Issue details

Currently the licensing service has a process for all new applicants to become licensed drivers, all licensed drivers are hackney carriage / private hire drivers and can work as a hackney carriage or private hire driver, in addition all can apply to undertake school transport jobs.

The school transport service must transport eligible children to school every day. This is a difficult task to achieve as the Council currently relies solely on hackney carriage and private hire drivers licenced by the service to undertake the school transport journeys. The shortage of local private hire drivers wanting to undertake school transport work, has resulted in a cost to the Council of providing school transport increasing by upwards of 30% over the last two to three years.

The licensing service are aware of 2 / 3 national companies, that specialise in providing school transport services, these companies are approaching local authorities asking if they would consider issuing a “restricted” licence. The purpose of seeking a restricted licence is to enable them to employ drivers who solely want undertake work transporting children to and from school; currently legislation does not differentiate between drivers who want to undertake normal private hire work and those that want to undertake contract work for school transport only.

Therefore, in line with other local authorities, and under delegated authority a restricted licence has been introduced within Kirklees. This will mean drivers are issued a licence, but it is restricted to carrying out school contact work but will not be permitted to carry out normal / everyday hackney carriage or private hire work.

It is anticipated that offering a restricted licence will allow these specialist companies to bid for school contracts benefitting the school transport team as it will increase the pool of companies and vehicles able to bid for contracts and therefore drive down costs, it will also increase the pool or wheelchair accessible vehicles which are in short supply in Kirklees.

In order to introduce a restricted licence, amendments were made to the Council’s existing pre application requirements to streamline the process. In addition, the conditions attached to licence to reflect the work that will be undertaken and limit the work that can be undertaken to school transport contracts.