Issue - meetings

To receive and consider the Taxi and Private Hire Draft Policy Review.

The report was presented by Ed Shaylor, Head of Enforcement and Safety and Keiran Hinchcliffe, Service Manger for Licensing and Processing.

Ed Shaylor pointed out that this was the first meeting of the Committee since the licensing functions had returned to Wokingham from the Public Protection Partnership (PPP).  He added that the transition had occurred smoothly from an operational point of view.

The report contained a draft of the Taxi and Private Hire Policy, it referred to the new government standards for taxi licensing in 2020.  Work had been commissioned from a firm of solicitors called James Button to draft the policy, at the time of commissioning this had been for all the three authorities in the PPP.  It was hoped that after the policy had been considered by Members and gone through the consultation process, that the policy would be the same for all the three authorities; as the taxi service was used and provided across borders.

Having consulted with the Legal department, it was proposed to amend the second recommendation to read:

2) That the Director of Place and Growth in consultation with the Lead Member of the Executive be authorised to release the final revised policy for public consultation.

This proposed change was in line with the Council’s Constitution and would facilitate the timescales, in line with the other local authorities.

Councillor Bowring asked for clarification as to which other local authorities we were looking to align Wokingham’s policy with.  Ed Shaylor confirmed that they were Bracknell Forest and West Berkshire, this was because those two boroughs had jointly commissioned the draft policy and were already working along the same lines.  Due to timescales, it would be difficult to work with Reading or Windsor and Maidenhead.

Councillor Soane asked if the Executive Members for the three authorities would be regularly meeting to discuss this.  Ed Shaylor stated that this was not currently arranged but agreed that this was a good suggestion.

Keiran Hinchcliffe explained this was a first draft of the policy.  The intention was to gather feedback prior to it going out to consultation with the trade and members of the public.  He highlighted the following proposed changes to the policy:

·           The Department for Transport (DfT) recommended that licensing authorities make publicly available a cohesive policy document that brought together all their procedures on taxi and private hire vehicle licensing.  This should include but not be limited to policies on convictions, a ‘fit and proper’ person test, licence conditions and vehicle standards;

·           In July 2020, the DfT issued Statutory Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Standards.  Wokingham already adhered to some of those standards in its existing policy.  This was an attempt to nationalise vehicle, driver and operator standards;

·           The trade was being updated on the likely new standards and procedures.  They were being encouraged to sign up to the DBS subscription service.  This subscription would allow the local authority to run a report to see if there were any changes to those DBS certificates, effectively making  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8