The Hostility Explained : Hundreds Of Met Police Officers Moonlighting As Minicab Drivers

Almost one in five Met Police officers have secondary business interests, figures obtained by the Evening Standard show

Hundreds of London police officers are moonlighting as minicab and private-hire drivers, the Evening Standard can reveal.

More than 300 Metropolitan police officers have declared business  interests as drivers or chauffeurs, figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show.

In total, 5,395 serving Met police officers — almost one in five — declared business interests with the force.

Metropolitan Police Federation chairman Ken Marsh said many of the business interests were likely to relate to consultancy work or property. But he added: “Our job is a professional job and it clearly shows you we aren’t paid a professional salary. You have to ask the question, why does someone need a second job when they’re a police officer? It’s not right at all.”

Police officers declaring business interests included chief superintendents — one of the highest ranks.

But more than 70 per cent of officers with declared business interests were police constables, the lowest rank. A Police Federation spokeswoman added: “The sad reality is that some police officers are having to find additional means to make ends meet. Given the choice, officers would rather not take on a second job, but some unfortunately have no alternative.”

Scotland Yard allows officers to hold second jobs down 

The Met police said in a statement that secondary employment or business interests are permitted “providing it is compatible with being a member of the police service”.

It added: “An officer/staff’s role in the Met will always be considered as a priority over any business interest. 

“The police service, the regulations and procedures that govern external business interests recognise that there is a need to ensure that where officers/staff have secondary employment or business interests that these are compatible with their role and do not create any conflict of interest.” 

The figures come after a warning that key workers including police officers were being priced out of London. Only eight per cent of homes in the capital can be afforded by an officer on an average salary of £44,824, according to research by website reallymoving.com. 

One former Met officer, Claire Hearn, said she left the force after previously juggling her duties with a tea party business.

“It was never a problem,” she said. “But it’s not the sort of job you can do without giving 100 per cent. As the business grew, I realised the passion was with that really. 

“It’s not something that the Met stop you doing — they decide whether it’s something suitable you can do alongside the police.”

Source: Standard

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The LCDC Question, Submitted By David Kurten Of UKIP ...And The Mayor's Answer. Part 2.

WTF is Khan talking about when he answered David Kurtan at Mayors Question Time "designed to ensure London remains the world leader in regulating taxi and private hire service"

Why has no one challenging Khans statement?

Who told him the regulators were the best in the world?

London's Private Hire Trade (since the implementation of a Uber) has seen the statistics on PH driver rape and sexual assault go through the roof!

TfL have allowed an illegal operation to carry on in London for the last 6 years, while consciously discriminating against Licensed Taxi Drivers struggling to earn a living.

TfL have allowed an operation to continue knowing drivers had fake medicals, plus an alarming 13,000 drivers with fake criminal record DBS certificates.....how can Khan make his statement when he knows TfL have allowed this???

Hotels.com held a survey of the public around the world and it was the London Taxi trade voted the best in the world for eight years straight.....not the regulators who would feature somewhere close to the bottom.  

What Khan should have said:

London has the best and most stringently regulated taxi service in the world, but with a virtually unregulated and unsafe private hire trade allowed by TfL who obviously don't care about public safety.

TfL have purposely blurred the lines between Taxis and Private hire to dilute the complaints about rape, serious sexual assault, fraud, hacking and poor standard of driving. 

It is TfLs intention of dragging down the best Taxi service in the world and introduce a one tier system that they can milk the life out of to fill the void in their £1bn budget deficit. 

 

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The LCDC Question, Submitted To David Kurten Of UKIP At The GLA ...And The Mayor's Answer.

Meeting: Mayor's Question Time

Date: Thursday, 17 May 2018

Reference: Question 2018/1265 

Main question.......David Kurten

TfL allowed Uber to operate in the on-demand market without changing the legislation, holding a consultation or informing the Taxi Industry. Taxis and Private Hire (PH Vehicles) now operate in the same market. Taxis (stringently regulated) have to compete with PH who benefit from light touch regulation. TfL decide what vehicle Taxis drivers drive and set their fares, leaving drivers with no control or choice with regards to costs. PH Operators on the other hand have the flexibility to bring down fares and PH drivers have multiple choices of vehicles to keep their outgoings to a minimum. How do you expect the taxi trade to survive in London with such disparity created by TfL?

Answer..........The Mayor

Transport for London (TfL) regulates according to standards that are provided for in primary legislation and regulations designed to ensure public safety.  It also regularly consults on changes to taxi fares and tariffs.

As you will be aware my Taxi and Private Hire Action Plan contains a number of measures to maintain a vibrant two tier market in London that gives space for all service providers to flourish. This includes measures designed to improve safety in the private hire industry and to support our world renowned taxis.

TfL recently published a new policy statement setting out how private hire and ride-sharing services will operate in London in the future. The policy has been written in response to changes in the private hire industry and the many new services being offered. It has been designed to ensure London remains the world leader in regulating taxi and private hire services while maintaining public safety.

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Uber Still Wants Rider Rape Case Decided Privately

Uber Technologies Inc, recently said it wouldn’t force riders who allege sexual assault by drivers to take their cases to arbitration. Later the same day, the company asked a judge to make a group of women do just that with some of their claims.

