Agenda and minutes

The Democratic Services Officer read out the procedure.

RESOLVED that a Vice-Chair was not required on this occasion.

Apologies were received from Councillors Patrick Anketell-Jones, Cherry Beath, Bryan Chalker, Roger Symonds and Tim Warren.

At this point in the meeting declarations of interest are received from Members in any of the agenda items under consideration at the meeting. Members are asked to indicate:

(a) The agenda item number in which they have an interest to declare.

(b) The nature of their interest.

(c) Whether their interest is a disclosable pecuniary interest or an other interest,  (as defined in Part 2, A and B of the Code of Conduct and Rules for Registration of Interests)

Any Member who needs to clarify any matters relating to the declaration of interests is recommended to seek advice from the Council’s Monitoring Officeror a member of his staff before the meeting to expedite dealing with the item during the meeting.

There were none.

There was none.

There were none.

There were none.

These were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

The Team Manager for Environmental Protection and Licensing summarised the report. She said that at present six garages within B&NES were approved to carry out taxi inspections. A review of the current approval process for garages had been undertaken, which had identified three options:

1. To continue to regulate the number of garages approved to undertake licensed vehicle inspections, with garages tendering to achieve approved status.

2. To permit any VOSA approved MoT centre to carry out the licensed vehicle inspections.

3. To bring all licensed vehicle inspections “in-house”

Appendix A set out the arguments for and against each option. Option 1 was the preferred option. She explained that the decision about which option would be adopted would be taken by officers, but Members were, in the interests of openness, being given an opportunity to comment.

Councillor Furse said that he did not consider option 3 to be acceptable. He also wondered why a limit should be placed on the number of garages approved to do inspections. He suggested that any garage which reached the required standard should be approved; this would be in effect a modified version of option 1.

The Senior Public Protection Officer said that limiting the number of garages made it much easier for the Licensing Authority to communicate with them. For example, it had come to light that some vehicle had had diesel particulate filters removed because of the expense of maintaining them. A phone call from the Authority to six garages was all that was required to remind them to check that these filters were fitted and functioning. Councillor Watt suggested that that this was clear evidence that the current system had not been working: the garages had not been checking these filters, even though this was a requirement. The claim that a restriction on the number of garages carrying out this work ensured higher quality control was therefore unfounded.

The Team Manager for Environmental Protection and Licensing explained that this review presented an opportunity to review procedures to ensure that they were robust and transparent.

Councillor Clarke asked whether there had been pressure from garages not on the approved list to be allowed to do the work. The Health and Environmental Manager said that there had been approach from one garage not on the list; it would be beneficial to open up the tendering process and encourage other garages to submit tenders. In reply to a question from Councillor Webber she said that the tendering process would be carried out within existing resources.

Councillor Watt asked what value was added by the taxi inspection, since it seemed to cover the same ground as the MoT. The Principal Solicitor pointed out that a taxi inspection was done annually, whereas in the case of new vehicle the MoT was carried out every three years. The Chair added that the taxi inspection also covered that operation of the meter. Councillor Watt asked where the requirements for taxi inspections were specified. The Senior Public Protection Officer said there  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.