Meeting documents

Venue: Large & Small Committee Room, King George V House, King George V Road, Amersham

Contact: Mat Bloxham  01494 732143; email:  mbloxham@chiltern.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

27.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 41 KB

To sign the Minutes of the meeting held on 23 October 2014.

Minutes:

The Minutes of the meeting held on 23 October 2014, copies of which had been previously circulated, were agreed by the Committee and signed by the Chairman as a correct record.

 

28.

Declarations of Interest

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

 

 

29.

Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licensing Fees pdf icon PDF 56 KB

Minutes:

The Members of the Licensing and Regulation Committee received a report outlining the proposed changes to the fees and charges to Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licensing for 2015/16.  It was noted that this would be the first time fees were increased since 2007.

 

Councillors were advised that the new fees had been worked out in accordance with recent case law, which clarified that fees charged could only cover the cost of functions connected with the provision of a licence, and the Council would not be able to make a profit on fees charged.  This meant that some of the proposed fees looked quite different from existing fees.  The report outlined how the proposed fees were calculated; officers had looked at the time spent to carry out all elements for each individual function, and had followed the current guidance on fee setting by the LGA.  The Council had considered the relevant matters that it was able to charge for and had not included the full cost of factors such as policy setting, and member meetings etc. in to the estimate of costs.  

 

One of the proposed changes was to operators’ licences.  The existing fee structure had one charge for an operator’s licence, and it was proposed that a stepped fee be introduced in regards to the number of vehicles the licence was for.  Different fees were proposed for a renewal of a licence in comparison to the issue of a new licence, as more work was required for a new licence than to renew a licence.  There was also a reduced fee proposed if a driver opted to have a three year licence.  A new fee of £47 was proposed for licences that were not granted or proceeded with, to cover the administration work that had been carried out.

 

Members questioned what could and could not be charged for, and were advised that administration costs, initial visits, liaison meetings with interested parties, local democracy costs, management costs, costs of running the team, development of policies and web material, the setting up and reviewing of fees, and the cost of running the licensing team could be charged for.  Enforcement costs were costs that could not be covered by licence fees. 

 

It was noted that the cost of running the service had been calculated by looking at the number of licences issued, the time it took to process the licences and the Licensing Service resource costs.  It was noted that this had been challenging because of the short period of time the team had operated as a shared service with South Bucks District Council. 

 

One Councillor suggested that the three year licence fee should be based on a “three for the price of two” formula.  It was stated that there had to be consistency between the formulae for an annual and tri-annual licence.   The cost of the three year licence would be 10% less than the cost of the initial grant and subsequent renewals.  It was stated that some of the proposed  ...  view the full minutes text for item 29.