Issue - meetings

The Head of Housing and Communities, John Littlemore, introduced the draft Hackney and Private Hire Policy and explained that the Council has a number of separate policies, guidance notes and conditions relating to hackney carriage and private hire licensed vehicles, drivers and operators but no single document that could be referred to as the ‘taxi licensing policy’. The draft Hackney and Private Hire Policy would act as a consolidating document.

The proposed changes included:

·  The alignment of Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) and medical checks with licence renewals which occur three yearly;

·  Permitting GPs to submit medical evidence on a bespoke form rather than a Maidstone prescribed form;

·  The alignment of MBC policy with Passenger service Vehicle and heavy Goods licence requirements by accepting the production of Group 2 medical certification not less than 6 months old, and licensing drivers with insulin dependence at C1; and

·  The introduction of a penalty point system to deal with breaches of licence conditions.

In response to questions it was noted that:

·  Parties that were consulted included Maidstone’s hackney and private hire drivers, Councillors, MPs and MEPs, Neighbouring Authorities, Local businesses and residents, the West Kent CCG, Kent Police and KCC among others.

·  The Communications team would be instrumental in ensuring that the consultation was eliciting meaningful responses.

·  Criminal records checks are provided by the embassy for foreign nationals and show a record of the preceding five years. Foreign nationals are required to hold a UK licence for a full year and have a good conduct certificate from the embassy in order to apply for a hackney or private hire licence. Medicals are undertaken by a Doctor in Maidstone.

·  The new penalty points scheme was already in effect in Sevenoaks DC and Tunbridge Wells BC to deal with minor indiscretions. This reduced the need to bring minor issues to a sub-committee. If a range of minor indiscretions were identified then this would be brought to sub-committee.

·  There were some typographical errors in the draft document which the Head of Housing and Communities noted.

The Head of Housing and Communities advised Members that the intention was to complete the consultation and return with the results to the first meeting of the next Municipal Year.

RESOLVED:

That the draft Taxi Licensing Policy be approved for consultation, with the Head of Housing and Community Services to report responses back to the Licensing Committee in 2015 together with the proposed final policy, and that the Head of Housing and Community Services be given delegation to amend the typographical and other minor errors in the document.