ince (Principal Compliance Officer) was requested to provide members with the information on the possibility of school only taxi licenses following a request from the Committee on 16 September 2024 and this is attached for members information.

Following a request from the Committee at their meeting on 16 September 2024, Tom Ince (Principal Compliance Officer) had prepared a briefing note which gave consideration to the possibility of the issue of a ‘school only’ taxi licence and this was circulated with the agenda.  The following was highlighted:

·            At present, only 30 local authorities out of 270 local authorities in England offer school only licences.  When Officers reviewed the pros and cons of this offer they concluded that they could not see what the advantage would be to offer this alternative;

·            Of those local authorities that issue school only licenses, most only offer a driver licence and a small number offer a school only vehicle licence, but it was felt that it would not be cost effective for an operator to purchase a vehicle for a large sum of money which could only be used for a specific school contract.  The significant cost of a vehicle would dictate that it needs to be utilised for as great a time as possible to recoup the cost, e.g. to undertake other contracts and standard private hire work and that appeared to be the reason why most other local authorities offer a school only driver licence;

·            All of the other local authorities that offer a school only driver licence insist on both a DBS and medical check as well as safeguarding training before the licence can be issued.  Wiltshire’s standards of checks were some of the highest compared to others and included an enhanced DBS check including a check of the barred lists for children and adults.  It was felt that none of those checks could be dropped for a school only licence and that all drivers would need to be properly vetted to ensure they were suitable and to avoid any criticism;

·            They were often frustrations with the delays that there could be from the processing of DBS applications, they could take anything from a week or so to up to 4 months – obviously this was out the taxi licencing team’s hands but there were often drivers read to start work that were waiting for the DBS check to be processed;

·            As a Council it was not felt that standards should not be reduced and that it was important to carry out the necessary checks to vet drivers appropriately.  The Licensing process for a school only driver licence was unlikely to be much faster than the standard private hire driving licensing process;

·            The cost of the process would not reduce as there was still the same admin time involved to process applications and checks and officers could not see an advantage for an applicant to reduce their earnings potential; and

·            The licence would be very problematic to enforce as it would be difficult to ensure school only licenced drivers did not undertake standard private hire work.  The team only had two Enforcement Officers to cover the whole of Wiltshire and as such could not efficiently enforce a school only licence regime.

The Chairman commented that he felt safeguarding and safety was paramount and would not wish for Wiltshire’s standards to be reduced in any way. 

A committee member thanked Tom and his team for the through research and reasoning and explanation in the briefing note provided. 

A committee member queried if all checks and full licencing process would need to be carried out just for driving children to and from school for a few hours each day to top up their income.  Tom Ince confirmed that this would be necessary as anyone carrying people for reward would be covered by legislation and would need all of the necessary checks and licensing process.

The Chairman commented that it would be useful to have a bigger pool of drivers available that could be called upon to use Wiltshire vehicles to transport the children as required.  Jason Salter (Head of Service – Passenger Transport) agreed that this would be useful but the issue was attracting enough drivers to fulfil that requirement.  This could be reviewed again in the future.

A committee member asked if Link drivers could be called upon to help out.  Tom Ince confirmed that that was a community scheme that was not for profit and they were volunteers who were not driving for commercial gain.

A committee member suggested that maybe a request could be put out to community transport drivers to assist.  Tom Ince reported that this had been raised with some community groups but had not been responded to positively.

Tom Ince reported that he would continue to liaise with Jason Salter around driver need and provide a future updated to the committee as required.

Resolved:

That the Committee note the briefing note and the Officer’s recommendation that school only taxi licences and not pursued at this time.