Councillors Abbasi and Malik, having declared that this item affected one of their disclosable pecuniary interests, left the chamber for the duration of this item.

Council considered a report to the General Purposes Licensing Committee on 20 September 2016 asking for approval of amendments to the criteria applicable to the Hackney Carriage and Private Hire trades in order to promote safeguarding and awareness of safeguarding.

Council resolved to adopt the amendments to the criteria applicable to the Hackney Carriage and Private Hire trades as set out in the report and appendix.

The Head of Community Services submitted a report which detailed the proposed amendments to the criteria applicable to the Hackney Carriage and Private Hire trades in order to promote safeguarding and awareness of safeguarding.

The Licensing Manager introduced the report.  He explained that the proposed amendments were as a result of the recommendations arising from the recommendations that came out of the Serious Case Review into the Bullfinch child sexual exploitation operation.  In summary the proposed amendments were:

·            the introduction of mandatory Safeguarding Awareness Training to be attended by all licensed drivers.

·           A requirement for all drivers to sign up to the Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Services (DBS) Update Service.

In discussion the Committee noted the following points:

·           The mandatory Safeguarding Awareness Training has been approved by Oxfordshire County Council’s Local Designated Officer for child safeguarding

·           Oxfordshire County Council will finance the training for those drivers who provide school transport services (expected to be the majority of drivers) 

·           to ensure that all Oxford City Council licensed drivers have attained this enhanced level of training it is proposed that the Licensing Authority meet the cost of training (£15.00 per attendee) for those remaining licence holders who do not provide school transport services

·           the safeguarding awareness training would be a “pre-application” requirement for all new applicants

·           the Licensing Manager will write to all existing licence holders informing them of this training requirement, and that no licence will be renewed until this training has been completed

·           to allow time for the trade to digest this information and book a training course, the requirement on existing licence holders will take effect from 3 April 2017 and the costs incurred by the Licensing Authority be met within the 2017/18 Council year (i.e. for those who do not also hold a School transport badge with the County Council)

·           making the DBS Update a mandatory requirement would remove the problems faced by both officers and licence holders relating to the slow processing of disclosure applications, and allow the Authority to be able to carry out swift background checks in order to promote our safeguarding objectives.

In conclusion the Committee noted that these recommendations would be adopted by neighbouring local authorities in due course but until that time it was possible that drivers licensed by them would still be able to drive within the city without having undertaken the mandatory training.

The General Purposes Licensing Committee resolved to:

1.   approve the proposed amendments to the criteria and conditions applicable to licensed drivers as detailed within the report; and

2.   recommend the amendments to Council for adoption.