Agenda, decisions and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillor Fuller, Councillor Brown was in attendance as substitute.

The minutes of the Licensing Act Sub Committee 2003 meeting held on 25 November 2016, were agreed as a true and accurate record.

The minutes of the Licensing Committee meeting held on 8 December 2016 were agreed as a true and accurate record.

The Regulatory Officer introduced a report to Members of the Licensing Committee which outlined the outcome of the consultation process on the hackney carriage and private hire draft taxi licensing policy, which took place between 7 April 2017 and 2 June 2017.

The Committee were also informed that the draft taxi and private hire licensing policy was subsequently updated by Officers following the consultation period.  The Committee was being asked to consider the updates made by Officers to the draft taxi policy and consider the recommendations made by Officers on significant taxi policy matters which were highlighted during the consultation.  Following consideration of the draft taxi policy the Committee was also asked to recommend that Council approve the final version. 

Officers advised the Committee that the hackney carriage and private hire draft taxi licensing policy consultation was advertised using the various formats, which included:

?     Notices placed at the Town Hall and Bayard Place buildings;

?     Peterborough bus and train stations;

?     Peterborough Taxi Drivers Federation;

?     Parish Councils;

?     Councillors

?     Twitter;

?     Facebook;

?     All taxi operators.

The Officers also provided clarification to the Licensing Committee over some highlighted sections of the draft taxi policy within the report pack pages 97, 98 and 99 in relation to mobile phone use and awareness, licensing offences and refusal to carry disabled persons, insurance offences and major traffic offences, all of which would remain within the draft taxi policy if approved.

Members discussed the responses to the consultation outlined on pages 117 to 128 of the report and were satisfied that there was no requirement for Officers to consider the comments further.

The Head of Regulatory Services, Regulatory Officer and the Licensing & Business Manager responded to questions and comments in relation to recommendation 2i regarding the type of Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks required by the LA. In summary responses included:

?     Where a licensed driver had been arrested, the Police consider what the driver had been arrested for and would share the information with the Regulatory Services Team under the provisions of Common Law Police Disclosure.  This was also outlined within the licensed driver conditions and drivers have a duty to disclose such information.

?     The Regulatory Services Team would ask for an enhanced DBS check from drivers so that it provided the Regulatory Services Team with all information held regards to a licensed driver.

?     There had been no material change in circumstances to warrant the change to a multiple DBS status checking system.  A change to adopt the multiple DBS status checking service would impose a financial impact to the Council if adopted and licensed drivers would be required to sign up to the update service.

?     The response from the DBS agency asked for the Council to consider whether drivers should sign up to the new DBS update service, but there was a question on what regularity of checks would be appropriate for the Regulatory Services Team to undertake if licensed drivers were to nominate the Local Authority to carry out these checks.  There would need to be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.