Concerns over taxi check changes
Local authorities today raised concerns about new Home Office guidance which could see a reduction in the level of checks imposed on taxi drivers before they are issued with licences to trade.
All taxi drivers must undergo a Criminal Records Bureau check before obtaining a licence, but many councils require them not only to have a standard check - which reveals any criminal record - but to go through the enhanced version of the procedure, which provides additional information about their background.
But the Home Office is concerned that the thousands of applications are clogging up the CRB system, and has issued new guidance that councils should require only the basic check unless the driver involved has a contract to transport children, for instance on a regular school run.
Newcastle city councillor Henri Murison described the new guidance as “narrow-minded”, arguing that taxi drivers are very likely to find themselves carrying unaccompanied children even if they do not have a school transport contract.
”I think people need to look again at this,” Cllr Murison told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “We all think it is pretty mad, when the drivers want to do this and when the local councils want to put them through these checks, that someone else is standing in the way and saying we are not allowed.”
John Mason, director of taxi and private hire at Transport for London, said that around 1,000 applications for taxi licences were processed in the capital each month. He said he was aware of around 240 applications which were rejected because of “sometimes quite horrendous” information uncovered by the enhanced check which would not have been revealed by the basic check.
Mr Mason told Today: “A standard check tends to give you information about convictions - basically what is on the criminal record.
”But the enhanced check provides TFL and other licensing authorities up and down the country with much more information and intelligence - background information about cases that have gone to court but have failed for one reason or another, a check with the local police station and most importantly checks against the lists of people banned from working with children and vulnerable adults. That is what we are most worried about.”
Cabbies working in the evenings and nights in the West End will inevitably pick up adults leaving pubs and clubs in a vulnerable state, said Mr Mason.
He said: “There is absolutely no reason for us for this change to be put upon TFL and other licensing authorities, and we are really worried about it.”
And he said that taxi drivers are also opposed to the new guidelines, even though they will save them money.
”They pay for the enhanced checks, it is more expensive than the standard check, but I have yet to meet a taxi driver who doesn’t believe that they should go through the enhanced check,” said Mr Mason.
”All the taxi driver associations that I deal with are united on this. They want to pay more money because, quite rightly, they want to preserve the very good name they have got.”
http://www.asianimage.co.uk/news/918206 ... k_changes/
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