Uber is no longer fighting to keep a federal judge from hearing assault and battery claims by nine unidentified women who said they were raped or otherwise assaulted by drivers. But the company still wants the women to pursue separate, individual cases before private arbitrators on allegations that Uber falsely marketed safe rides to users despite refusing to adequately screen drivers.

“They did this purely as a publicity play, knowing full well it didn’t mean anything,” Jeanne Christensen, the women’s attorney, said of Uber’s May 15 announcement that it wouldn’t try to force them to arbitrate the assault and battery claims. “They’re trying to gut the lawsuit by saying instead of one suit we’re going to have nine.”

Tony West, Uber’s chief legal officer, announced in a blog post the company’s decision to soften its stance on arbitration for civil sexual assault claims. He also said the company won’t try to convince women alleging assault to keep their claims confidential.

West told Bloomberg Law in a statement that the move doesn’t apply to class actions but “impacts the near entirety of assault claims we see on our platform.”

“We’ve heard over and over from the dozens of advocacy groups we’ve spoken with that few experiences deprive an individual of control more than sexual assault or sexual harassment,” West said. “And we’ve heard what’s most important is for us to restore some sense of control to survivors—whether that’s by giving them a choice of venue in which to pursue their individual claims, or to free them from confidentiality provisions that prevent them from telling their stories if they choose. So while these changes may not please everybody, we believe they represent important steps forward that will ultimately help us all prevent sexual assault more effectively.”

“So moving forward, survivors will be free to choose to resolve their individual claims in the venue they prefer: in a mediation where they can choose confidentiality; in arbitration, where they can choose to maintain their privacy while pursuing their case; or in open court,” West said. “Whatever they decide, they will be free to tell their story wherever and however they see fit.”

The group of Uber riders sued the company in November, alleging that each of the nine women were assaulted or raped by Uber drivers. Some of those women were intoxicated at the time of the incidents. One woman said the driver carried her from the car into her home where he proceeded to rape her.

Uber classifies drivers as independent contractors, rather than employees, but the lawsuit alleges that the drivers act as agents for the company.

Uber users are required to check a box signaling that they agree to certain terms and conditions before they can download the smartphone application that connects them to drivers. The terms include an agreement to take any disputes to arbitration, instead of a federal or state court. After Uber announced it would waive that requirement for riders accusing drivers of sexual assault, the company said it won’t enforce similar restrictions on drivers and Uber employees alleging sexual harassment on the job.

Proving a ‘Pattern’

Christensen thinks the company is pushing arbitration of the unfair competition and consumer fraud claims to avoid litigating publicly the question of whether the company knew or should have known about driver assault risks and took adequate steps to address it.

“They don’t want the discovery to come in about all of the other incidents,” Christensen told Bloomberg Law. “We’re trying to show there is a pattern, that they’ve known all along how often this is happening and that they didn’t even do anything about drivers that had multiple complaints against them.”

West said in the blog post that the company “struggled” with the decision to partially waive arbitration for a number of reasons, including what he said is a lack of reliable data on sexual assault and harassment.

“There is no data to reliably or accurately compare reports against Uber drivers versus taxi drivers or limo drivers, or Uber versus buses, subways, airplanes or trains,” West said.

Uber announced in April that it would beef up rider safety protections, including by more frequently running driver background checks. The company has resisted calls to fingerprint drivers, saying those fingerprint checks could perpetuate discrimination because they are based on arrests rather than convictions. Uber checks criminal records using driver’s names, Social Security numbers, and drivers license information.

Christensen said Uber is also trying to avoid a class action by limiting the federal court case to the individual assault and battery claims, which the judge may decide to separate. She said she raised the unfair competition and consumer fraud claims in part to support bringing the lawsuit as a class action.

“Negligence for individual assaults doesn’t lend itself to a class action in the way that a consumer fraud law does,” Christensen said. “I’d be pleading different causes of action if they said you have to litigate those individually.”

Source : 

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Black Taxi Ban Leaves TP Icap Staff Fuming

Expenses crackdown at interdealer broker TP Icap: 

This time it’s black cabs in the sights of the beancounters.

Because of the Bank Junction Taxi ban, resulting in higher fares as drivers take Junction avoidance routs, the edict has gone out across the whole company that staff aren’t allowed to take traditional London taxis any more — despite the firm occasionally slapping its livery on them — and they’ll have to rely on Uber to get around town instead.

The TP Icap is happy to advertise on London cabs, but staff may not enter them. Expenses department will also be bouncing back any claims for client entertaining including wine costing more than £80 a bottle: cue much chuntering at boss John Phizackerley, who’s apparently known on the trading floor as Ronnie Barker because of his resemblance to the departed comedy genius.

There’s not much laughing among the rank and file, however.

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TfL Bottle It And Rethink On Basic English Language Tests For Minicab Drivers.

New rules forcing private-hire drivers in London to prove their English language skills are set for a rethink.

The rules would have forced them to pay £180 for a written essay and speaking test by July 16 this year, unless they could produce GCSE certificates proving their command of English.

