Highland Licensing Committee
Taxi/PHC Sub Group
Meeting held on 14th May 2014 at 11.00am
Council Chamber, Town House, Inverness
Present:
Cllr Maxine Smith, Convenor of Highland Licensing Committee
Cllr Jamie Stone, Vice Convenor of Highland Licensing Committee
Cllr Allan Duffy, Member of Highland Licensing Committee
Alaisdair Mackenzie, Legal Manager, Highland Council
Susan Blease, Principal Solicitor, Highland Council
Mike Elsey, Senior Licensing Officer, Highland Council
Donald Philip
George Fox
Andrew MacDonald
Kevin Hendry
Andrew MacCallum
Evan Jessiman
Gavin Johnson
Graham Brown
George MacDougall
Helena MacLeod
Michael Menzies
Michael Morrice
Robert MacDonald
1.
Taxi/PHC Trade – Issues for Discussion
a.
Meter Tests
Fees – Why is there the discrepancy between Highland (£61.08) and other
areas such as Moray (£11.00) and Perth and Kinross (£37.00).
Action: Licensing Officials to contact Trading Standards to ask for response.
Can the fee for the meter tests for tariff reviews be set at a lower price given
that the Trading Standards Officers will be on site and it will not involve them
being taken away from other duties.
Action: Licensing Officials to contact Trading Standards to ask for response.
Zoning of Licensing Areas
The issue of zoning within Highland was raised and the trade questioned why
Highland could not be split into zones and numbers capped where required. It
was noted that some other Local Authorities operated different licensing zones.
The Trade also enquired as to why a survey could not be carried out to
ascertain if there was unmet demand as per Section 10(3) of the Civic
Government Act.
In response Officials advised that in terms of a survey this would require to
cover the whole of the Highland Area and would therefore be costly and would
be extremely difficult to determine unmet demand for such a huge and diverse
area which covered not only a number of urban areas but also many rural
areas.
The trade also raised issues of taxis from other areas such as Wick and Thurso
operating at weekends in Inverness and the Convener responded that this
happened all over Highland and city taxis indeed came to Invergordon to
collect cruise passengers on their busy days.
Action: Licensing Officials advised that they would report back further in
relation to the issue of zoning and capping paying particular attention to any
precedents in other areas and the legalities in the Act.
Fees
An issue was raised in respect of licence fee income being allocated to
`miscellaneous’ income with the assumption that these fees were going to
other Highland Council budgets.
The Legal Manager clarified that all licence fee income goes towards the
administration and enforcement of the licensing scheme. The confusion has
arisen due to the receipts which are issued by the Service Points stating that it
is miscellaneous income, however it was confirmed that all licence fee income
is coded to the licensing budget. The Legal Manager also advised that he was
obliged to ensure that the income from licensing met the expenditure in terms
of administering and enforcing the same.
Knowledge Test
It was noted that some of the taxi driver’s knowledge tests required updating
and it was noted that these would be checked and updated where required.
Some of the trade representatives present asked that knowledge tests be
extended to include applicants for PHC drivers licences. Other members of the
trade felt that this was not necessary given that the route is known to the driver
in advance and they can therefore plan this. It was also noted that there is now
also an increase in the use of sat nav in vehicles.
Licensing Officials will investigate whether any other Licensing Authorities have
a policy of requiring PHC drivers to sit and pass a knowledge test.
Numbers of Licence Plates
It was noted that Licensing Officials would provide details of the numbers of
licensed taxis and Private Hire Cars in Highland.
Taxi Rank Spaces
The Inverness operators present expressed concern at the lack of numbers of
rank spaces in the City and the lack of enforcement in relation to some of the
ranks where private cars were being parked, meaning that taxis could not use
them. Helena Macleod advised that she would e-mail a note of the issues
which Licensing Officials would then pass onto the relevant Agency/Service
namely Police Scotland and the Council’s Community Services (Roads).
There was also a similar issue raised in relation to the taxi ranks in Fort William
and it was agreed that this issue be raised with the local Highland Council
Community Service (Roads), Police Scotland and Local Members.
On a different matter the trade expressed concern that taxis were not able to
access the road leading up to the Castle as they were often asked by tourists
to take them there for photo opportunities etc. The issue had been raised
previously but nothing had been done to permit access. Cllr Smith
recommended that the Alliance write to the Inverness City Leader with regard
to this issue.
Inverness Airport
Concerns were raised in relation to the issue of rank spaces at Inverness
Airport and to the recent removal of the number plate recognition system which
now means that taxis have to wait (and in some cases pay) in one of the short
stay car parks.
The Legal Manager advised that as the issues related to private car
parks/ranks which were the subject of an external tendering process then it
was not an issue that Highland Council could comment on.
Lochaber Taxi Operator
A copy of a submission was considered and it was agreed:
1. The issue of zoning and capping has been discussed earlier in the
meeting where it was agreed that Licensing Officials would report back
further in relation to the issue of zoning and capping.
2. The Highland Council cannot legally restrict a licensed taxi/PHC driver to
only work certain hours.
3. It was noted that in relation to the issue of standard of vehicles the
Trading Standards Service operated a penalty points system which
would pick up on any operator who continually failed to maintain their
vehicle(s) to a suitable standard. Also any vehicle over 5 years old is
subject to a 6 monthly inspection. It was also noted that some older
vehicles, including some which are over 10 years old, were in as good
as if not better condition compared to some newer vehicles. In relation to
the dress code, the trade stated that the majority of drivers complied
with the dress code however there may be some who did not. The
concerns of the operator in relation to the condition of vehicles and
adherence to the dress code will be passed to the Trading Standards
Service.
Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles (WAV’s)
The Legal Manager advised that the Council were looking to see what could be
done to increase the numbers of WAV’s currently licensed. During discussion it
was noted that:
1. A number of WAV’s are also used for school contracts and therefore
their availability for general use will drop at the start and end of the
schools days.
2. One operator advised that his yearly income was down by thousands
from the previous year and that financially he would not be able to
sustain the purchase of a WAV.
3. In order to be able to afford these type of vehicles they cannot be used
exclusively for WAV runs and require to be used for other contract and
general work.
4. The Council would try and identify any funding streams available to
assist the trade however it was recognised that the availability of this
may not be highly likely.
2.
Date of Next Meeting.
It was agreed that the next meeting would take place on Thursday 14th
August 2014 at 10.30am in Committee Room 1, Council Headquarters,
Glenurquhart Road, Inverness.
3.
Notification of Future Meetings
It was noted that the invitation to attend this meeting had required sending out
over 700 letters to taxi and private hire car operators.
It was agreed therefore that future dates for meetings of the Taxi/PHC Sub
Group would be advertised on the Licensing pages of the Council’s website.
The Inverness taxi Alliance and other trade members present would also
encourage their colleagues to check the website for future meeting dates.