PASSING THE BUCK


Read that again. The licensing authority whose statutory job is to satisfy itself that an operator is fit and proper to hold a licence has told a complainant, in writing, that whether the operator complies with consumer protection law is not central to that judgment. It is optional. It is discretionary. It is, in Elmbridge’s own words, only sometimes relevant.


Everyone agrees whose job it is - except the people whose job it is


The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), res- ponding via Surrey Trading Standards, was unambiguous: “This is a licensing matter for Elmbridge to


determine, not a consumer


protection enforcement matter for the CMA”. Trading Standards, for its part, has repeatedly said it cannot make formal findings of non-compliance without a complainant’s evidence of harm or a test purchase, and that systemic questions of this kind belong with the CMA or the licensing authority.


So, the CMA says it’s a licensing matter. Trading Standards says it’s a licensing or CMA matter and Elmbridge, the licensing authority, says consumer law compliance isn’t at the heart of what it does. Three bodies, three positions, and between them, not one is willing to apply the fit and proper test that all three agree exists.


That is not a gap in the law. The law is settled and has been for years. It is a gap in who is answerable when the law goes unapplied - and it is a gap that a licensing authority has created for itself, by declining to exercise a function Parliament gave it.


The training gap underneath the buck- passing


Follow the buck far enough and it stops being a story about one council’s discretion and becomes a story about competence. The DfT’s own position, confirmed in a written parliamentary answer, is that consumer law compliance is relevant to the fit and proper assessment - that a licensing authority


PHTM SEPTEMBER 2026


delegated the power to license correctly is expected to use it correctly, including on the consumer protection side, and that this is not the DfT’s job to police case by case.


The CMA and Trading Standards, in turn, both locate the duty to check that operators-as-traders comply with consumer law at exactly the same point: the local authority’s licensing department, at the moment it assesses fitness and propriety.


Elmbridge Borough Council says that’s a matter for Trading Standards. Trading Standards says it’s a licensing matter. The DfT says it delegated the power and expects it to be used properly. Everyone is pointing at everyone else, and the one thing all four positions have in common is that none of them results in the test actually being applied.


That circularity is not really a dispute about where the duty sits - on the law, it sits with the licensing authority, and none of the four bodies above seriously argues otherwise. It is a demonstration that the officers responsible for applying it, do not appear to understand what a fit and proper assessment is actually meant to test.


Fit and proper is not a synonym for “has a valid DBS check and a car that passes its inspection.” It means, and has always meant, compliance with the whole body of law that governs how the operator conducts that business - consumer law included.


When a licensing department tells a complainant that this doesn’t sit “at the heart of” of its assessment, that is not a defensible policy choice. It is a training failure, dressed up as a considered legal position. And when that failure is pointed out, the response is too often not engagement but affront -correspondence


characterised as


unreasonable, scrutiny treated as a nuisance to be managed rather than a question to be answered.


A licensing officer who understood the scope of the test they were applying would not need to take refuge in defensiveness. One who doesn’t will.


41


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78