Agenda and minutes

No declarations of interest were received.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Burrows, Stephen Aldersley, Ann Dickens, Chris Naylor, Mandy Shaw, Bridget Gould and Simon Tranter.

Minutes of the Meeting of the Taxi Consultative Committee held on 25 January, 2017.

The minutes of the meeting held on 25 January, 2017 were agreed as a true record.

Further to Minute No. 29, the Chair and Brian Offiler had met with Mandy Shaw to consider further the proposed amendments to the terms of reference of the Taxi Consultative Committee, resulting in two suggested changes to the previous proposals:

·        That if more than six trade members were nominated, the majority (rather than unanimous) agreement of all those nominated would be required as to which six nominations would be put forward to the Council, subject to at least two places being filled by members who represented minority ethnic members of the trade if such nominations were made;

·        That the appointment of trade representatives would be for a period of two years (rather than one) to facilitate greater continuity.

The meeting supported the revised proposed amendments including the two suggested changes.

It was noted that a report would be submitted to the Council’s Appeals and Regulatory Committee for a formal decision on the proposed amendments, in order for these to be implemented for the appointment of trade representatives in June 2017.

Further to Minute No. 30, it was reported that Simon Tranter had circulated the proposals regarding the use of bus lanes by hackney carriages to trade representatives and that these would now be subject to the statutory consultation period.

Inspector Turner submitted the reported crime figures for the period 1 January to 31 March, 2017 for the Chesterfield and the Bolsover and North East Derbyshire Policing sections, totalling 24 reports, including:

19 occasions where the driver was the victim

3 occasions where a member of the public was the victim

2 occasions where a taxi company was the victim

1 occasion where the driver was an offender

Timing – 8 crimes were between 0000 hours and 0600 hours.

Violence against drivers – 2 cases

Crime breakdown:

17 – making off without payment

2  – theft

2 – assault on driver

1 – assault on passenger

1 – damage to vehicle

1 – damage to taxi office

The outcomes from investigation of these reported crimes were:

7 – restorative justice

7  - suspect identified (3 charged, 4 no further action)

2 – suspect identified (2 enquiries ongoing)

2 – investigations ongoing

6 – undetected.

It was noted that the level of reported crimes in this period was relatively low and that there had been no reports of hate crimes in the period.

Trevor Durham reported that during the previous three months one driver’s licence had been revoked and that a licence application had been refused, both of which had resulted in appeals to be heard at the magistrates’ court. 

27 vehicles had failed their test, with the issuing of penalty points being necessary on two occasions. It was confirmed that if a serious fault was identified on the test, the vehicle licence could be suspended immediately at the test station.

The issuing of vehicle licences at the Eckington test station would commence on Monday 15 May. The combined cost of a test and licence would not increase, but the amounts going separately to the test station and Borough Council would change to reflect the different roles. 

The policy changes in respect of the Immigration Act 2016 and AA Drive Tech being appointed as the Council’s driving assessor had come in to force on 23 March, 2017, and the proposed policy amendments in respect of annual DBS checks, access for wheelchair users and CCTV in vehicles were subject to a period of consultation until 16 June, 2017.

It was noted that the annual online DBS check would be to the same standard as currently.

It was explained that the policy would need to be updated in respect of CCTV in vehicles following a recent Information Commissioner ruling that whilst such cameras could be continuously recording visual images, audible recording could not be continuous, but only on a targeted basis at the driver’s discretion.

Monday 19 June, 2017 at 6.00 pm – Appointment of Representatives

Wednesday 12 July, 2017 at 6.00 pm.