NEVER MIND #theforgottenindustry – #theinsultedindustry! #theexploited
On Tuesday 21 July 2020, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced that “tough new licensing standards were to be introduced”, to protect “passengers travel- ling in taxis and PHVs, including app-based services.”
At the same time the long-awaited “Statutory Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Standards”, a 40-page document was issued by the DfT, the consultation about which started following the Task and Finish recommendations and ran from February to May 2019, as we published in the PHTM March 2019 edition here:
https://phtm.co.uk/march2019/task-and-finish
Before we begin, it is important to make one thing perfectly clear. All licensing authorities, all operators, all drivers, and indeed the three largest booking and dispatch platforms are in full agreement here: that both public safety and driver safety is paramount during this unprecedented time, and should receive more focus than it has ever seen before. As a result, Autocab, iCabbi and Cordic have joined forces and launched the #GoSafeGoTaxi campaign, embracing the Safe Taxi and Private Hire Charter, which has seen massive support from all quarters: see pages 50-51. The Government should have done that! Instead, this is what they did. So let’s take a practical look at last month’s extremely untimely announcement (the NPHTA responses are in red):
NEW STANDARDS TO IMPROVE SAFETY FOR TAXI AND PHV PASSENGERS
.......BECAUSE THE LIVES AND SAFETY OF DRIVERS IS MEANINGLESS CLEARLY!!!
• Government introduces robust new statutory standards for the taxi and private hire vehicle sector across England and Wales, to protect passengers [only!] Showing lack of care towards the general public, since this actually does include licensees!!
• New recommendations include enhanced DBS criminal record checks for drivers every six months. This demonstrates extremely clearly how little they know about the licensing process within our industry, and the fact they are not aware that most local authorities have mandated that drivers sign up to the DBS update service, rendering this “new recommendation” completely worth- less!! In reality, using this update service has led to local authorities checking the DBS status of drivers up to 20 times over the six-month period if not more!!
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• Latest step taken by Government to reduce the risk of harm to passengers and help improve consistency across local authorities. Passengers travelling in taxis and private hire vehicles (PHVs), including app-based services, will be kept safer under tough new licensing standards intro- duced by the Government, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced today (Tuesday 21 July). But in reality, it achieves nothing, nada, zero, zilch, since there is nothing at all “new” or “latest” about any of this.
• The new (not really) Statutory Taxi and Private Hire Vehi- cle Standards, which local authorities will be expected to implement, (but many already have over two years ago) are designed to improve consistency in the licensing sys- tem, reducing the risk of harm posed to children and vulnerable passengers in the process – following historic serious cases of taxi and PHV drivers abusing their posi- tion of trust. For each of those cases, there are hundreds if not thou- sands of serious attacks and sometimes murders carried out on drivers, but that clearly doesn’t matter!! - which means it isn’t reducing the risks of harm to the majority of victims, in fact it doesn’t even try!!
• Criminal record checks for drivers every six months form a key part of the standards, as does safeguarding training to help drivers identify and respond to passengers that may be being abused or exploited. A recommendation for licensing authorities to consider whether the use of CCTV would be beneficial or proportionate in their areas is also included, which sets out that potential privacy issues must be taken into account. So maybe have a look at CCTV…but be careful, we don’t want drivers having any defence against these spurious allegations we refer to above!! No change from the 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 announcements then??
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said:
“We know the majority of drivers provide an important and safe service for communities, but in light of appalling incidents in places like Rochdale, Oxford, Newcastle and Rotherham, more must be done to protect passengers from those who abuse their position of trust. We know that far more drivers get assaulted and robbed weekly, but that doesn’t matter, right? Notice the list there... four out of 362 local authorities, should never have happened we know, but a lot of the prolonged issues were nothing to do with the taxi industry, being more attributed to the lack of action taken by the authorities, authoorities
AUGUST 2020
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