Decision details

The Head of Elections, Licensing & Registration approved the request to commence a procurement exercise for a dynamic purchasing provision of Taxi and Private Hire Driver Training for up to an initial 4 years.
The council currently requires all new taxi and private hire drivers to undertake training before being awarded a licence. Driver training is currently split between two council-provided services and several contracted suppliers.
The council is expecting the number of applicants to remain stable and possibly increase from 800-900 each year. Under the ring-fenced regulations for taxi and private hire licensing, the applicants pay for their training, with annual spend estimated to continue or rise above around £120-150k per annum.
There has been a review and consultation on driver training provision during 2017, with recommendations that the council consider procuring driver training from more than one organisation to increase training capacity and speed up the length of time between commencing training and award of a licence. A dynamic purchasing arrangement is recommended to contract a number of suppliers who can each provide all modules of the driver related training and assessment centre. This aims to improve our training capacity and maintaining quality and standards, while ensuring compliance with procurement rules