NPHTA ACTIVITIES UPDATE WHAT HAVE WE BEEN DOING FOR YOU?
Article by Dave Lawrie, Director NPHTA 0161 280 2800
info@nphta.co.uk LICENSING DELAYS MERRY CHRISTMAS & A PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR
Stay safe out there and be busy! Have a happy and healthy Christmas and new year, let 2023 be much brighter. As you can imagine, the NPHTA, as your national stakeholders, speaking up for you all around the country, is no easy task. It is voluntary, and it is relentless, but we love it, we love providing that mouthpiece for you all, creating a stronger, unified, structured voice and making a difference.
WELCOME TO THE FAMILY EDDIE GRICE & JP DUFFY OF THE SPHA
We welcomed the Scottish Private Hire Association last month as they joined with the NPHTA as an affiliate group. They have been extremely active and successful north of the border, with Eddie Grice and JP Duffy really pushing the boundaries of negotiation. Therefore, I asked them both to join the NPHTA board. Both the NPHTA board and the SPHA membership voted in favour of this move; so now our members have more local support, and the SPHA have the backing of the NPHTA to further strengthen their brand.
RECENT EVENTS
We have attended the Institute of Licensing events in Birmingham and Stratford on Avon recently, engaging with licensing committee members and officers nationwide, holding seminars with them to explain your issues and suggesting how things could, or should change to improve services they provide to you. It was amazing to meet up with so many decision makers in one place, to have open, honest and informal discussions, to express your concerns, but most of all, to be kept in the loop with any new issues that may be heading your way. It is so much
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As part of our IoL seminar, we discussed the issue of driver shortages, delays in issuing licences and processing applications, and how things could improve. We were quite clear on the fact that the time taken to issue licences is unacceptable, and simply must improve. Some authorities are taking up to three months or more to process an application, by which time the HMRC conditionality check code, the DVSA driver mandate codes, medicals, compliance checks and many other required documents may have expired - not prior to submitting the application, but due to the time it takes for someone to process that application. Is this the fault of the applicant? No, not even a little bit, yet we are seeing applications rejected due to delays, this is NOT acceptable.
CAN WE WORK WHILST WE WAIT?
Applicants are often told that they may not continue to work until such time as their new licence has been issued. Here we refer to the recent Cartledge versus Gedling case, excellently presented and won by Gerald Gourier QC, which clarified that this is not the case at all; provided the full and complete application has been submitted prior to expiry. However, we have heard of operators being contacted and told to disable those applicants pending the new licence being issued. We also see booking platforms (not agents or principles) logging people off due to the licence having expired. There may be insurance issues too, which makes this topic far more important than is actually understood by those who do not rely on a licence in order to feed their families and pay their mortgages.
WHAT DID WE SUGGEST COULD BE CHANGED?
We had some ideas, some of which, we are pleased to say, some local authorities have already put in
DECEMBER 2022 PHTM
more pleasant to have a chat over a coffee (and more) as opposed to the usual formal meetings.
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