UNITE VIEWPOINT... HOW TO CREATE A SOCIAL SUB-CLASS
Once again we welcome Sean Ridley of Unite, discussing a rather hot topic:
Thank you all once again for your continued kind words
and feedback with regard to my previous articles.
This month I turn our attention to those three letters that continue to enrage the national cab trade worse than “BBC”… or even “VAT”. The three letters to which I refer are of course the IoL, this being the abbreviation for the Institute of Licensing.
Most readers will by now be aware of the IoL’s ‘Guidance on determining the suit- ability of applicants and licensees in the hackney and private hire trades’.
In my January article I questioned exactly who they are, as I know many of you share my confusion. Actually the IoL is a limited company by guarantee, and also a regis- tered charity. There are many other trade-related organisations with similar status whose influence over local authori- ty licensing departments is next to nil. How is that then? What is the IoL’s magic touch which has galvanised so many councils into adopting their guidance? Something to do with the authors, I expect…
The proliferation of their Guidance, which seems now to be spreading faster than the coronavirus, has the IoL as the ‘super- spreader’.
articles, local authority measles at work again!
What worries me immensely is not only the quality of the guidance, but its proportion- ality. I also question their independence?
Let’s break this down into bite sized chunks...
I took a look at their website: (
www.instituteoflicensing.org), only to be met by a fairly large banner link (some would call it an advert) on the front page to Uber’s website. Question: can any organisation be truly independent or indeed trusted to act impartially when they openly state that Uber (or any other cab firm for that matter) is their partner???
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Amongst the IoL’s guidance it lays out some fairly harsh penalties for local author- ities to hand down to those ‘guilty’ of a raft of misdemeanours, the most pernicious of which being their view(s) on DVLA penalty points: “...Where an applicant has 7 or more points on their DVLA licence for minor traffic or similar offences, a licence will not be granted until at least five years have elapsed since the completion of any sentence imposed....”
Now excuse me but...! Don’t we already have a perfectly serviceable set of Statuto- ry Acts of Parliament, such as the Road Traffic Act and the Construction and Use Regulations 1986 etc? These are perfectly good pieces of legislation and I believe that the DVLA is a perfectly good govern- ment department which has shown by its historic actions, that it is fit for purpose - unlike perhaps the record of some local authorities in terms of the execution of their duty of taxi licensing.
I must say that the IoL guidance is possibly one of the most egregious documents that I have ever had the misfortune to read!
It is, as I have referred to in earlier
Space in this article does not allow me to dis- sect the guidance line by line, but as we are seeing, the national cab trade is now waking up to the crass unfairness and lack of propor- tionality of the document and what seems to be the IoL’s general view, which seems to concur with some licensing officers. Exactly as I highlighted in another article, “...whilst presenting the local (cab) trade as a bunch of untrustworthy rogues to be harshly regu- lated for everyone’s protection...”
Whilst the IOL will say that this is merely guidance, most officers around the coun- try will endorse it - and what’s more, advocate that their member authorities adopt it in its entirety - and sadly I think the IoL knows this!
Perhaps my biggest concern here - and I know that it is not an isolated view - is that this document has the ability to create a ‘social sub-class’ in which to place the cab trade. No, that’s not harsh! Consider this: I say all of the foregoing against a backdrop of a com- parison to what is applied to
the drivers of PCVs and LGVs. This guid- ance significantly disadvantages taxi/PHV drivers against their PCV and LGV counter- parts who are potentially driving much bigger vehicles (including buses and coaches) in similar roles involving and car- rying potentially the same broad spectrum of the general public, including in some cases unaccompanied and vulnerable pas- sengers, but in much larger numbers. In effect other vocational drivers would not be subject to these (some would say) dra- conian provisions (sorry, Guidance), yet cab drivers would!? Any reasonably mind- ed individual is left to merely wonder and question why?
In general I am of course fully supportive of the idea and concept that drivers should be of sound character and display a high stan- dard of conduct together with an enduring duty of care to the general public.
However, I am acutely concerned that this Guidance represents the use of an industrial sized sledgehammer in order to crack even the smallest of nuts. I am further concerned that this has the ability to treat taxi/PHV licensees as a ‘sub-class’. As already said, it appears to represent an attempt to rewrite the Road Traffic Act as regards cab drivers. I also worry regarding consideration (if any) of the human rights of drivers.
Bearing in mind all of the foregoing, one is left to wonder why and how, what seems to be a ‘ragtag and bobtail’ slack handful of lawyers and inexperienced local govern- ment officers feel that they are infinitely more learned than the government depart- ment that is and always has been tasked with the duty of the administration of road safety nationally.
I’ve already heard cases of this Guidance in (im)practical use and personally can’t wait for the inevitable litigation that will clearly
MARCH 2020
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