Councils around the country have been accused of massive failings that could endanger the public by not properly checking taxi drivers before issuing them a licence.
An investigation by the Times, has revealed that Rossendale Council licensed almost 4,000 drivers despite having only 13 taxi ranks. The same council also reportedly lost track of their criminal records and failed to admit its errors.
Wolverhampton Council issued 9,000 licences to drivers employed by minicab firms across England and allowed each firm to set up a local “operating base” even though they had no employees and no vehicles in its area.
Rossendale Council has licensed ten times as many taxi drivers as the next highest region and fifty times the England and Wales average. There are now 53 taxi drivers in Rossendale per 1,000 population.
Legal comment
Licensing Authorities have a duty to only issue licences to people who are “fit & proper”. The assessments employed by councils around the country to assess an applicant’s fitness to hold a licence varies because the law does not explicitly specify what assessments councils have to undertake to assess whether applicants or licence holders are fit a proper. Almost every council however will at the very least insist on a criminal records check.
We have previously written on the national issue of “cross border hiring” and the issues caused by this practice. Adding to the mix these alleged failures by councils to undertake proper assessments of licence holder’s fitness will certainly exacerbate existing problems and failures in regulating the trade in the interest of public safety.
The report paints a grim picture of the current regulatory landscape in relation to taxi/PH licensing but it must also be acknowledged that the significant majority of licence holder are law-abiding citizens. For the minority however, it is imperative that councils comply with their statutory duty to ensure that the public are protected but also to protect the wider reputation of the trade as a whole.
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