Public expects councils to do police checks on taxi drivers
People expect councils to do checks on individuals before issuing licences for all taxi and private hire vehicles, a ComRes opinion poll has found.
Conducted on behalf of the Local Government Group, the poll revealed:
•93% of people expect councils to check whether a potential driver had been banned from working with children;
•92% expect the same checks to be carried out to see if they had been banned from working with vulnerable adults;
•85% expect local police records to be checked to highlight other relevant information, where further action is likely to be taken; and
•53% feel that local police records should also be checked to highlight cases where no further action was likely to be taken.
The Criminal Records Bureau, which carries out all checks of this kind, recently informed councils that in their view enhanced CRB disclosure could only be required for drivers who transport children and vulnerable adults as part of a contract to or from schools or hospitals.
However, the Local Government Group believes that public safety is a council's number one priority when issuing all taxi and PHV licences and the issue is to be discussed at this week's LGA Annual Conference in Birmingham.
Cllr Mehboob Khan, chair of the Local Government Association's safer and stronger communities programme board, said: "Given the clear public expectation that taxi and private hire vehicles should be subject to enhanced CRB checks the Local Government Group is urging the Home Office as it considers the Mason Review of the criminal records regime to make a commonsense decision and allow councils to continue to protect the public and request enhanced checks before granting a licence."
An enhanced CRB check allows councils access to intelligence on alleged sexual assaults, rapes, terrorist activity, kidnapping, drug dealing and organised crime. A standard CRB check only highlights where somebody has been convicted of a crime. It is unable to raise the alarm if there have been multiple accusations of a sufficient concern to investigate further.
Therefore, licensing officers must be given access to all information to enable the council to determine whether an applicant can be considered `fit and proper' to transport anyone.
Cllr Mehboob Khan continued: "The overwhelming majority of licensed taxi and private hire drivers are reputable and honest individuals, who provide a valuable service to the public and generate significant revenue for the areas in which they work.
"However, the recent cases of John Worboys, Derrick Bird and Christopher Halliwell highlight the position of trust that people put in taxi drivers and the potential vulnerability of some passengers. In our view, councils should have be allowed to fully check applicants applying for taxi and private vehicle hire licences. This is not an additional burden for councils in terms of cost since the taxi applicants pay for CRB checks and taxi trades are in support.
"Anyone getting into a taxi or private hire vehicle should be able to do so, safe in the knowledge that their council has only issued the driver a licence after fully checking their background first."
