Licensing Committee - 20/12/2011

At a MEETING of the LICENSING COMMITTEE held at Dundee on 20th December, 2011.

Present:-

Bailie Roderick A J WALLACE

COUNCILLORS

Bailie Roderick A J WALLACE, Convener, in the Chair.

The minute of meeting of this Committee of 1st December, 2011 was held as read.

Unless marked thus * all items stand delegated.

I DEPUTATIONS

It was reported that deputations relative to Article II POLICY ON TAXI LICENCES - CONSULTATION RESULTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS had been received from the following organisations and individuals:-

(a) Unite The Union (Taxi Branch)

(b) Dundee Taxi Association

(c) Dundee Private Hire (203020) Ltd

(d) Dundee Hackney Association

(e) Tay Taxis

(f) Celebrate Age Network

(g) John Alexander

The Committee heard the deputations listed above.

II POLICY ON TAXI LICENCES - CONSULTATION RESULTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Reference was made to Article III of the minute of meeting of this Committee held on 31st March, 2011, wherein options for a policy on the grant of taxi licences were placed before the Committee for consideration and the Committee decided to defer taking any decision until after the carrying out of public consultation, with particular regard being had to seeking the views of non-wheelchair disabled persons and elderly persons concerning their preferences for the types of vehicles which should be licensed as taxis.

There was submitted Report No 487-2011 by the Depute Chief Executive (Support Services) advising of the outcome of the recent public consultation on the policy on the granting of taxi licences and to make recommendations to the Committee as to future policy. The Committee noted that in Section 5.4 of the report, the final sentence would begin with "It will be necessary to devise" and that in Section 6.1, "should" in line two be replaced with "could", and in line five "could" be replaced with "should".

Following consideration of the report and having heard the deputations, the Committee agreed:-

(i) in principle to a mixed taxi fleet of saloon cars and wheelchair accessible vehicles (WAV's); to comply with its public sector equality duty under the Equality Act 2010, to meet the varied needs of the travelling public and to address the accessibility requirements of ambulant disabled and elderly people in addition to those of wheelchair users;

(ii) that the composition of the fleet be the subject of further analysis and investigation by officers with a report thereon to be submitted to the Committee as soon as possible and for such persons to be consulted in this regard as deemed appropriate by the Depute Chief Executive (Support Services) and that it would be necessary for the report to establish the degree of the need for WAV's and also to address the issue of how the licences for the vehicles in the mixed fleet were to be allocated fairly and also that if it became necessary to incur expenditure through the engagement of external bodies, further Committee authority would be applied for at that stage;

(iii) that in the light of the views of Senior Counsel set out in Paragraph 6.1 of the report no decision be made on the issue of an overall limit on the number of taxis in the City until the completion of the process outlined in Paragraph 2.2 thereof; and

(iv) that in order to address the concerns raised in the responses to the recent public consultation regarding the level of assistance being offered to passengers (especially those with infirmity or disabilities), the Depute Chief Executive (Support Services) be authorised to report back with recommendations for appropriate driver training to be undertaken as part of the taxi driver's licence conditions.

Roderick A J WALLACE, Convener.