Agenda and minutes

There were no Declarations of Interest made at the meeting.

Resolved:-  That the minutes of the previous meeting held on 8^th December, 2022, be approved as a true record.

Alan Pogorzelec, Licensing Manager, presented a report outlining the proposed key changes to the current Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licensing Policy and sought the views of the Licensing Board thereon.

In July 2015 the Council had introduced a Policy setting out the Council’s approach to Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licensing.  It was reviewed in 2020 with several additional requirements introduced and implemented building on the previous Policy which was widely seen to be setting the standard for other local authorities to benchmark against in relation to Taxi and Private Hire Licensing.  The existing and new draft Policy set what was generally accepted as being the highest standards with regard to taxi and private hire licensing in the UK, and many of the standards had subsequently been adopted by other local licensing authorities and included in national statutory guidance issued by the Department for Transport.

There had been delays in implementing some of the additional requirements set out in the 2020 refresh i.e. the additional stickers/signage, audio recording buttons and the refresher training.  Whilst the delays in implementation were as a result of various challenges including the Covid pandemic which had led to large aspects of the Licensing training function being unable to fully operate, it was acknowledged that these activities should have been delivered sooner.  As a result, actions had been put in place to prevent any recurrence and both of these aspects were now in place operationally with training dates established for the remainder of the years and stickers delivered to all operators and/or licence holders directly.

The 2020 Policy was now due for review and provided an opportunity to ensure that the Council’s approach to Taxi and Private Hire Licensing continued to reflect best practice, addressed local challenges and set standards that would ensure that the standard of licensed driver, vehicle and operator in Rotherham remained high.  A significant amount of consultation had taken place with members of the public, licence holders (drivers and operators), Rotherham Show, roadshows, drop-in sessions and mailouts resulting in over 600 responses.

This report outlines the key proposed changes to the current Policy and sought the views of Members of the Licensing Board.

The proposals were as follows:-

Out of Town Vehicles and Increase in Sub-Contracting

-        The Private Hire Operator must inform the customer at the time of acceptance of the booking that the booking they have made will be sub-contracted to another Private Hire Operator.  If this is not known at the time of booking then the customer must be informed as soon as practicable (and in any event, the customer must be informed before the vehicle is dispatched to undertake the booking)

-        Private Hire Operators must maintain records of each sub-contracted booking.  These records must include (as a minimum):

•         The time and date that the booking was sub-contracted to the third party operator.

•         The time and date that the customer was informed that their booking had been sub-contracted

•         The name and Private Hire Operator  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.