A view from the trade by B. M. ROLAND Opinion
THE NATIONAL PRIVATE HIRE ASSOCIATION 8 SILVER ST BURY BL9 0EX TEL: 0161 280 2800 FAX: 0161 280 7787 e-mail:
npha@btconnect.com
NEW BOUNDARIES SET IN SCOTLAND AND LONDON
Yes folks, loads of Scottish and London stuff in this issue. But the two items that I’m looking at in Opinion may well prove to be a footprint for those in the rest of the UK. So let’s start in Scotland, where their 1982 legislation catches up with our 1976 legislation and goes one further: that is, operator licences for all those run- ning over three vehicles - of which I will say more in a moment. As you know, the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 started off with licensing of private hire vehicles, drivers and operators. In the beginning there were many councils that believed that, because hackney carriages could do private hire work, they needed private hire operator licences as well. This, how- ever, was overturned with the Brentford -v- Gladen case.
When private hire legislation came into Scotland some six years after that for Eng- land and Wales, for some unknown reason operator licences were never part of the legislation. As a result, those in charge of things north of the Border, both councils and police, had very little opportunity to control what went on in and out of booking offices or bases.
Things got so wonderful, though, that we believe it was the police who finally per- suaded the Scottish Government to act and bring in operator licensing. This starts on November the 16th. I hope everyone in Scotland is reading this, because the feedback that we have had so far suggests that there are more than a few local authorities north of the Border that are not aware of this. Because of this, we print in this issue on page 18 a copy of the Scottish Statuto- ry Instrument which introduces the legislation. Now contained within that SSI you will find what is called a ‘saving provision’. Effectively with so short notice given under the legislation, it may well take some local authorities a week or two to get their paperwork in place, to get it out to the operators, to get them to make applications. What the saving provision does is that, as long as the operator has made an application by 16 November, he does
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not commit an offence by carrying on working. If he has not made an application then he’s in deep trouble.
Bearing in mind what I said about councils not appearing to have got the mes- sage yet, we urge every Scottish operator to write a letter to their council saying, in effect, “We, 123 Taxis or ABC Private Hire, apply for a booking office licence.” This will apply to everyone up there running more than three cars. Don’t leave it to chance. If the piece of paper and you have proof of posting, you have some protection under the law. If it isn’t, you might find yourself out of business rather quickly. Don’t take the risk.
Some of us down here in England have been wondering since the Brentford and Gladen case, how long it would be before taxi operator licences were introduced. Perhaps this is a template for something that might just be round the corner. And just round the corner lies the case which many of you will have noted in the press, of a certain gentleman obtaining a private hire licence and going on the Knowledge in London, despite the fact that he was a schizophrenic who had killed his wife and was cautioned just three months ago for assaulting his daugh- ter. As one might imagine, this stirred up quite a bit of anger amongst the licensed trade in London, especially as this happened so shortly after black cab driver and erstwhile male stripper Mr Worboys having been locked up for multiple sexual assaults of his female passengers. Following demonstrations, Transport for London decided to investigate and have a look-see to decide what to do. All right, I appreciate that all of you are saying, “No way this guy should have a licence.” But allow me to drag you back to 1992, and the Department [of] Transport and Home Office circular of that year following the introduction of police checks for licence holders within the industry. That leaflet contained within it an Annex, the famous Annex D. This provided guidelines relating to the relevance of convictions. Whilst that Annex recom- mended that local authorities adopt their own guidelines, the following (Annex D) was given as an example, based on criteria used by the Metropolitan Police, who were in charge of the Public Carriage Office way back then. I’m not going to put in the whole of Annex D, but I do have to say that the vast majority of local authorities in this country adopted those criteria and are still run-
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