Agenda item

To consider progress made against the Licensing Audit Action Plan.

16.1          The report of the Environmental Health Manager, circulated at Pages No. 103-114, provided an update on the progress made against the actions arising from the internal audit of the licensing function.  Members were asked to consider the report.

16.2          The Environmental Health Manager advised that the Licensing Audit Action Plan, attached at Appendix 1, set out progress to date; whilst the majority of actions had been completed, four required further work and these were outlined at Page No. 104, Paragraph 2.2 of the report.  The requirement to provide Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations (LOLER) certificates required an amendment to the Council’s Hackney Carriage (Taxi) and Private Hire Policy and it was noted that a Working Group had been established earlier in the meeting to undertake that work.  Safeguarding training had been provided for the majority of taxi drivers in March and April 2018 and sessions had now been arranged for November and December 2018 for those who had been unable to attend the initial sessions, and for any new drivers.  Any drivers who did not take up the training opportunity would be in breach of their licence and the enforcement procedure would be commenced which could ultimately result in their licence being suspended.  In terms of future safeguarding training sessions, any new drivers would be directed to Gloucester City Council and would be required to provide their certificate of completion to Tewkesbury Borough Council.  With regard to the action in relation to cost recovery of fees associated with animal boarding establishments, since the original audit was carried out, a new inspections and ratings regime had been introduced as part of the Animal Welfare Regulations and a new charging scheme was being developed as a result.  It was intended to apply the model that had recently been used for the charging scheme for HMOs whereby the various tasks had been identified and associated costs calculated.  The Environmental Health Manager went on to advise that it had been intended to carry out a programme of inspections of licensed premises alongside food inspections; unfortunately, this had not been possible due to reduced resources.  A Senior Licensing Officer post had been agreed as part of the recent service review and an inspection programme would be put in place as soon as that post had been filled.  He stressed that, whilst there was currently no formal inspection programme, premises were inspected as and when necessary and officers would be aware of any issues and would deal with them accordingly.

16.3          In response to a Member query as to how often taxi drivers would be expected to undergo safeguarding training, the Environmental Health Manager understood this would be every three years.  He went on to explain that he was in discussion with Cheltenham Borough Council about the possibility of introducing a training day which would cover a range of key components including equalities training and the knowledge test as well as safeguarding training.  This would be considered as part of the review of Hackney Carriage (Taxi) and Private Hire Policy.

16.4          It was

RESOLVED          That the progress made against the Licensing Audit Action Plan be NOTED.