Agenda and draft minutes

Any apologies for absence that have been received will be noted at this point.

Apologies were received from Cllr Evans and Cllr Johnson.

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the General Licensing Committee meeting held on Wednesday 12 October 2022.

The minutes from the General Licensing Committee held Wednesday 12 October 2022 were approved as a correct record.

The Chairman will announce any urgent items that due to special circumstances are to be dealt with under the agenda item below relating to Late Items.

There were no Urgent Items.

Details of members’ personal interests arising from their membership of parish councils or West Sussex County Council or from their being Chichester District Council or West Sussex County Council appointees to outside organisations or members of outside bodies or from being employees of such organisations or bodies.

Such interests are hereby disclosed by each member in respect of agenda items where the Council or outside body concerned has been consulted in respect of that particular item or application.

Declarations of disclosable pecuniary interests, personal interests and prejudicial interests are to be made by members of the Committee in respect of matters on the agenda or this meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

Questions submitted by members of the public in writing by noon on the previous working day (for a period of up to 15 minutes).

Mrs Bellingham read out the following question on behalf of Starline Sussex:

As we have not received a response to the questions asked in our email detailing why we objected to the 37% increase (TFR8 refers) we ask again why you have not increased fees since 2016 and do you not think it would have been good practice and more manageable for operators/drivers and indeed the District Council to ensure the service paid for itself to pay a small increase each year rather than being hit with a huge 37% increase, which will inevitably have to be passed onto customers, during a recession and cost of living crisis and is a 37% increase going to be reflected in Hackney tariffs? 

Cllr Ballantyne read out the following response:

The questions referred to are contained within the written objection response from Starline Sussex Limited to the recent public consultation exercise concerning the proposal to increase the fees and charges associated with hackney carriage and private hire licensing matters.  The objection response is contained in full within today’s published papers at pages 37 and 38.  All members of the General Licensing Committee have therefore had sight of this and indeed all other objections.  It is entirely and solely a matter for the General Licensing Committee to give due consideration to matters raised in all objections received, and to ultimately determine whether an increase in fees and charges in respect of hackney carriage and private hire licensing is now appropriate. 

With respect to whether the local hackney carriage tariff will increase, the setting of the tariff is a matter for the Council to determine following public consultation.  An extensive public consultation exercise was undertaken during 2022 with a proposed increase in the tariff being agreed in principle by the General Licensing Committee on the 12 October 2022.  No objections to the proposed increase in tariff were received and consequently a revised tariff came into effect on 4 November 2022.  There has been no request from those involved in the hackney carriage trade to seek a further increase to the tariff.

Mrs Bellingham asked the following supplementary question:

As it is good practise to increase prices incrementally, why has there been no increase since 2016?

Mr Knowles-Ley stated that inflation has gone up 20.8% in the last three years, and that to increases fees every year since the Covid pandemic but have had a negative impact on the trade.

Cllr Ballantyne read out the following public question:

If charges do go up in some cases by 37% will some of this substantial increase in revenue be used to bring down new driver application processing times to a more realistic time scale?  

Cllr Ballantyne then read out the following response:

Any increase to hackney carriage and private hire licensing fees and charges is solely to ensure that the costs incurred by the Council in carrying out its various statutory functions are fully covered by income generated by the associated application fees and charges.  However, with respect  ...  view the full minutes text for item 77.

The Committee is requested to consider the report and appendices and make the following recommendation:

3.1      That Members adopt the proposed revised fees and charges in relation to hackney carriage and private hire licensing as shown at Appendix 1 to take effect from 1^st April 2024.

Mr Knowles-Ley presented his report:

Under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, it is expected that the costs incurred by a Council in conducting its hackney carriage and private hire licensing functions are fully covered by income from application fees and charges.

It is recognised in law that general anticipated calculations and costs can provide a helpful picture, and that Councils are not required to pin-point the financial position with precision year on year. Adjustments do not have to be precise, a general calculation which is broadly correct is considered satisfactory, but a cost neutral position needs to be attained, if not immediately then over a brief period.

On 1^st October 2015, Section 10 of the Deregulation Act 2015 came into effect. It required all Councils to commence providing 3-year driver’s licences and 5-year operator’s licence. Previously these licences could only be granted for one year. To calculate an appropriate fee for these new requirements a thorough review of the licensing processes in place at that time was conducted which included considering the cost of providing the service. A revised set of fees/charges were identified, subsequently consulted upon with various stakeholders, and adopted by the Council in 2016. These revised fees and charges took effect on the 1^st May 20216 and have since remained unchanged, a period of nearly 8 years.

Since adopting these fees and charges, the Council has sought continually to make its licensing processes as efficient as possible. This is to keep the cost to licence holders to an absolute minimum, whilst always maintaining a central and important focus on ensuring public safety. The Council have in the last 8 years repeatedly absorbed, without increasing fees and charges, both locally adopted and national requirements. Such requirements include making sure that an applicant or licence holder has:

(i) a legal right to work in the UK.

(ii) is registered for tax purposes with HMRC or, in the case of a new applicant, understands their tax responsibilities.

(iii) is not listed on the National Register of Refusals and Revocations.

(iv) has not been convicted of any criminal offence in the previous 6 months; and finally

(v) has completed mandatory safeguarding training.

All these checks are necessary and focussed on promoting public safety and protecting the travelling public when using a licensed vehicle and driver.

Like all other organisations and businesses, the Council is not immune to inflation when providing goods and services, and this has been felt, particularly in the last few years. The rate of inflation published by the Office of National Statistics for 2022-2023 was 4%, in 2023-2024 10.10% and 6.70% for 2024-2025. Such unusual high rates of inflation have resulted in the cost to the Council of providing the hackney carriage and private hire licensing service significantly increasing in a noticeably brief period.

Having undertaken a thorough review of expenditure and income with the assistance of the Council’s Accountancy Team, it was confirmed that in recent years income from fees  ...  view the full minutes text for item 78.

(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 to be reported at the meeting.

There were no Late Items.

Part 2

(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.

There are no restricted items for consideration by the General Licensing Committee at this meeting.

There were no Part 2 Items.