Agenda item

The Director of Local Services and Enforcement submits a report on a proposal to introduce mandatory Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) awareness briefings for hackney carriage and private hire vehicle drivers.

The Committee is asked to give its views on the proposal which will be reported to the Assistant City Mayor with responsibility for licensing before deciding on the policy to be adopted.

The Director of Local Services and Enforcement submitted a report on a proposal to introduce mandatory Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) awareness briefings for hackney carriage and private hire vehicle drivers.

The Committee was asked to give its views on the proposal which would be reported to the Assistant City Mayor with responsibility for licensing before deciding on the policy to be adopted.

The Head of Licensing and Pollution Control stated that following national concerns on CSE issues, the Council were looking at various actions which could be taken to prevent CSE in Leicester.  240 of the 1900 licensed drives in Leicester had already received briefings from the Council’s Passenger Transport Services as they worked on school transport contracts.  It was proposed that the remainder would receive the briefings in the next 12 months.  Drivers would be expected to undertake the training within 3 months of being granted a new licence or the renewal of an existing licence. Failure to attend the briefing within 3 months would result in the licence being suspended.  Training would be held on a monthly basis to give driver a choice of dates.  Existing licence holders would receive their training free of charge but the fee for new driver applications would be increased by £20 to cover the cost of training.

Consultations had been carried out with all hackney carriage and private hire drivers and operator licence holders.  Responses had been mixed as to whether the training should be compulsory.

A number of comments had been received requesting training on dealing with inebriated passengers, non-paying passengers, flimping, legal requirements and domestic violence.  Officers felt that the focus of the training should remain on CSE issues and not be diluted with other topics.

Members commented that they would like to receive the responses to the consultation in order to better inform any comments and observations they may wish to make on the proposal. They felt this would give better feedback to officers on the Policy.

The Head of Licensing and Pollution Control stated that in relation to Members comments about the seeing the responses to the consultation, the intention in submitting the report had been to consult the Committee as part of the consultation process. The responses to the consultation would be circulated to Members.

Following questions from Members, the following comments were noted:-

a)         The briefings were intended to raise awareness of CSE issues so that drivers could report observations or concerns of situations they had encountered.

b)         Officers were not aware of similar schemes in existence elsewhere.

Members also made the following general observations:-

a)         The proposal to introduce the CSE briefings should be referred for consideration to the Children’s Young People and Schools Scrutiny Commission as they had interests in safeguarding of children arrangements.

b)         There should have been an opportunity for users of hackney carriages and private hire care to comment as part of the consultation process.

c)         Members had the prime responsibility for establishing standards in relation to hackney carriage and private hire drivers and operator licence holders and this should not be overly influence by those affected by them.

RESOLVED:

That the responses to the consultation be submitted to the next meeting of the Committee to enable Members to give comments on the proposal prior to it being submitted for consideration by the Assistant City Mayor, Culture Leisure and Heritage.