Report of the Business Compliance Officer

The committee received the report of the Business Compliance Officer recommending the adoption of a new Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Policy. Changes to existing policies had been necessitated by the publication of the Department for Transport Statutory Taxi and Private Hire Standards in July 2020.

The Business Compliance Officer introduced the report. This was the final report on the process of updating this policy updating and bringing together a number of existing policies into one document as recommended by the standards.

A public consultation had taken place following the Licensing Committee meeting in January. This had been advertised on the council’s website and social media, details were sent to licence holders and other licensing authorities and audio versions of consultation were created for accessibility. While there were fewer responses than had been hoped, reflective of the current situation, they were broadly favourable or neutral. One comment was received from the taxi trade in support of the policy, one another trade response received contained questions which were answered, issues were raised by Disability Watford which had been taken into account and the police had no comments.

The policy did not make a large number of significant changes beyond the creation of a single policy document. An equalities impact assessment had been conducted and was appended to the report. The main impacts were on drivers and operators with few changes to the vehicle or suitability policies.  A few typography errors had also been addressed. 

Following a question about the accessibility of the policy and whether it would be available in translation, the committee was advised that policies were not published in a number of languages. The Department for Transport required that drivers be tested on their written and spoken English, which was assessed through the other assessments drivers had to take. There had been no complaints about drivers’ comprehension and it was not an issue when delivering face-to-face training. It was, however, recognised that it was a complex document, and a subset of documents would also be created with diagrams and a clearer layout to assist drivers.

RESOLVED –

that the Licensing Committee approves the Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licensing Policy 2021 - 2026 as found at Appendix 1 to the report.