Agenda and minutes

Councillor J Grimshaw.

Members of the Licensing and Safety Panel are asked to consider whether they have an interest in any of the matters on the agenda, and if so, to formally declare that interest. 

Councillor Rydeheard declared an interest that in his employment he had worked on a number of cases involving both Private Hire and Hackney Carriage drivers.

Councillor Brown also declared an interest that in his employment he had worked with taxi drivers on cases in court but none of these were licensed via Bury Council.

Councillor Khalid declared he was a local magistrate and appeal cases may be heard in court.

The minutes of the meeting held on the 9^th June 2022 are attached. Members of the Licensing and Safety Committee are asked to consider whether these are a correct record of the meeting, and if so, to formally approve them.

Delegated decision:

That the Minutes of the last meeting held on the 9^th June 2022 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

Questions are invited from members of the public present at the meeting on any matters for which this Panel is responsible.

Approximately 30 minutes will be set aside for Public Question Time if required.

Members of the public were in attendance at the meeting although no questions had been pre submitted or were verbally asked at the meeting.

A report from the Executive Director (Operations) is attached.

The Executive Director (Operations) submitted a report advising Members on operational issues within the Licensing Service.

The report set out updates in respect of the following issues:

The Licensing Service had dealt with a number of compliance and

enforcement matters between the 16^th May and the 3^rd July 2022.

PARKLIFE

Officers from the Public Protection Service worked during the weekend of the

Parklife concert that took place on the weekend of the 11^th and 12^th June

2022. Officers dealt with matters relating to:

·                     Unlicensed Taxi’s

·                     Illegal Street Trading

·                     Pedlars

·                     Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Trade enforcement

·                     Assistance of residents surrounding the event relating to taxis, noise and street trading

·                     Visited and checked all licensed premises in the vicinity of the event for compliance including off licences.

·                     Intelligence gathering on the event and reported matters to the Community Impact team.

·                     Officers were accompanied by Councillors O’Brien, Quinn and Gold during parts of the event.

BURY HACKNEY ASSOCIATION

Correspondence of thanks had been received by Bury Hackney Association following Park Life and was detailed in the report. The Public Protection Service had also received correspondence from Councillors and the organisers of the event, thanking the service for the work that they had undertaken.

TRADE LIAISON MEETING

On the 16^th June 2022, a joint trade liaison meeting (Licensing/Police and the

Hackney carriage and Private hire trade) took place. Discussions took place on

a number of issues relating to:

·                     Reporting of any incidents to Greater Manchester Police

·                     Praise was given for the work carried out by the Police, Licensing Officers and other officers of the Council.

·                     Application submission times – can apply up to 8 weeks in advance

·                     Driver Safety Initiative

·                     Update on EV Charge Points – Clean Air

·                     Wheelchair Accessible vehicles – Fiat Freedom/Peugeot Premier.

·                     Common Minimum Licensing Standards

·                     Compliance Test Certification

The Licensing Service are in the process of developing a webpage on the Council’s Website to enable the minutes of the trade liaison meetings can be published to enable all the hackney carriage and private hire trade to view the minutes

IMMEDIATE REVOCATION OF A PRIVATE HIRE DRIVER

The Licensing Service have recently received a complaint regarding a Private Hire Driver. Due to the nature of the information received, the Licensing Service in conjunction with the Head of Public Protection and Chair of this Committee considered the information and through the Council’s scheme of delegation on the 23 June 2022 revoked a licensed private hire driver’s licence with immediate effect under the powers of the Road Safety Act 2006 in the interests of public safety.

ENGAGEMENT WITH HACKNEY CARRIAGE AND PRIVATE HIRE TRADE

Following the recent request from the Licensing and Safety Committee to remind all drivers regarding the declaring of convictions/fixed penalties, the Licensing Service sent information on the 1^st July 2022 to all licensed drivers, operators and Trade representatives which was contained in the report.

TAXI DRIVER SAFETY INITIATIVE

The Licensing Service have contacted all licensed hackney carriage and

private hire drivers to  ...  view the full minutes text for item LSP.5

A report from the Executive Director (Operations) is attached.

The Executive Director (Operations) submitted a report advising Members to a request from the Hackney Carriage Drivers Association to request a review of the Hackney Carriage Fare Table.

Section 65 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976

allows a district Council to fix the rates or fares within the local authority for

Hackney Carriage Vehicles by the production of a table of fares.

The Act requires the council to advertise a notice in a local newspaper for 14

days any proposal to change Hackney Carriage fares and the production of a

table of fares to allow any objections to be made. If no objections are received

the Table of Fares shall come into effect after the 14-day notice period.

If any objection is received a further date has to be set, not later than 2

months after the first specified date, on which the Table of Fares shall come

into force with or without modifications as decided by them after consideration

of the objections.

The Licensing Service had received a request from Hackney Carriage

Association to increase the Hackney Carriage Fare Table within the Borough

of Bury. This was last revised in 2020. The requested was included at

Appendix 1 of the report. They confirm that the percentage, according to our

calculations on second mile total figure, comes, 13.11% 

The current Fare Table came into operation in 2020 a copy of which was

attached at appendix 2 of the report. The proposed fare table was attached at

appendix 3 of the report.

