Meeting Details

Licensing Committee
11 Aug 2020 - 18:00 to 20:00
Occurred

Please follow this link to watch the meeting live on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ColchesterCBC

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  • Documents
  • Attendance
  • Visitors
  • Declarations of Interests

Documents

Agenda

Part A
1 Welcome and Announcements (Virtual Meetings)
The Chairman will welcome members of the public and Councillors to the meeting and remind those participating to mute their microphones when not talking. The Chairman will invite all Councillors and Officers participating in the meeting to introduce themselves. The Chairman will, at regular intervals, ask Councillors to indicate if they wish to speak or ask a question and Councillors will be invited to speak in turn by the Chairman. A vote on each item of business will be taken by roll call of each Councillor and the outcome of each vote will be confirmed by the Democratic Services Officer.
2 Substitutions
Councillors will be asked to say if they are attending on behalf of a Committee member who is absent.
3 Urgent Items
The Chairman will announce if there is any item not on the published agenda which will be considered because it is urgent and will explain the reason for the urgency.
4 Declarations of Interest
Councillors will be asked to say if there are any items on the agenda about which they have a disclosable pecuniary interest which would prevent them from participating in any discussion of the item or participating in any vote upon the item, or any other pecuniary interest or non-pecuniary interest.
5 Minutes of Previous Meeting
The Councillors will be invited to confirm that the minutes of the meeting held on 10 June 2020 are a correct record.
106
RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 10 June 2020 were confirmed as a correct record. 
6 Have Your Say! (Virtual Meetings)
Members of the public may make representations to the meeting.  Each representation may be no longer than three minutes (500 words).  Members of the public may register their wish to address the meeting by registering online by 12.00 noon on the working day before the meeting date. In addition a written copy of the representation will need to be supplied for use in the event of unforeseen technical difficulties preventing participation at the meeting itself. 

The report sets out the proposed timetable to bring the results of the consultation on CCTV to the Licensing Committee for consideration.

107

Sarah White, Senior Licensing Officer attended to present the report and assist the Committee with their enquiries. Sarah explained that the intention was to bring a full consultation response back to the Committee at the next meeting on 30 September 2020. She reminded the Committee that the consultation in relation to the proposed policy had been run earlier in the year, and had been extended until 12 July 2020 in recognition of the difficulties posed by the Covid-19 crisis. The Committee were advised that there had been a good response to the consultation in terms of the number of responses received, and these would all be placed before the Committee for their consideration.

RESOLVED: That the contents of the report be noted. 

To notify the Committee of the outcome of the consultation carried out from 18 May to 31 July 2020 on proposed changes to the Council’s Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licensing Policy.
108

Sarah White, Senior Licensing Officer attended to present the report and assist the Committee with their enquiries. The Committee were reminded that they had approved changes to the Councils Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licensing Policy, subject to a consultation, which had been carried out between 18 May 2020 and 31 July. No responses had been received to this consultation, and the Committee were therefore requested to approve the changes and recommend that these be presented to Full Council for adoption. The key changes that had been made to the policy were highlighted, including a new requirement that hackney carriage proprietors obtain a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) certificate in line with new guidance from the Department for Transport. A requirement had also been introduced to ensure that the Council was notified when a licensed vehicle was sold to another proprietor for continued use as a licensed vehicle. In addition to these changes, non-British drivers now had to obtain a counterpart licence from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) to enable driving convictions obtained in the United Kingdom to be checked.

In response to an enquiry from Councillor Maclean, Sarah White confirmed that the change made that required hackney carriage proprietors have to obtain a DBS certificate now meant that the policy was uniform in this regard and that proprietors, private hire operators and drivers now all had to produce this document. The Committee registered their approval of the proposed changes, which they considered to be reasonable and sensible, allowing a greater level of checks to be carried out on licence holders.

RESOLVED: that the following amendments be made to the Council’s Hackney
Carriage and Private Hire Licensing Policy and the amended Policy be proposed to
Council for formal adoption;

Hackney Carriage Proprietors’ Suitability

 
5.3 The application process to be amended to require hackney carriage proprietors,
including joint owners, to provide the following information, in addition to the
information already provided in relation to the vehicle being licensed –
? A current Passport or Birth Certificate
? Evidence that they may legally work in the UK*
* Please note - If circumstances come to light during the
lifetime of the licence that they no longer have a right to work
in the UK, the licence will be revoked.
? A basic Disclosure and Barring Service Check accompanied by a
list of all previous convictions and any other relevant material
information. The disclosure must be less than three months old
when the application is made. Thereafter a DBS must be
submitted every year. If they are also a licensed driver with the
Council this requirement would not apply.
? Proof of completion of safeguarding training.

5.4 The following test be included at Paragraph 2.3 of the Policy and used when
deciding the suitability of an individual –
“Would I be comfortable allowing this person to have control of a licensed vehicle
that can travel anywhere, at any time of the day or night without arising suspicion
and be satisfied that he/she would not allow it to be used for criminal or other
unacceptable purposes and be confident that he/she would maintain it to an
acceptable standard throughout the period of the licence.”

5.5 The minimum age for vehicle proprietors be set at 18 years or over.

Use of Meters

5.6 To add to Paragraph 8 of the Annex on hackney carriage vehicles and
Paragraph 8 on the Annex on private hire vehicles that the meter must be turned
on at the start of every journey.

To inform the Committee of action taken on 17 July 2020, to amend the Council’s Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licensing Policy, pursuant to the provisions of Rule 18 of the Council Procedure Rules, following consultation with the Chairman of the Scrutiny Panel.
108a

Sarah White, Senior Licensing Officer attended to present the report and assist the Committee with their enquiries. The Committee heard that urgent action had required to be taken to get the taxi licensing function up and running following the shut down of service provision caused by the Covid-19 emergency. Existing licenses had been extended and action had been taken to allow the full range of services to be provided to licence holders remotely in a new and safe way, and procedures had needed to be altered to allow for this. The changes required had been approved by the Chair of Scrutiny Panel

RESOLVED: that the changes made to the Council’s Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licensing Policy pursuant to the provisions of Rule 18 of the Council Procedure Rules be noted. 

This report sets out the current Work Programme 2020-2021 for the Licensing Committee. This provides details of the reports that are scheduled for each meeting during the municipal year. 
109

Matthew Evans, Democratic Services Officer, introduced the work programme 2020- 2021.

RESOLVED that the contents of the work programme be noted.

11 Exclusion of the Public (not Scrutiny or Executive)
In accordance with Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 to exclude the public, including the press, from the meeting so that any items containing exempt information (for example confidential personal, financial or legal advice), in Part B of this agenda (printed on yellow paper) can be decided. (Exempt information is defined in Section 100I and Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972).
Part B

Additional Meeting Documents

Attendance

Name
No other member attendance information has been recorded for the meeting.
NameReason for Sending ApologySubstituted By
Councillor Simon Crow  
Councillor Patricia Moore Councillor Jackie Maclean
NameReason for AbsenceSubstituted By
No absentee information has been recorded for the meeting.

Declarations of Interests

Member NameItem Ref.DetailsNature of DeclarationAction
No declarations of interest have been entered for this meeting.

Visitors

Visitor Information is not yet available for this meeting