‘out of area taxis’ recommendation welcomed by council
Grooming gangs report author Baroness Casey’s call for Government action to close taxi licensing loopholes has been welcomed by Telford & Wrekin Council.
The Government has agreed to work “at pace to close loopholes in the law on taxi licensing” which had been identified as an issue three years ago in Telford during Tom Crowther’s independent review.
The Crowther report found examples of “taxi drivers offering children free rides in return for sexual activity.”
His inquiry heard “numerous accounts of children being subjected to unwanted sexual attention in taxis, which led in some cases to rape or other serious sexual assault by the driver.”
Baroness Casey’s report, published last week included a ‘Recommendation 11’ that “The Department for Transport should take immediate action to put a stop to ‘out of area taxis’ and bring in more rigorous statutory standards for local authority licensing and regulation of taxi drivers.”
Potential drivers can be licensed anywhere in the country and work across the UK, but enforcement lies with the council that licensed them.
A spokesperson for Telford & Wrekin Council said it meets regularly with other councils in the region to develop higher standards across borders.
“We made significant representations around taxi licensing as part of our Independent Inquiry into child sexual exploitation and have previously lobbied nationally about the issue of cross-border licensing so we very much welcome the Casey report’s recommendations,” said the spokesperson.
“In Telford and Wrekin we have a robust approach to enforcement, which includes involvement of an independent safeguarding team and we also adopted the national reporting tool for revoking and refusing licences two years before it became compulsory.
“We’ve also invited neighbouring licensing authorities, Shropshire, Wolverhampton and South Staffordshire, to work on a common approach to ensure the same high standards of taxi licensing across borders.
“We meet regularly with those neighbouring authorities to develop this work and we also host multi-authority enforcement activities to enable other teams to learn from the work we are doing in this area.
“Protecting children and young people is our top priority and we will continue our work, at a local and national level, to tackle child sexual exploitation.”
The Government has responded to the Casey report’s Recommendation 11 by saying that “The Department for Transport will legislate to address the important issues raised in the report, tackling the inconsistent standards of taxi and private hire vehicle driver licensing.
“We will work as quickly as possible and consider all options – including out of area working, national standards and enforcement – seeking the best overall outcomes for passenger safety.”
In the mean time the Government will also consult on “making local transport authorities responsible for taxi and private hire vehicle licensing, and determining how existing statutory guidance can be strengthened to further protect the public.
“We are also reviewing authorities’ compliance with existing guidance and will hold those who do not follow it to account.”
