Agenda and minutes

It was proposed and seconded that Mr Ridd be elected Chairman of the Sub-Committee for this meeting.

RESOLVED

that Mr Ridd be elected to be the Chairman at the meeting.

Members and officers are reminded to make any declarations of disclosable pecuniary, personal and/or prejudicial interests they may have in respect of matters on the agenda for this meeting.

There were no declarations of interest made at the meeting.

Consideration of late items as follows:

a)    Items added to the agenda papers and made available for public inspection.

b)    Items which the Chairman has agreed should be taken as matters of urgency by reason of special circumstances reported at the meeting.

There were no late items for consideration at the meeting.

PART II

(Items for which the press and public are/may be excluded)

That in accordance with section 100A of the Local Government Act 1972 (the Act) the public and the press be excluded from the meeting during the consideration of the following item on the agenda for the reason that it is likely in view of the nature of the business to be transacted that there would be disclosure to the public of “exempt information” being information of the nature described in Paragraph 1 (information relating to any individual) of Part I of Schedule 12A to the Act and the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

RESOLVED

that in accordance with Section 100A of the Local Government Act 1972 (the Act) the public and the press shall be excluded from the meeting during consideration of agenda item 5 for the reason that it is likely in view of the nature of the business to be transacted that there would be disclosure to the public of ‘exempt information’ being information of the nature described in Paragraph 1 (information relating to any individual) of Part I of Schedule 12A to the Act and the public interest

The Sub-Committee noted the hearing procedure.

The applicant, Mr NK, had not arrived at the meeting by 9.37am.  The Sub-Committee was advised that it could either adjourn the meeting or hear the application in the applicant’s absence.  The Sub-Committee agreed to proceed with the application.

The Sub-Committee considered a confidential report in respect of Mr NK, who had applied for a licence to drive private hire vehicles in the District of Chichester.

Mr Foord introduced the report. He explained that the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 stated that a licence should not be granted unless the applicant was deemed to be a fit and proper person.  The definition was intentionally broad to enable Council’s to consider the individual merits of each case.  The Sub-Committee was being asked to consider Mr NK’s application following receipt of a positive criminal record and due to a dispute with the applicant concerning the timing of the application regarding the taking of Chichester District Council’s Knowledge Test, as although Mr NK had started the process of submitting an application before the Knowledge Test came into effect his application form had been incomplete with some information missing and, therefore, could not be validated until after the Knowledge Test had been introduced.  Mr Foord advised that Mr NK had failed to declare his criminal conviction on his application form and provided details of the conviction to the Sub-Committee.  

During Mr Foord’s address, Mr Bennett informed the Sub-Committee that Mr NK had now arrived, accompanied by his wife, having been delayed because of traffic problems.  He explained to Mr NK that Mr Foord had started his introduction and that it was for the Sub-Committee to decide whether or not Mr Foord should begin his introduction again and that the address to this point had simply repeated what was in the written report.  Mr NK indicate that he was happy that the introduction need not be repeated. 

Mr Foord continued with his introduction and reiterated the two reasons for Mr NK’s application being referred to the Sub-Committee.  Mr Foord advised that he had met with Mr NK on 26 July 2017 to explore the circumstances leading up to the offence.  He referred to the Council’s Guidelines of the Relevancy of Previous Convictions and the offence of dishonesty, in relation to Mr NK’s conviction.  He advised that the Licensing Authority was not aware of any further criminal convictions or of any known penalty points on his DVLA driving licence.  Details were provided of Mr NK’s unsuccessful application to another Licensing Authority, due to him failing its Knowledge Test four times.  Mr NK’s application to this Licensing Authority had been received on 19 May 2017, seven working days before the Knowledge Test was due to be introduced from 1 June 2017.  However, Mr NK’s application form was incomplete, as its required supporting documents had not been provided and so could not be processed.  It was not until 5 July 2017 that his positive criminal record check was received.  It was not known if Mr NK was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18.