COUNCIL CLANGERS
CHESHIRE WEST & CHESTER COUNCIL BLUNDER EXPOSES OVER 1,300 EMAIL ADDRESSES
Cheshire and West Chester Council has apologised after more than 1,300 pri- vate email addresses were accidentally shared. The Chester Standard reports that the incident occured when the council recently sent a generic email to 1,326 people in the borough, advising them of changes to taxi legislation. But a member of council staff inadver- tently failed to use the blind copy function (BCC) to mask all recipient details. As a result, all email addresses – personal and business – were unin- tentionally exposed to the recipients.
The council said no other personal data was involved, but an email subsequently sent out by the council said: “We do not believe the incident posed any significant risks to individuals in that only email addresses were involved, however, we are aware that a proportion of the email addresses have been misused by one of the recipients in that they have been used to contact individuals about an unrelated matter. “As a result of this, that individual would be considered in breach of their own data protection responsibilities not to
use data they should not have had access to, and as a result we’ve taken additional steps to address the issue. “I would like to take this opportunity to apologise for any concern or inconve- nience caused and assure you that we are taking steps to ensure we address the identified shortcomings in this area.” A council spokesman stated that the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) had been informed and following assurances that steps have been taken to prevent it happening again, no further action will be taken by the ICO.
PLYMOUTH COUNCIL BLUNDER MEANS PRIVATE HIRE DRIVERS DON’T HAVE TO DO KNOWLEDGE TEST
A Plymouth City Council blunder has meant new PHV drivers won’t have to take the famous “knowledge” test. According to PlymouthLive, councillors voted to accept a controversial new taxi licensing policy in March 2022 - but a misprint that wasn’t noticed, meant they approved the test for new hack- ney drivers only. So, from 1 May 2022, anyone who wants to become a private hire driver won’t have to learn the geography of Plymouth, and its best routes to get a passenger from A to B. The council said it may now have to amend the policy but can only do this at a full council meeting, which can’t be called until after the May local elections. It is the second taxi-related embarrass- ment to hit the council in a matter of days after it emerged signs directing the public to new city centre taxi ranks had not been put in place. Hackney drivers said they were losing income because passengers didn’t know where to find a taxi while the traditional Old Town Street rank was out of commission due to city centre re-development works. Martin Leaves, secretary of the hackney
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cabbies’ Plymouth Licensed Taxi Asso- ciation (PLTA), said the latest council gaffe is damaging for the overall taxi profession and said it could shake public faith in the service. He said: “We think everyone should do the knowledge test, it’s part of the skills needed.”
He added: “Some people say not having the knowledge test would make it quicker to recruit drivers, but do we want them driving around using a sat- nav? We want drivers to be professional, and to be professional they should do the knowledge test.” Plymouth councillors approved the HC and PH Licensing Policy 2022 at its March full council meeting. The policy is controversial because it removes the limit on hackney cab numbers and insists the famous black cabs are coloured green and white by 2027. The council had wanted to remove the necessity of private hire drivers having to pass the the Knowledge of Plymouth (KOP) Topographical Test as a prereq- uisite to getting a licence. It had argued a hackney cab is for immediate public hire, and needs instant knowledge of
the fastest route, whereas a PHV must be pre-booked so can determine the route prior to picking-up the passenger. But this suggestion had been dropped. The document the councillors voted on, however, still contained the wording “Topographical KOP test (for hackney carriage applications only)”. A council spokesperson said: “Unfortu- nately the line in the taxi licensing policy stating ‘for hackney carriage applications only’ in reference to the KOP test should have been removed. However, because this was approved at full council the policy will be implemented as published. “This means that from May 1, 2022, all new PH applicants will not be required to complete the KOP test. We are sorry for any confusion caused and will be reviewing this to determine whether to return the policy back to full council.” Meanwhile, HC drivers were waiting for signage to be placed informing people of the locations of new ranks after the council admitted that due to a “misun- derstanding” contractor Mildren Con- struction had not put up any signs. The authority apologised for the foul-up .
MAY 2022
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