Agenda and minutes

The minutes of the meeting held on 18 March 2013 were submitted and approved and the Chairman was authorised to sign them as a correct record.

None were received.

Report of Senior Specialist Advisor.

The Committee considered the report of the Senior Specialist Advisor in relation to the proposed amendment to the hackney carriage and private hire licensing fees.

The Council’s hackney carriage and private hire licensing function were self-financing. The fees that are levied are reviewed in consultation with Financial Management to ensure that there was neither a surplus nor deficit in the hackney carriage and private hire account.

The Senior Specialist Advisor gave an overview to the Committee on the general principles of fee-setting. Income was raised by licence fees in order to ensure that council tax payers were not subsidising the work involved in the administration of licensing functions. The fees were not used to increase revenue but instead were set at a level which aimed to cover the cost of administrating the function within the constraints of regulation.

Case law confirmed that approximate calculations were sufficient to discharge the requirement that the licensing authority endeavour to achieve a break even position. Surpluses in addition to deficits are required to be carried over year on year in order for local authorities to not make a profit. For example a shortfall in one year could be rectified by increasing costs the following year, although the authority does not have to adjust the licence fee every year to reflect a previous deficit or surplus.

It is a requirement that such fees are reasonable and imposed ‘with a view to recovering the costs of issue and administration’. This included such matters as the reasonable cost of carrying out vehicle inspections to decide if a licence should be granted and the costs of assessing the suitability of applicants. This also included the cost of badge issuing and other administrative tasks as well as enforcement undertaken in respect of licensed drivers.

Currently individuals are required to obtain either a hackney carriage driver’s licence, a private hire driver’s licence or a dual driver’s licence to enable them to drive a licensed vehicle. All vehicles that a driver utilised were required to be licensed and in addition private hire operators required a licence in order to take bookings on behalf of the drivers/vehicles within their fleet. Current licence fees were included in Figure 1 as part of section 3.2 of the report. The private hire operator fees levied was dependant on the number of private hire vehicles that the operator has within the fleet. The current fees for private hire operators were included in Figure 2 as part of Section 3.3 of the report.

The last amendment made to the fees took place in April 2001; therefore no change in the fees had been made in over twelve years. Appendix 1 of the report tabulated all taxi and private hire fees and charges currently levied, including the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) fee of £44. This was an additional fee added to the relevant driver’s licence fee and was subsequently paid by the Council to the DBS. The Committee was advised that going forward it was envisaged that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.