Agenda item

The Director of Local Services and Enforcement submits a report seeking views on the introduction of a penalty points system for taxi 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 seeking views on the introduction of a penalty points system for taxi 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 there was not a system for dealing with minor misconduct by hackney carriage and private hire drivers.  It was proposed to introduce an administrative penalty point scheme to provide a consistent approach for dealing with unsatisfactory conduct, which would contribute to improve driving standards.  The scheme would run independently of the current scheme of guidelines on criminal convictions, which would continue to operate in its current form.

Consultation had been carried out with hackney carriage and private hire drivers and 70% of responses had been against introducing the scheme.  Some responses had commented upon reducing some of the proposed points for offence/breeches of conditions of licences.

Following questions from members, it was stated that:-

a)         The suggested penalty points had been based upon a mixture observing penalty points in other local authority schemes and producing locally determine penalty points.

b)         The suggested penalty points could be amended now or at some point in the future.

c)         There would be no appeal process to the penalty points issued but officers would conduct interviews with drivers to discuss the circumstances of the offence/breeches of conditions of their licences before imposing the penalty points.

d)         The Law Commissioners had recently confirmed that the different regulation for hackney carriage vehicles and private hire vehicles should remain.  Whilst the frustration of private hire vehicle drivers not being allowed to use bus lanes was recognised, this had to be balanced by the more stringent requirements of hackney carriage vehicles to meet higher specifications including the ability to be wheelchair accessible.

Members made the following comments and observations:-

a)         Failure to wear a driver’s badge had the potential to incur two separate penalty points, once for failure to wear the badge and secondly for this being a breach of the Driver’s Code of Conduct and asked whether this was intentional.

b)         There was a perception that hackney carriage and private hire drivers were treated differently by officers and this perception should not be reinforced by the operation of this scheme.

c)         The following changes should be made to the proposed Penalty Points Schedule contained in the report:-

i)          Providing misleading information on licence application form, or failing to provide relevant information should be 5 points and not 3 as suggested.

ii)         Failure to undertake 6 monthly vehicle examination should be 5 points and not 4 as suggested.

iii)        Failure to notify the Licensing Authority of a conviction should be 5 penalty points and not 4 as suggested.

iv)        Failure to comply with the driver’s code of conduct should be 2 points and not 1 as suggested.

v)         ‘Making false or misleading statement on licence application form’ should be deleted as it duplicated ‘Providing misleading information on licence application form, or failing to provide relevant information’.

RESOLVED:

That the proposal to introduce a scheme of Driver’s Penalty Points as outline in the report be supported, subject to the changes to the proposed Penalty Points Schedule contained in paragraph c) above.