Issue - meetings

The committee received the report of the Business Compliance Officer setting out the proposed process that the council would take to review the current licensing standards against the latest standards published by the Department for Transport in July 2020.

The Business Compliance Officer introduced the report. The report was intended to make the committee aware of the new standards and sought approval for the proposed way forward. This would include a full review of current policy and procedure to consider the amendments required by the new standards. Options for amending the policies would be brought before the committee in January 2021. This would be followed by a full consultation before the final report on the policies to be considered by the committee in March 2021.

The standards were the first to be published in ten years and were weighted towards safety considerations. Appendix 1 provided a copy of the standards which had been highlighted by officers to show the levels of compliance of the council’s current policies. Approximately 85% of the new standards were already being met or mostly met. It remained the decision of the council to implement the standards but the forthcoming review would allow members decide exactly which standards should be adopted, if not all of them. However, it was also incumbent upon the council to publish their consideration of the standards even if the policies were not reviewed.

          It was confirmed that the committee were not asked to undertake consideration of the detail of the standards but rather the proposed way forward.

          Considering the council’s existing standards, it was explained that the authority could theoretically remove some of the existing standards as part of the review. This was, however, unlikely as, in general, the new standards increased or were equivalent to current practice. Watford’s standards were already high and this was why the policies were already overwhelmingly compliant.  It was further underlined that these were intended by the Department for Transport to be the minimum required standards.

RESOLVED –

1.      That the committee approves a full review of current policy and procedure to

determine the necessary amendments required by the new standards.

2.      That specific options for new policy and procedure be brought before the committee in January 2021 for discussion and decision on ways to proceed.

3.      That the suggested options be subject to full consultation between January 2021 and March 2021 and that a final report on any new taxi and private hire licensing policy be brought before the Committee in March 2021.

The meeting briefly adjourned at this point to enable the live stream link to be restored.