There were no disclosures of interest.

There was a change of membership for this meeting: Councillor Taylor replaced Councillor Hofman.

Apologies were received from Councillor Mills.

The minutes of the meeting held on 11 January 2016 to be submitted and signed.

Copies of the minutes of this meeting are usually available seven working days following the meeting.

(All minutes are available on the Council’s website.)

The minutes of the meeting held on 11 January 2016 were submitted and signed.

Report of the Head of Community and Customer Services

This report seeks Members approval to progress the working group’s recommendations.

The Chair introduced Kris Beuret and Leigh Hutchings to the Committee. 

Kris Beuret was from Social Research Associates Limited (SRA Ltd) who carried out the Mystery Shopper exercise into the needs of disabled people when it came to travelling by private hire or by hackney carriage.  She had also been the Chair at a recent Working Party, whom she had taken through the report contained within the agenda.

Leigh Hutchings represented Disability Watford and had attended two of the working party meetings in order to meet with the trade and ensure the needs of disabled people in Watford were properly represented.

The Committee received the report of the Head of Community and Customer Services.  The Business Compliance Officer introduced the report and briefly summed up the six categories of the 29 different recommendations.  He asked  the committee to consider and approve all recommendations contained therein and handed over to Kris Beuret to explain the report. 

Ms Beuret opened by describing the extensive range of consultations that had taken place in order to inform the report.  She then went on to describe how the current fare structure was front loaded, which disadvantaged passengers who booked cabs for short journeys.  She added that people with disabilities would be more likely to take short journeys and so this fare structure might affect them more than other groups.  She also commented that some drivers were reluctant to pick up fares requesting such short journeys and that this was wrong as they should accept that some fares would be short, others long. 

Councillor Watkin asked if the Council might be open to challenge on the grounds of discrimination regarding the fare structure. 

The Senior Solicitor replied that whilst this was a possibility, for any challenge to succeed it would have to be evidentially demonstrated that as a result of the fare structure, a section of society was treated differently.  But since all passengers received the same treatment from the fare structure, any such challenge was unlikely to succeed. 

Councillor Williams suggested a one day training session in equality issues. 

The Environmental Health and Licensing Section Head stated that this was planned for the drivers. 

Councillor Derbyshire then made the point that if a driver refused a fare without good reason, he breached his licence.  This was confirmed as correct by the Business Compliance Officer.

Councillor Ewudo commented that if disabled people took more short journeys then surely there was an impact on them more than other groups. 

Ms Beuret repeated that this would still not be a good legal challenge and continued with her report.  She commented that the Watford taxi fleet showed a good proportion of vehicles suitable for persons with disabilities (20%), but added that 50% was a good aspirational goal. 

Councillor Taylor asked how the Council might work towards the 50% target. 

Ms Beuret stated that setting a time limit and then checking annually on progress would support such a goal. 

The Business Compliance Officer then gave further advice on ways to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 23.