THE NPHTA – SEPTEMBER BASILDON HACKNEY ASSOCIATION NETS A RESULT WEDNESDAY 18
On Wednesday 18 September, the Basildon Borough Hackney Carriage Association made a presentation to the Licensing Committee at Basildon Borough Council. We wanted you to see the main points of this presentation, which was delivered by the association’s Secretary
Keith Beadle. Their Chair, Mark Waller (pictured right), is a Board member of the NPHTA – and through the efforts of Keith and himself, has demonstrated consistently that a local trade association can - and does - “get things done”.
Presentation by Keith Beadle, Basildon Borough Hackney Carriage Association I’m here tonight to talk to you about public safety. In my 25-plus years of being a Basil- don licensed private hire and taxi driver, Basildon Council regardless of political per- suasion has passed conditions on drivers relating to public safety. Those conditions are the eight conditions in front of you. This has meant I have attended training courses at a woman’s refuge… This has now been updated after the awful cases at Rotherham and other towns relating to CSE, and the full safeguarding course was introduced by yourselves. If I or any other [Basildon] licensed driver had not attended, we would have lost our licence, but we could have walked out of here and been licensed by TfL and come back to the area driving for Uber as TfL have not introduced the course. But if you were prepared to revoke or suspend our licence for non- attendance, why would you allow a driver licensed by another area without this training to work here? You also now require a fully enhanced DBS check, with the drivers subscribing to the Update service which allows the council to check this at any time. The enhanced DBS check has the additional checks over the basic check for those crimes against children and vulnera- ble adults. In September 2017, the Daily Mail identified that 13,000 TfL licensed drivers had only the basic check and that the majority worked for Uber. In addition, you require our drivers to do a topographical knowledge test and even when this has been reviewed by councillors, it has been kept. This is one of the most important instruments in any council’s arsenal when it comes to public safety. It means that the driver understands how to get from A to B in the shortest and/or safest route whilst keeping their eyes on the road. All three of the licensing authorities whose vehicles have proliferated here from outside areas do not require their licensed drivers to have their own local knowl- edge test; and as they are not licensed here, they definitely do not have it for our area, which means they are reliant on Sat Nav. …Of the eight conditions in front of you TfL, Castle Point and Uttles- ford only require between two and four of them, deeming that they value the public’s safety at a lower level than this council. The APPG and the Task and Finish group have looked at this, jointly recognising the issue, and made recommendations which the DfT put in front of this council and you were asked to endorse/amend them - which you did without exception, even adding additional requests. …This council and the trade can rightfully hold its head high when it comes to public safety, as was previously mentioned at the last licensing meeting and from an FOI obtained by the trade, NO con- viction for a serious offence against a Basildon licensed driver whilst carrying passengers has occurred in the last eight years. Uber was found to have not reported 2,500 alleged serious crimes and in August 2017 inspector Neil Billany, [then] head of the Metropolitan Police’s Taxi and Private Hire Unit, wrote an explosive
OCTOBER 2019
letter (attached) to TfL titled “Concerns with Uber not reporting serious crimes”. Uber seemed more worried about its reputation than reporting serious crime. Now if that had happened here, would you deem them fit and proper to hold an operator’s licence? But the final question in front of you is: Do you believe that the conditions imposed by yourselves over the years, whoever con- trolled the council at the time in respect to public safety, were really necessary? If you don’t, then remove all of our conditions that exceed [those of] TfL and allow us an equal playing field. If you do, you must deliver on the officer’s report and we would suggest you go further: that each member write to their party head office and ask them to add the proposed new taxi and private hire legislation to their manifesto.
The impact of the Association’s report, stressing the public safety aspects in particular, resulted in this council agreeing to every recommendation in the report and extended it to write to Uber and to include all outside area firms. If they ignore this request, at renewal of licence they can be deemed not fit and proper due to passenger and driver safety reasons.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
That the Committee: 1) Notes the contents of the report and the steps already being taken by officers;
2) Agrees that a letter be sent on behalf of the Chair of Licens- ing Committee to the relevant Minister of State to express concern regarding the current licensing legislative frame- work and the need for the urgent implementation of the legislation review, particularly in relation to the challenges arising from ‘out of town’ private hire;
3) Agrees that a further letter be sent on behalf of the Chair of Licensing Committee to Transport for London setting out the concerns of Basildon Council with the current licensing arrangements, particularly highlighting disparities in the standards applied across the authorities, the impact that their licensing approach is having on the Basildon licensing function and to request the urgent review of their licence conditions to bring them closer into line with those adopted by Basildon Council;
4) That both of these letters are shared with the Local Govern- ment Association with a view to supporting ongoing lobbying of the Government in relation to updating the legislation;
5) That a letter be sent to Uber asking it to withdraw from Basildon or apply for an operator’s licence with Basildon Borough Council, and seeking clarification of the reasons for their failure to apply for a licence from Basildon.
6) To continue to liaise with other local authorities regarding the steps they are proposing in relation to “out of town” operators to identify possible opportunities for joint work- ing and shared learning
This is a perfect example of what can happen when the trade and the council maintain constant communication, an open mind, and an attitude of co-operation – not confrontation. Long may it continue.
DEBATE BUT NO RESOLUTIONS IN BURY THURSDAY 19
Last month’s Taxi Liaison Forum concerning Bury Council’s stance following the fire at their MoT station has been the subject of heated (no pun intended) debate recently. The latest situa- tion is shown in greater detail in our feature about Bury Council on pages 16-17.
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