Proposed Taxi and Private Hire Penalty Points Scheme

Background

Tewkesbury Borough Council is proposing to introduce a penalty points scheme for taxi and private hire licence holders.

The Council is responsible for licensing taxi and private hire vehicles, drivers and operators.  Licence holders are subject to a number of legal requirements and licence conditions that regulate how they carry out their businesses.

The vast majority of licence holders comply with these requirements, but unfortunately a small minority do not.  The Council has a range of options available for dealing with non-compliance, including issuing warnings, issuing formal cautions, and commencing formal prosecutions in the Magistrates Court.

Licences holders can also have their licences reviewed by a Licensing Sub-Committee, to decide whether the licence should be suspended or revoked.

A number of local authorities have introduced an additional mechanism to assist them in dealing with minor offences and acts of non-compliance with taxi and private hire licensing requirements, in the form of a penalty points scheme for their licence holders.

The basic principle of such a scheme is that individuals that are found to have committed relatively minor offences or acts of non-compliance have a number of penalty points logged against their licensing records held by the authority.

If an individual then accumulates a certain number of penalty points, within a defined period, this triggers an automatic referral of the licence holder to a Licensing Sub-Committee where consideration is given to whether the individual remains a fit and proper person to hold the relevant licence.

A penalty points scheme enables officers to deal quickly and efficiently with minor compliance issues, and helps to identify those that are regularly not acting in compliance with their licensing requirements, so that more serious action can be considered against these individuals in a targeted and proportionate way.

The introduction of a penalty points scheme would not affect the Council’s ability to take formal enforcement action for any offence or act of non-compliance and every case will continue to be considered on its own merits.

Consultation Survey

Before making a decision as to whether to implement the proposed penalty points scheme, the Council would like to hear the views of relevant stakeholders, including those that hold relevant taxi and private hire licences.

A consultation survey has been created to enable people to have their say on the proposal.  The consultation survey can be accessed here.

This consultation survey will remain open for responses until Sunday 31 May 2026.