Agenda item

Rachael Rumney, Senior Licensing Officer, introduced a report seeking Member’s approval of the revised draft Disclosure and Barring Service policy, and the commencement of a consultation exercise on the new draft policy.

The Officer summarised the report, highlighting to Members that the Council had a legal responsibility to ensure that all drivers were Fit and Proper Persons to apply for and continue to hold a Hackney Carriage/ Private Hire licence, and this included the power to refuse to grant a licence and suspend or revoke a licence where necessary.

Members were informed that there remained a dispute between the Police, the Home Office and the DBS over the disclosure to Licensing Authorities in relation to arrests, cautions, convictions and ‘other information’ held on the DBS certificate. In particular, some authorities had been informed that they could no longer check whether a prospective Taxi or Private Hire Driver had been barred from working with children or vulnerable adults unless they worked on a school transport contract. Further information was being sought, and Members would be updated once additional information was available.

In an effort to strengthen its current processes and procedures, the Council had revised its DBS policy to make it a mandatory requirement that all licensed drivers and new applicants must register with the DBS Update Service to create a ‘living certificate’ which the licensing authority could then access. The benefits of the new policy were confirmed to Members as outlined in the report.

It was confirmed that if Members were minded to approve the new policy and the commencement of a consultation on the new policy, the results of that consultation would be brought to a future meeting of the Licensing Committee.

Members were supportive of the proposed new policy, and asked a number of questions, including:

Being mindful of the need to balance the safeguarding of the public and the Drivers, has SBC explored the option of placing cameras in vehicles? Placing cameras within the vehicles would be subject to the Code of Practice and Data Protection, and would be subject to Legal approval. As such, there were no plans to implement this, though this was something that could be reviewed at a later date.

How would the Living Certificate be monitored? The Living Certificate would be registered to an individual, and would allow SBC to undertake status checks at any time. These checks would show if the certificate was current, or no longer valid, based on updated information from the Disclosure Barring Service. If the certificate was deemed ‘no longer valid’ then the individual would be required to procure a new certificate. Once registered, the certificate would be updated and available for checking even if the holder moved to other licensing authorities/areas.

Members commended the work the Licensing Team were doing to safeguard the public, and resolved to approve the Officer recommendations as outlined in the report.

Resolved -  

(a)   That the revised draft Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) policy be approved.

(b)   That Officers commence the consultation exercise on the new draft policy.