The UK Government is currently running a consultation on Local transport authorities (LTA’s) and the licensing of taxi and private hire vehicles.
If things go ahead after the consultation, there will be some major changes to how the private hire industry across England is licensed.
At the moment, in London we have TfL and across England each council is in charge of licensing their private hire or taxi drivers and vehicles. In total there are over 250 different councils in England.
The idea would be that new Local Transport Authorities are set up to absorb sections of the country, so instead of having 250+ councils licensing drivers, there would be around 70 LTA’s who are in charge of licensing.
For drivers in London, this isn’t going to apply as TfL already do this by combining all taxi and private hire driver and vehicle licensing in London, regardless of which council area the driver is in.
By reducing the number of LTA’s, the aim of the government will be to have all Local Transport Authorities work in a similar way and have less inconsistent standards when it comes to background checks, etc. This, in turn, would make taxi and private hire safer across England, provide more efficient enforcement and better competition.
This could mean that drivers who used loopholes to get licensed by other councils, but to then work in London could face having to do the same or similar tests as they would have had to do with TfL.
This also means that as new rules come in by one LTA, the others including TfL could follow. These may be rules that not all drivers like.
