Taxi Licensing Enhanced DBS Checks

Tender description

As part of taxi licensing arrangements all taxi drivers require an enhanced DBS disclosure before grant of a licence. This is a critical safeguarding step, it must be done independently and be carried out with local authority oversight. The Authority could process DBS in-house, but would require additional staffing to do this and this would need to be planned into licensing fees and charges. For several years it has proved more time and cost effective for the Council and applicants to engage a third party company to manage this DBS process for the Authority. For some years a company called Personnel Checks T/A Taxi Plus has been used. Taxi Plus has a bespoke system catering for the taxi trade and local authorities and it is used by a significant number of local authorities across the country. The local authority sets up a driver on the system after the licence has passed validation checks and then the driver is responsible for completing the application and forwarding the Licensing Team a copy of the final DBS return. Taxi Plus will support drivers with any queries about the process. The bulk of the cost of this service is the set government enhanced DBS fee and Taxi Plus charges the Council an admin fee per application. This fee is recovered in full from licence applicants on application and so this service is cost neutral to the Council (staffing costs are recovered through annually set fees and charges). Taxi Drivers are also required to sign up to the DBS Update service and Taxi Plus systems can also make regular automated checks of DBS held within the system, to identify any change in status, i.e. new convictions etc. that the Licensing Team needs to act on. Keywords: DBS checks