MR T wrote:
Mr Brummie cab............. do you remember when the Birmingham cab trade took the council to court over licensing fees.... way back when.... if so... have you a copy of the case....... at least I think they did...
To my recollection they did not take the council to court, but I think I know what you are alluding to. If my memory serves me right this happened about 7-10 years ago.
The 'action' was instigated & negotiated out of court by a very good friend of mine, who was the then secretary of The Birmingham Taxi Co-operative.
It's too late to ring him tonight, but I will speak to him tomorrow to get the exact details & procedure that he adopted.
We have spoken about this on many occasions, but as I was not involved in the 'action', I am only 95% sure how it was achieved.
Basically, there is a window of opportunity, 6 weeks I think, during which every citizen has the right to inspect their council's accounts (for the area in which they live in).
That is to say, as a resident of Birmingham I have that opportunity, if I wish, to inspect Birmingham City Council's accounts, for the last year only I think, but obviously I cannot inspect the accounts of say Stoke-on-Trent or Bristol, because I am not resident there & not a rate payer there.
The detail that can be asked for is quite astounding. For instance the salary that is paid to council officers, clerks, office staff in any department, but this is only supplied by grade of worker & not name of individual.
The Co-op's secretary used this legal right to access the financial information of the licensing section.
Bearing in mind that the LG (MP) Act 1976 allows councils to charge for licensing, but only to recover their costs & not to make a profit, it was found on inspection of the council licensing department's accounts that for the previous year the licensing department had in fact made a profit on HC & PH licensing & had transferred that annual profit to the council's general funds.
Questions were then asked why these funds had been transferred to the council's general funds, & I think the answer came back that was the way it had always been done, or such like. In any event it was established that this had been custom & practice by the council on surpluses in HC & PH licensing fees for many years.
The next step was to compile all the documentary evidence for that year, bearing in mind that previous years' windows of opportunity to view & inspect the council's accounts had long passed.
Once the documentary evidence had been assembled, the Co-op secretary sat down & wrote a very nice letter to the District Auditor, pointing out the relevant sections in the LG (MP) Act 1976, enclosing the documentary evidence that he had, & also advising the DA that he suspected that the practice of transferring surpluses from the licensing department to the council’s general funds had been going on for a number of years.
The DA then, I believe, interviewed the Co-op secretary & after that had very long words & meetings with the council. As the District Auditor is entitled to inspect the council’s accounts at any time & go back a lot further than the last year, the DA was able to ascertain how much had been transferred to the council’s general funds from licensing.
Once the DA started his investigation the process lasted many months, perhaps even a year or so. The culmination was that about £365K was returned to the licensing departments funds from the council’s general funds. The law does not allow for the repayment of these funds back to those who have paid licence fees in the past. But the HC & PH trade enjoyed much reduced fees for many years (I think at one stage they dropped from about £140pa to £46pa) & we still enjoys reasonable low fees to this day.
Strangely, the council’s finance departments don’t make this mistake any more; everything is transparent & we are even told how much the balance of surpluses is each year, which at the end of March 2008 was a little over £120k if I remember correctly.
Just to finish a couple of words of caution.
Firstly, it is not sensible to try & get the council to reduce licensing fees to a level that will wipe out the surplus balance, because if you need a SUD survey or extra enforcement officers to be employed & the money is not there, the trade is stuffed. The Birmingham trade succeeded in negotiating no increase in fees this year, because of the surplus, but in hindsight this may have been a bad move. We certainly need more enforcement officers & a SUD survey perhaps early next year. The surplus could be wiped out by these two factor alone, which could be detrimental to the trade if further spending is needed & the funds are low.
Secondly, the process of trawling through council accounts to obtain the evidence for a District Auditor is extremely time consuming, stressful (you only have a limited time period), & requires a great deal of diligence & dedication. Also, anyone who does not have a basic knowledge of accounts should not attempt such a task.
I will ring the person who saw this process through tomorrow, but I am almost certain that I have not missed out any material facts. If I have I will post additons/amendments tomorrow.
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