Agenda and minutes

The Democratic Services Officer advised the meeting of the procedure.

Apologies were received from Cllr Sue Craig, for whom Cllr Steve Hedges substituted.

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.

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

The Chair explained the procedure to be followed for agenda item 28.

The Committee is asked to consider passing the following resolution:

“the Committee having been satisfied that the public interest would be better served by not disclosing relevant information, in accordance with the provisions of Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, RESOLVES that the public shall be excluded from the meeting for the following item(s) of business and the reporting of the meeting be prevented under Section 100A(5A), because of the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraphs 1 and 2 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act, as amended.   

The Applicant confirmed that he understood the procedure to be followed for the hearing.

The Senior Public Protection Officer presented the report and provided Members with a copy of a DBS certificate in respect of the Applicant and a statement submitted by him. The meeting was adjourned to allow Members time to study these documents.

After the meeting had been reconvened, the Applicant stated his case and was questioned by Members. The Applicant made a closing statement.

Following a further adjournment the Sub-Committee RESOLVED that the Applicant was a fit and proper person to hold a Combined Hackney Carriage/Private Hire Driver’s Licence and delegated authority to the Senior Public Protection Officer to issue the licence, subject to the satisfactory completion of the remaining parts of the licensing process.

Reasons

Members have had to consider an application for a combined Hackney Carriage/Private Hire Driver’s licence in light of the content of a Disclosure and Barring Service certificate. In doing so Members took account of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, Human Rights Act 1998, case law and the Council’s Policy.

Members heard the conviction related to an argument which involved some swearing. The Police were in the vicinity on a separate matter and asked the applicant for his name and address. The applicant refused, was arrested, charged with an offence, convicted and fined.

The applicant stated a licence would offer him the flexibility to offer more support to his autistic son and with regard to the incident this arose from an unfortunate set of circumstances. He said he had not been in trouble with the police since, was calm, well measured and would be a good representative for Bath.

Members found the conviction a one off incident falling outside of the Policy. They found him well presented and consider him to be a fit and proper person to hold a combined hackney Carriage/Private Hire Driver’s licence. Authority was therefore delegated to the Senior Officer (Licensing) to issue the licence subject to satisfactory completion of the licensing process.