Issue - meetings

The Board received a report from the Strategic Director – Enterprise, Community and Resources, which made a recommendation from Regulatory Committee to adopt, as Council policy in respect of the Council’s taxi and private hire jurisdiction, the Assessment of Previous Convictions provisions in the Statutory Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Standards (July 2020); and to revoke all existing Relevance of Convictions policies.

It was reported that in February 2019 the Department for Transport issued a consultation draft version of a document entitled Taxi and Private Hire Licensing: Protecting Users.  The final version of the document was issued in July 2020 and was entitled Statutory Taxi and Private Hire Standards.

It was noted that the 2020 Standards had been issued under Section 177 of the Policing and Crime Act 2017, so the Council was required to have regard to the document when exercising its taxi and private hire licensing functions.  Members were referred to Appendix A – an annex within the document titled Assessment of Previous Convictions.   They were advised that Regulatory Committee had been applying the Assessment of Previous Convictions on a case by case basis since February 2019 and it was now considered appropriate to formalise this and create a formal policy, which would then supersede the existing policy.

The Board noted that the new Assessment of Previous Convictions appeared to be clearer than the previous policy and placed passenger safety as a priority, whilst enabled past offenders to sufficiently evidence that they had been successfully rehabilitated so they might obtain or retain a licence.

RESOLVED:  That

1)    The Assessment of Previous Convictions provisions in the Statutory Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Standards (July 2020) be adopted as Council policy in respect of Taxi and Private Hire jurisdiction; and

2)    All existing Relevance of Convictions policies be revoked.