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Private-hire drivers unable to pass the test or produce certificates would have been banned from working as minicab drivers in the capital.

Today Transport for London said the deadline for drivers to prove their grasp of English had been extended until April 30 next year.

TfL said it would also now review the regulations, to “make satisfying the requirement as simple as possible”.

The announcement came after a crunch meeting between the Licensed Private Hire Car Association and Mayor Sadiq Khan yesterday.  

TfL officials also met representatives of the British Dyslexia Association, which had warned that some private-hire drivers would find it “impossible” to pass the new test.

Steve Wright, the hire car association’s  chairman, said that “tens of thousands” of drivers, including those with reading and writing difficulties and from ethnic backgrounds, had feared they would lose their jobs.

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Public At Risk Part 2 : Taxi Scandal, Riddle Of Firms All Based In Single Office

Above a diner and accessible only via a back door off a dingy alley stands a small and unremarkable office.

To the untrained eye, it is the home of a local minicab firm, Wednesfield Cars, whose manager is adamant that his is the only business operating there.

Wolverhampton council knows better. It has licensed 13 competing Minicab companies to run their operations from the very same office.

In the past three years, Wolverhampton has become the go-to local authority for thousands of drivers from all corners of England in search of a minicab licence. In 2015, it issued 852; this year, 9,388. The same period saw the number of minicab companies licensed to operate in the city climb from 12 to 100.

In total, 58 of those companies are listed as operating from one of four Wolverhampton addresses. When The Times visited, there was no trace of 52 of them.

The council has not merely licensed dozens of hard-to-spot firms at those locations. It has also issued licences to thousands of drivers who work in other English towns for companies with exactly the same business names as the Wolverhampton operators. 

Those firms run visible minicab operations in places including Birmingham, Manchester, Stockport, Stoke-on-Trent, Derby, Mansfield, Nottingham, Cambridge, Windsor & Maidenhead and Swale, in Kent.

One of the four addresses has for the past few years been the operations hub for a genuine local company called ABC Cars and its sister ABC Countdown Cars. According to the council, an additional 17 minicab firms operate at the same place. Not so, says Richard Halsall, ABC’s manager, who said he had never heard of any of them.

Licensing experts have suggested an explanation. Under the Deregulation Act 2015, minicab companies operating anywhere are entitled to subcontract work to other firms, with one proviso.

If a minicab firm in Manchester wants to use drivers and vehicles licensed by Wolverhampton, the pre-booked work they are given must be sub-contracted to the firm by a Wolverhampton minicab operator. So it would be convenient for the Manchester firm to be able to show that all the jobs it gives its Wolverhampton drivers were sub-contracted by its sister firm, of the same name, in the West Midlands city.

If that sister operator has no employees and runs no vehicles, the law does not seem to care. This loophole has been embraced by Wolverhampton council, whose “efficient” approach to licensing has proved highly lucrative. Its income from taxi and minicab licences rose from £263,000 in 2014-15 to £2.2 million in 2017-18.

Last night the council defended its conduct, insisting that it applied stringent standards to drivers it licenses and claiming that its popularity was due to swift and efficient online applications.

The authority’s licensing committee chairman, Alan Bolshaw, said its approach complied with relevant legislation and, by embracing digitalisation, was far more advanced that the “very traditional and rigid licensing practices” used by other local authorities.

To suggest that a minicab operator needed to have employees, drivers and vehicles in the area where it was based was a concept that belonged, he said, to the days of “long-winded and outdated processes”.

The 52 minicab operators that did not appear to exist at the four addresses were entirely legitimate. Each was, he said, represented at its registered operating base by a digital recording system, in the form of a box. “Why are there so many vehicles and drivers on the roads licensed by Wolverhampton council? Because we have the best licensing system in the UK,” he boasted.

Other councils would beg to disagree, particularly those hit by a recent influx of Wolverhampton-licensed minicab drivers and cars. Many, as was the case with the earlier surge in Rossendale-plated vehicles, have voiced safeguarding concerns.

Licensing officers in Southampton were contacted by Hampshire police investigating the alleged rape of a female passenger by a local driver. The council did not have him on its books and it turned out that he had been licensed by Wolverhampton.

In Rotherham, the town hit by a mass sex-grooming scandal in which minicab drivers were implicated, more than a dozen men, including five refused licences by the council for reasons including safeguarding concerns, have applied for Wolverhampton licences.

Birmingham councillors claim that Wolverhampton is “more lenient” than its neighbours. A Coventry licensing committee member complained that “treating taxi licensing as a cash cow undermines public safety”. The West Midlands authority was handing out minicab licences “like sweeties”.

Nottingham’s chief licensing officer, Richard Antcliff, accused Wolverhampton of exploiting a “farcical loophole” in the regulations. “Somewhere along the line, Wolverhampton has lost its moral compass,” he said.

The driver arrested in Southampton had no convictions and lost his licence immediately, Mr Bolshaw said. Wolverhampton had “worked extensively” with Rotherham council and the National Crime Agency “to ensure any drivers implicated in child exploitation do not gain Wolverhampton licences”.

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