Taxi Driver Online

Why can't the customer ask for drivers and vehicles to comply to their requirements providing that those requirements are the same or greater than the licensing requirements? The school contracts are just another customer. If the customer wants a certain level of service then they can ask for it. If you don't want to provide the customer with what they want then don't quote.

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Grandad,

The thing that operators have forgotten is the minimum wage applies to contracts, as the operator tells the driver when to start and finish.
Its written on the contract
This applies to all drivers who don't own there vehicle or any of the equipment at all times.
Drivers in the Borders only receive a percentage of the takings and many at the moment are on around £1.00 an hour and are working in excess of 70 hours a week

Lets hope the Council take that on board because if they take the cheapest tender then they may well be inadvertantly assisting less scrupulous operators paying less per hour than minimum rate states, I guess that with the Mininum wage and the new Disclosures,Training and medical costs coming in at around a conservative £250 per driver that even before an employed driver jumps in the car its costing the operator nearly £7.00 per single journey in costs not to mention other vehicle running costs...thats not easily explained on a small run tender of say 3 miles journey from say Ayton to Eyemouth. Im sure the Council bosses will be chuffed to bits at all this extra needless expense that they themselves have created will come back to them in the tender prices anyway. the Extra requirements that are over and above taxi licensing requirements will cost around £250 per driver per year, add to this New drivers to replace leaving drivers as drivers do, will add potentially another £250...so more like £500 X 200 tenders = £100,000 and that is money that will have to be found from within the Scottish Borders cash strapped council coffers. so whoever came up with this little gem will become the bee knees with the council chiefs...nottttttttttttt

All perfectly avoidable, im sure the new boss would be seen in far better light if the saved the council all that cash rather than make them spend it needlessly.

Well the sheit is about to hit the fan
After a meeting with the council they are going ahead with there new rules requiring drivers to have a medical another enhanced criminal record check, and all operators must pay there drivers and let the transport have sight of the employment and accounts to show they are paying drivers the minimum wages.
So that means that if the driver does not own the vehicle or any of the equipment the operator can no longer claim the driver is self employed as the operator will be able inform the drivers when to start and finish