HACKNEY & PHV DRIVER GRANTS: THE GLOVES ARE STILL OFF - THE FIGHT CONTINUES
PHTM and the NPHTA have been campaigning for financial support for our trade from the beginning of this pandemic – eleven months have passed - and it has been a hard and frustrating journey.
Following our grant article last month, we are pleased to confirm that many councils, BUT not all, have reacted by either issuing a specific driver grant or informing us that self- employed licensed drivers are actually eligible to claim a grant via their ARG scheme.
Whilst this is commendable and appreciated, the reality is, it is too little, too late. The specific driver grants offered are generally paltry amounts which are inadequate to give any real help towards ongoing business costs. Bizarrely, many exclude those drivers, who despite paying their licence fee to the council, live outside of the area; others pay drivers not vehicle owners and visa-versa.
How can this be an equitable solution?
Furthermore, the issuing of these specific driver grants has meant that taxi drivers, unlike other self-employed businesses, have then been precluded from accessing grants via their council’s main ARG scheme which offers much more money on a regular basis – a clever cost saving move by those councils.
Meanwhile PHTM and the NPHTA have spent weeks emailing and calling councils to try and gain clarification on their ARG scheme eligibility criteria, the wording of which is often un- clear, misleading and contradictory as detailed in great length in last month’s issue. The fact is that some councils have made it easy to claim; whilst others have made it so compli- cated that even accountants are struggling to understand the process, and even worse sometimes when drivers appear to be eligible, they are then excluded for having claimed SEISS.
Sadly, despite PHTM’s best efforts to keep the trade informed there are now tens of thousands of drivers who have received no financial support at all. Even in those areas where ARG grants were available, most drivers were not made aware of their eligibility to claim and have now missed the application deadline.
This is a true travesty!
On the following pages, we list driver grants across the UK and the number of drivers licensed by each council - the disparity is truly shocking!! Thank you to those councils who clearly value our trade. SHAME on those councils who clearly do not - no need to name you as the grants offered say it all!
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We understand that grant allocation is not the remit of licensing departments, some of which we are aware have tried to protect our drivers by offering funding towards PPE and safety screens, as well as safety training. Others have tried to ease the financial burden by: waiving or splitting payments for licence fees, extending licences, waiving MoT’s and compliance checks, being flexible regarding medicals and also allowing voluntary suspension of licences if requested. Some have also gone as far as to extend vehicles beyond their age limit as a result of Covid.
However, this does not in reality give any actual cash to our drivers which can be used to pay ongoing fixed costs. So, whilst we do appreciate your efforts, you must understand that this issue is about so much more than just council income from plates and badges.
ALL councils in England were allocated pro rata budgets to support businesses in their area whose income has been impacted by Covid-19. They had the flexibility to determine the eligibility criteria for these grants which the government expected to be used to help those businesses which – while not legally forced to close – were still severely impacted by the restrictions.
However, as our industry is still governed by a licensing system that allows drivers to be licensed by one council and live and work in another licensing area, this was always going to be extremely difficult to administer.
Every operator, vehicle owner and driver pay a licence fee to a council – their details are already registered and on file. Our Government promised that all businesses would be supported through this pandemic, so why have so many councils left so many of our trade with no funding?
Would it not have been a more sensible, easier and a fairer option to issue a blanket grant to every licensed driver in England, in the same way as the devolved Governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland did?
COUNTRY WALES SCOTLAND N. IRELAND GRANTS £2,000 + £2,000 + £2,000 £1,500 £1,500 + £1,500
DRIVER Nos.
HACKNEY V’CLES
11,952 4,618 P H V’CLES 4,908 38,000 15,953 22,091 9,050 9,000 Combined MARCH 2021
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