NPHTA ACTIVITIES UPDATE


place to help our industry and give some support to our drivers.


A staggered approach – submit the DBS and the Medical, along with the application form and obtain a decision in principle, before obtaining the rest of the required documents, such as driving skills tests, basic skills tests, NVQs or equivalent where required thus saving applicants all the additional costs should they have been rejected anyway.


Short term “provisional” licence – obtain a one-year licence at first application, learn the job and the streets, then you have one year to pass everything else.


Restricted licences – issue a licence that is only for school runs or airport runs, in a distinct colour, which is not for general taxi or private hire work, like an exemption certificate for executive work.


Get back to the office! – if the delays are because officers are still working from home, and not having the same level of access to systems, then the question is WHY? To quote the IoL, Covid cannot be used as an excuse anymore, this is a paid for service, and your customers expect fair value for money, get back to work!


LICENCE SHOPPING? OR JUST SHOPPING?


We did a piece on this recently, and were delighted to receive a follow up from a licensing perspective, so I will keep this brief and maybe next month, for the printed version, we will do a bigger Q & A type article, with views from both regulator (council) and from the trade. It will be an easy to read discussion piece, so any licensing team that is interested in being involved, please reach out. To put this into perspective, imagine if you went to buy a loaf of bread (a badge) and a pint of milk (a


plate), waited for three months to be served at the check-out, by which time the milk had gone sour and the bread stale and mouldy, but you were charged anyway and told you had to go back and get more, and pay again! Would you be happy? Or would you go elsewhere? The same question applies here, if the service is not being provided, your customers will go elsewhere.


MORE RULES – MORE DELAYS?


As if the delays were not bad enough already, we are seeing even more suggested requirements such as:


Counselling training for drivers – this is an idea where drivers will undergo a three-day counsellor training course to identify potential suicidal passengers and to offer counselling in the name of mental health awareness. Counselling is a three-year course, and a very skilled role, done wrong it could tip someone over the edge. Besides which, if “counselling” was offered, the passenger could, as we have seen happen thousands of time, complain about inappropriate discussions, the driver would lose his licence and no longer be “a fit and proper person”. So our survey said, NO, most definitely NOT acceptable; we can only hope this was a misinterpretation of the idea.


Licensing champions – this is a suggestion that someone would be identified to act as champions for their local trade, offering support and assistance in filling out application forms and verifying everything was complete prior to submission - even submitting the forms electronically on behalf of the applicant (by email I would assume). Surely this is the role of a licensing officer? Now I know that many of us already do this to help our local trade and speed things up, but would it be a paid role? Or are those nominated people expected to do this for free?


ASSOCIATIONS • OPERATORS • DRIVERS • VEHICLE OWNERS JOIN US TODAY - STRENGTH IN NUMBERS! 0161 280 2800 info@nphta.co.uk


PHTM DECEMBER 2022 19


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