Agenda and minutes

Apologies were given from Cllr Paul Griffin.

There were no declarations of interest.

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting held on 26 July 2022.

The Minutes of the Meeting held on 26 July 2022 were agreed as a correct record.

The Council, in its capacity as Licensing Authority, was required to consider applications and issue permits and licences for charitable collections which take place in public areas and from house to house. There was not any policy currently in force covering the new Council area for these activities and it was considered necessary and appropriate for such a policy to be prepared, consulted upon and published in order to ensure that applications for this type of authorisation were considered and determined in a fair, consistent and transparent manner.

Applications for both street and house to house collections were regularly received by the Council, although only one of the legacy district council areas (Wycombe) currently had policies in place for this type of licensable activity. It was therefore considered necessary to implement a new policy which sets out the Licensing Authority’s approach to considering and determining applications and also in relation to any necessary enforcement action across the whole Council area. The draft policy, attached as appendix 1 of the report, had been drafted for this purpose and it aimed to:

·         safeguard the interests of both donors and beneficiaries;

·         facilitate collections by bona fide charitable institutions and to ensure that good standards would be met;

·         prevent unlicensed collections from taking place; and

·         prevent nuisance and harassment to residents, businesses and visitors to the Council area.

The Licensing Committee were being asked to review the draft Charitable Collections Policy and, subject to any recommended amendments, approve the draft policy for consultation with relevant stakeholders and residents.

If approved by the Committee and subject to any suggested amendments, the draft policy would undergo a six-week consultation process with all relevant stakeholders, including affected charity organisations, town centre managers, Thames Valley Police, Community Safety officers, residents, businesses, Members, parish councils and Community Boards.

Following the consultation process, a further report would be presented to the Licensing Committee providing full details of any comments received and amendments proposed as a result.

Members were invited to ask questions of officers. In response to a question regarding retail parks and superstores, officers advised that the street collections legislation covered those areas, but what it did not cover was private areas where the public did not have access.

Officers clarified that the Council currently received in the region of 150 applications each for House to House collection licences and street collection permits each year.

A Member questioned why there was a need for the policy if complaints in relation to unlicensed collectors were rare and subsequently little enforcement action was generally required. In response, the Committee was advised that there was not currently a policy in force covering the new Council area and therefore, there was a need for a single policy to be introduced to ensure that applications were considered and determined in a fair, consistent and transparent manner. The new draft policy sets out the Licensing Authority’s approach to considering and determining applications and also in relation to any necessary enforcement action across the whole Council  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

The Licensing Committee received a report on the Hackney carriage and private hire licensing annual review. Prior to service alignment and the implementation of the Council’s new Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licensing Policy, the Licensing Service committed to providing reports to the Licensing Committee, which related to service delivery and policy impact. In June 2022, the Committee received the first enforcement update report. This was the first annual report, focusing on the period 6 September 2021, the date of policy implementation, through to 30 September 2022.

The report provided an overview of application outcomes, an update on enforcement activity, key changes to service provision and improvements in service delivery, legislative changes and other matters considered to be of relevance or interest to the Committee such as communication with the trade, updates on safeguard training and English language assessments.

With regard to English language assessments, it was noted that paragraph 2.39 of the report should have stated that during the reporting period, 223 new drivers and 109 existing drivers were registered to take the test. However, they did not all take the test. Out of the 262 tests which were conducted in that same period, 174 tests were passes and 88 were fails which resulted in a pass rate of around 66%.  However, as 60 drivers took more than one test, the pass rate was actually closer to 86%.

The report also contained an overview of hackney carriage and private hire related matters on the horizon, which were likely to impact the service and the trade over the coming year. Financial considerations such as income, expenditure and other budgetary matters had been excluded from the report. A separate report had been prepared for consideration by the Licensing Committee and this information would form the basis for licence fee review.

As the first report of this nature, the Licensing Service welcomed feedback from the Committee on its content and suggestions for any appropriate amendments.

Members were invited to ask questions of officers.  In response to a question regarding how many active taxi driver licences there were, officers advised that there were just under 2,500 active taxi driver licences.  Following a question about DBS checks, it was confirmed that DBS checks had successfully been outsourced to a third party supplier called Taxi Plus and that the documents required for uploading were the same as an in-person DBS application. It was noted that whilst the DBS checks had been outsourced, Licensing Officers were doing identity verification checks on drivers when they come to the Council officers to collect their badge.  

In relation to communication with the trade, a Member raised a concern that some of the trade were having an issue with the telephones not being answered in a timely manner and that the advice they were being given was sometimes hard for them to understand. The Member enquired whether a hotline they could contact would be helpful.  In response, officers explained that the Licensing Service had been working hard to improve communication  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

The Committee received a report on the taxi and private hire licensing budget review and fees and charges and were asked to consider whether to agree the proposed fees and charges set out at Appendix A of the report prior to consultation and statutory advertising.

In July 2021, taxi and private hire fees and charges were approved as part of the implementation of a new Taxi and Private Hire Licensing Policy for Buckinghamshire, which came into effect in September 2021. The Licensing Service also went through the Better Buckinghamshire programme in 2021 and new structures for a harmonised Licensing Service, organised by specialism rather than geographical location, came into effect from the 1st September 2021. This created a single taxi and private hire licensing service serving the whole of Buckinghamshire and operating under the new Policy. Since September 2021, the Taxi Licensing Service had delivered policy changes as well as improvements in systems and processes, which had required significant resource to deliver. This included the implementation of the Department for Transport’s (DfT) Statutory Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Standards, which were introduced in July 2020 and aimed to protect children and vulnerable adults from exploitation. The Service had also moved to a single back-office system and redesigned the way that the Service was provided. Having undertaken significant implementation and improvement work, the Service was now stable and operating in a business-as-usual fashion.

Taxi and private hire licensing fees could only be set at levels to recover such costs as were prescribed in law.  The Council could not make a profit from licence fees and any shortfall in revenue, if not met by licence fee payers, must be borne by the Council as a whole.  In practice, this meant that the costs of the service should be covered entirely by taxi licensing fee income into the Council.  Any surplus or deficit must be carried forward and form part of any subsequent review of fees. In July 2021, taxi licensing fees were set based on both a combination of the available legacy district council information on volumes of activity into the services pre the Covid-19 pandemic and assumptions on how the future harmonised Taxi Licensing Service and Policy would operate. A rolling full-service review of fees was generally carried out every 3 years. However, there were a number of uncertainties and assumptions around service provision at the time that the fees were set. Given this, assurances were provided to the Licensing Committee that a full annual review of taxi licensing budgets and fees and charge would be carried out a year into implementation of the new Policy.  This would enable the Service to fully understand any surplus or deficit at that point and ensure that any adjustments required could be considered.

As requested by the Licensing Committee a full budget review for taxi and private hire licensing was carried out between September and December 2022, one year on from the introduction of the new Policy and the single service structure and back-office  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Tuesday 11 April 2023 at 6.30pm

Tuesday 11 April 2023 at 6.30pm