Agenda and minutes

Venue: David Hicks 1 - Civic Offices, Shute End, Wokingham RG40 1BN

Contact: Luciane Bowker  Democratic & Electoral Services Specialist

Media

Items
No. Item

1.

Election of Chairman

To elect a Chairman for the 2022/23 municipal year.

Minutes:

Councillor Beth Rowland was elected Chairman for the 2022/23 municipal year.

2.

Appointment of Vice-chairman

To appoint a Vice-chairman for the 2022/23 municipal year.

Minutes:

Councillor Sarah Kerr was appointed Vice-Chairman for the 2022/23 municipal year.

3.

Apologies

To receive any apologies for absence.

Minutes:

An apology for absence was submitted from Councillor Mike Smith.

4.

Declaration of Interest

To receive any declarations of interest

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

5.

Minutes of Previous Meeting pdf icon PDF 444 KB

To confirm the Minutes of the Meeting held on 2 March 2022.

 

Minutes:

The Minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 2 March 2022 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

6.

Public Question Time

To answer any public questions

 

A period of 30 minutes will be allowed for members of the public to ask questions submitted under notice.

 

The Council welcomes questions from members of the public about the work of this committee.

 

Subject to meeting certain timescales, questions can relate to general issues concerned with the work of the Committee or an item which is on the Agenda for this meeting.  For full details of the procedure for submitting questions please contact the Democratic Services Section on the numbers given below or go to www.wokingham.gov.uk/publicquestions

Minutes:

There were no public questions.

7.

Member Question Time

To answer any member questions

Minutes:

There were no Member questions.

8.

Taxi and Private Hire Draft Policy Review pdf icon PDF 341 KB

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

Additional documents:

Minutes:

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.

9.

Taxi Licensing Fees and Charges 2020/21 pdf icon PDF 306 KB

To receive and consider the Taxi Licensing Fees and Charges 2020/21 report.

Minutes:

Ed Shaylor explained that this report was the result of a request by the Committee at its previous meeting, to review and reduce the fees for taxi and school transport operators for the current financial year (2022/23) and arrange refunds for the year 2021/22.

 

The report contained information about the proposal, which reduced the fee to £248 instead of £290.  The background was that two years ago drivers were given a £40 reduction in fees in recognition of the difficulties brought by the coronavirus pandemic.  In 2021/22 the reduction disappeared and the fee went back up to £290 plus a £2 inflation increase.

 

This Committee made a recommendation that the fees this year should be the reduced fee of £248 and this had been incorporated in the fees for 2022/23.

 

The report outlined the option of applying for a supplementary estimate to refund the drivers to give the reduced fee to those who paid the higher fee in 2021/22, as this had not been budgeted for.  This equated to a refund of £42 to 211 drivers (around £8,500).  This recommendation was subject to an Executive decision.

 

The report also outlined the practical difficulties in implementing this proposal. 

 

The Committee was asked to consider if it wished to be consulted on fees and charges each year in respect to the following financial year before it went to Executive and Council.

 

Councillor Younis strongly believed that the proposal should be submitted to Executive for approval and he added that £8,500 was not a significant amount in the context of the Council.  He added that this was a matter of principle.

 

Councillor Burgess agreed with Councillor Younis.  She added that a proposal had been made by this Committee and it had not gone through the proper governance decision making process, which was not acceptable. 

 

Councillor Burgess suggested that, in order to facilitate the administration of this proposal, the drivers that are still active be credited the £40 into their accounts, that would reduce the number of drivers that would have to be manually refunded.

 

Councillor Kerr agreed that drivers should receive the refund.  She wished to emphasise that this situation, where the Committee’s recommendations had not been taken to the correct decision-making process was not satisfactory.  She added that if Legal advisors had been present at meetings, this situation could potentially have been avoided.  She asked that Legal advisors be present at all meetings of this Committee going forward.

 

Councillor Kerr explained that this issue had only been picked up when the Committee had looked at the minutes of the previous meeting.  She suggested that an action tracker of recommendations be produced to ensure that the Committee’s recommendations are acted upon.

 

Councillor Bowring agreed that it was right to give the refund to drivers.  He asked if it was possible to recoup the £8,500 from the 2023/24 budget.

 

Councillor Dennis suggested that if and when the Executive decided not to implement this Committee’s recommendations, that an explanation be given for the reasons.

 

In  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.