The cross-border conundrum has been a press staple for several years now, at least when local journalists turn their attention to ‘taxi’ issues. The vast majority of such reports relate to Wolverhampton City Council, with the 40,000 private hire drivers it licenses operating the length and breadth of England under the so-called ‘triple lock’ licensing rules.
Since enforcement of the rules is generally the responsibility of local licensing authorities, shortcomings relating to Wolverhampton licensing thousands of private hire vehicles and drivers working often 100+ miles away in dozens of areas should be self-evident. And it’s not difficult to find other local authorities being critical in this regard. For example, a recent Lancashire Telegraph article about Wolverhampton cars working in the Blackburn with Darwen Council area quoted a senior councillor as saying:
“How can they check on the standard of taxis and support taxi drivers in Blackburn with Darwen, when they are almost 100 miles away?”
Similarly, a day or two later and the Leicester Mercury quoted a City Council spokesperson thus:
“The prevalence of outside-of-Leicester licensed vehicles presents some challenges, including less direct control over the licensing standards and enforcement of vehicles licensed by other authorities, which may have different standards.”
Naturally, Wolverhampton Council has a slightly different perspective on such enforcement issues, with the Blackburn piece quoting extensively from the authority’s PR/comms boilerplate on the cross-border stuff, including:
“Public safety is of paramount importance to us. Partnership working with our Licensing colleagues and other agencies shows our commitment to upholding our responsibilities; we expect drivers and vehicles licensed by us to always maintain the highest standards.
“This is irrespective of the administrative boundary within which they are operating at any particular time.[…]
“We take enforcement responsibilities seriously and our officers are out across the country, every Friday and Saturday night, working to protect the public.”
Of course, cars working cross-border are not confined to those working under Wolverhampton-issued licenses, and it’s interesting to compare that authority with the Merseyside borough of Knowsley, which has also experienced a significant increase in demand for private hire licences, which then work elsewhere in the region. The Liverpool Echo reports on a council official “going on record to indicate the ramifications of this including the inability of councils to provide the appropriate level of enforcement oversight.” The article continues:
Responding to one query put forth by Cllr Frances Wynn about Knowsley licensed Uber [and other private hire] drivers operating in other parts of the country such as Bury, [the council’s Head of Safety, Resilience and Community Protection] Brian Toolan said: “There’s a public protection issue because we don’t have the enforcement staff in Bury.”
Mr Toolan added there was a lack of enforcement oversight for licensed private hire drivers around the country which was not unique to Knowsley and prevented local authorities from monitoring the safety and service of these drivers “if they do something wrong…”.[…]
Councillor Terry Powell, the Chairman of Knowsley Council’s Licensing Committee said: “Knowsley Council’s licensing Enforcement Officers can inspect Knowsley licensed vehicles operating outside Knowsley but the practical challenges that presents when the vehicles might be operating many miles away and in unfamiliar places are obvious and significant. The council does engage with enforcement colleagues in other licensing authorities but clearly this is not an ideal situation.
Both Wolverhampton and Knowsley make the point that, as the law stands, they’re duty bound to issue licenses to applicants who meet the specified criteria, irrespective of where the drivers intend to work. But there the similarity ends – Wolverhampton clearly considers itself to be a de facto national licensing authority (a sort of Amazon or Argos of ‘taxi’ licensing) and takes a quasi-commercial/empire-building approach to it all, irrespective of the enforcement deficiencies presented.
On the other hand, Knowsley evidently takes a more public-spirited approach, demonstrating the civic duty inherent in the local licensing rationale, and obviously concerned about enforcing standards and safety rather than simply massaging the municipal ego.
(Ironically, Knowsley’s neighbouring borough Sefton arguably blazed the trail in terms of Wolverhampton-style cross-border licensing, at least on a regional rather than national basis. And that was well before the likes of Uber and the Deregulation Act 2015 – the former facilitated cross-border working in terms of its unprecedented national and global brand, while the latter also further enabled the practice by allowing the passing of bookings between licensed operators, which was necessary for essentially local businesses to be able to use the likes of Sefton/Wolverhamton/Knowsley-licensed cars and drivers in addition to their own locally-licensed fleet.)