Mr Hussain from the Hackney Carriage Association was allowed by the Chair

to speak on this item and he commented via the public gallery that the

proposed increase was requested due to current fuel prices and inflation rates

across the board.

Councillor Brown commented if theHackney Carriage Association had taken note of bus journey subsidies and this would reduce the cost of bus fares between Bury and Tottington.

It was agreed:

To approve the review of the Hackney Carriage Fare Table and if no objections are received during the review process to implement the request. If objections are received, a further report would then be considered by the Licensing and Safety Committee.

A report from the Executive Director (Operations) is attached.

The Executive Director (Operations) submitted a report requesting that the Committee approve further delegation to Officers and to amend Council policy contained within the Council’s Conviction Guidelines, the circumstances of which were set out within the report.

The Licensing Unit Manager reported Members are aware that the consideration of driver misdemeanours and new applications form a large percentage of the business brought before the Committee. The Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 at section 51 (1) provides that in respect of private hire drivers:-

A district council shall not grant a licence to drive a private hire vehicle:

·         unless they are satisfied that the applicant is fit and proper to hold a driver licence. And similarly, Section 59 (1) provides that in respect of Hackney Carriage drivers:

A district Council shall not grant a licence to drive a hackney carriage:

·         unless they are satisfied that the applicant is fit and proper to hold a driver licence.

At present, the Council Constitution required that the Licensing and Safety Committee determines driver, vehicle and operator licences applications where the applicants do not comply with the relevant criteria or where there are grounds for refusal.  Grounds for refusal are often related to a driver’s criminal record.  Officers in the Council’s Licensing Service have delegated authority to grant applications for private hire driver and operator licences and hackney carriage driver licences where the applicant meets all the criteria of the application process and there are no grounds for refusal on the fit and proper person test.  In using those powers officers utilise the convictions policy and guidelines when determining whether or not an applicant meets the criteria with respect to convictions.

It follows that if there are grounds for refusal the application has to be considered at Committee no matter how unlikely to be granted or how often a repeat application is made.  Accepting that each case must be assessed on its own merits this report seeks to identify those applications that could be dealt with other than at Committee, leaving Members to determine those matters which are more finely balanced.

Members were made aware of the Council’s current Conviction Guidelines Policy which were last reviewed in December 2014. The current conviction guidelines were stated in the report attached to the agenda and detailed a breach of Conditions, bye-laws and complaints.

Following the request of the Committee to review the failing to declare offences, the Licensing Service requested Members to consider the delegation to licensing Officers the power forthwith to deal with applications where licence holders breach their conditions (including failing to declare offences), byelaws and complaints as currently permitted in line with the conviction guidelines as currently permitted in line with the conviction guidelines.

This would enable the Licensing Service to deal with breaches of all conditions as outlined at section 2.3 of this report unless the guidelines state otherwise but will give them flexibility to refer any matter to this Committee if the breach or complaint is so serious.

All other proposed  ...  view the full minutes text for item LSP.7

Any other business, which by reason of special circumstances, the Chair agrees may be considered as a matter of urgency.

No urgent business was reported at the meeting.

To consider passing the appropriate resolution under section 100 (A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 that the press and public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following item of business since it involves the likely disclosure of the exempt information stated.

Delegated decision:

That in accordance with Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following items of business since it involved the likely disclosure of information relating to individuals who hold Licences granted by the Authority or Applicants for Licences provided by the Authority.

A report from the Executive Director (Operations) is attached.

The Council Solicitor read out a statement to the committee following matters agreed in the previous agenda item. Before hearing the upcoming cases one of the items previously discussed was cases where drivers had breached the conditions of their licence by not declaring motoring convictions and fixed penalty notices within 7 days.

It had been decided previously by the committee that from now on, such cases could be dealt with by Officers rather than being brought before committee.

The officer would be able to deal with them by issuing a warning and all the cases included in the agenda pack fall into this category, and in future could be dealt with by a warning from the officer without coming to committee.

However, as the cases were already before committee contained within the agenda, the committee could still deal with the case now and give a warning which is exactly how the officer would have dealt with it if it had been before him under the new delegated power

It was agreed:

That the Committee would allow the cases contained in the agenda pack to be dealt with in the same way as the delegated officer would have dealt with them under the new delegated power. This meant that the Licence holders would not be disadvantaged or treated unfairly due to the timing of their cases coming before Committee.

Licence holders were then invited into the meeting and given the option that they could accept a written warning from the Committee which is how the case would have been dealt with under the new delegated powers. The licence holders would not need to address the Committee on the issues of suspension or revocation and the Committee members all confirmed they had read the agenda pack.

Licence holders 4/2022, 5/2022, 6/2022 and 7/2022 all accepted the proposal that a formal written warning be issued by the Committee. Each licence holder was given the opportunity to address the Committee in private but none wished to do so.

It was decided by the Committee that each licence holder would be dealt with by a formal written warning.

Before the close of the meeting, the Chair thanked Councillor Mike Smith for his contributions to the Committee as he was stepping aside to allow more time for his political group work.