Summary: Mr X complained the Council failed to take account of his disability during his application to renew his taxi licence. He said his licence was renewed late as a result. The Council was at fault when it did not offer to make reasonable adjustments for Mr X due to his disability. However, the fault did not cause Mr X an injustice, because the Council would have refused to renew his licence regardless of whether it had made reasonable adjustments. The Council agreed to carry out a service improvement to prevent recurrence of the fault.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council failed to take account of his disability during the process of renewing his taxi licence. He said the Council renewed his licence late as a result.
2. He said he felt discriminated against and lost income due to the delay in having his taxi licence renewed.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
5. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered the information provided by Mr X and the Council.
7. I considered the relevant law and guidance as set out below.
8. I considered our Guidance on Remedies
9. I considered any comments made by Mr X and the Council on my draft decision before making a final decision.

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Law and guidance

Reasonable adjustments

10. The reasonable adjustment duty is set out in the Equality Act 2010 and applies to any body which carries out a public function. The Act lists the relevant protected characteristics which include disability.
11. It aims to make sure that a disabled person can use a service as close as it is reasonably possible to get to the standard usually offered to non-disabled people.
12. When the duty arises, service providers are under a positive and proactive duty to take steps to remove or prevent obstacles to accessing their service. If the adjustments are reasonable, they must make them.

Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) Update Service

13. The Update Service is an online subscription that lets employers carry out a free, instant online check to view the status of an existing standard or enhanced DBS certificate for their employees.
14. The Government guidance for employers using the Update Service says before employers carry out a status check on their employee, several criteria must be met, including seeing the applicant’s original DBS certificate. (‘DBS Update Service: Employer Guide’, September 2018)

Council’s policy on taxi licensing

15. The Council’s policy says it will aim to send a reminder to licence holders before their licence expires but it is not obliged to do this. It says the responsibility of ensuring licences do not expire remains with the licence holder.
16. The policy says, ‘All Applicants / Licensees should be required to obtain an Enhanced DBS Certificate with Barred Lists checks and to provide this to the Licensing Authority. All Licensees should also be required to maintain their (DBS) Certificates through the DBS Update Service throughout the currency of their licence’. (Vale of White Horse: Licensing Policy for Hackney Carriage and Private Hire, June 2021)
17. In its policy the Council says it is not responsible for delays due to the actions of external bodies such as the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

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What I found

What happened

18. Mr X is a taxi driver and has dyslexia.
19. The Council notified Mr X by letter on 1 September 2021 that his taxi licence was due for renewal. The letter set out the steps Mr X needed to take to prevent the licence expiring on 11 December 2021.
20. The letter included a link to the application form and guidance on its website for renewing a taxi licence. The Council’s letter did not say that Mr X needed his medical certificate renewed.
21. It said if drivers were on the DBS Update Service, it recommended that they submit their application for renewal at least six weeks before the licence expiry date.
22. It said for drivers that are not on the DBS Update Service, they will need to ask the Council for a DBS application form. The Council recommended that drivers apply for their DBS at least twelve weeks before their licence is due to expire.
23. In November, Mr X arranged a medical appointment which he believed he needed in order to renew his licence. When Mr X told the Council in mid-November that his medical appointment was delayed, the Council told him he did not need a new medical certificate as his previous one was still in date.
24. Mr X sent an email to the Council on 16 November to say he has a learning difficulty and he was struggling with reading the information on the website.
25. He apologised to the Council for having left his application for renewal ‘late’ and explained he thought he needed to arrange the medical appointment first.
26. The Council did not offer to make any reasonable adjustments for Mr X once he told the officer about his learning difficulty.
27. The next day the Council emailed Mr X to ask for his DBS certificate so it could run its checks, but Mr X said he had lost his original certificate. Mr X thought he did not need to replace the original document for work purposes, as he was registered on the DBS’s Update Service.
28. Mr X’s taxi licence expired a few weeks later, as he was unable to replace his DBS certificate in time. So Mr X was without his taxi licence until early January 2022 when his DBS certificate was replaced.
29. Mr X complained to the Council that it had not considered the impact his dyslexia had on him being able to renew his licence on time. Mr X said the Council had discriminated against him.
30. The Council responded and said it did not agree that Mr X had been discriminated against as no requests for reasonable adjustments were made during the renewal process.
31. However, it said in future, if an applicant contacts the Council and says they have a disability and are struggling with the process, its policy would now be for the Council officer to speak to the person over the phone initially and confirm any actions after by email.
32. It said this approach was in line with the guidance published by the relevant national organisation for Mr X’s learning difficulty.

My findings

33. The Council became aware on 16 November 2021 that Mr X’s disability meant he was struggling to understand the information he had received from the Council regarding his taxi licence renewal.
34. Regardless of its own policy, once the Council became aware of Mr X’s learning difficulty, the Council had a duty under the Equality Act to consider making reasonable adjustments to help him use the service. The Council failed to have due regard to its duties under the Equality Act which was fault.
35. However, the fault did not cause the late renewal of Mr X’s taxi licence. The evidence shows Mr X did not begin the process early enough and had lost his DBS certificate which caused the delay in the Council being able to renew his licence.
36. Without seeing Mr X’s original DBS certificate, the Council could not carry out a check through the DBS Update Service. The Council is not permitted to issue a taxi licence without these checks having been carried out.
37. It was Mr X’s responsibility to ensure his professional licence remained up to date, not the Council’s.
38. The Council said in its complaint response that it had updated its procedures in the licensing team for dealing with people with learning difficulties who struggle to process the information they are provided by the Council.
39. However, the Council has a general duty under the Equality Act. It should therefore also remind all staff of their proactive duties under this Act. I have recommended a service improvement to prevent this fault occurring in future.

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Agreed action

40. Within one month of the date of this final decision, the Council has agreed to show that it has:
• informed staff in the licensing team about options for communication adjustments that the Council can offer people with learning difficulties, as set out in its Stage 2 complaint response; and
• reminded all Council staff that the Equality Act duty is proactive, so reasonable adjustments must be offered as soon as the Council becomes aware that a person has a disability, whether they specifically ask for the adjustments or not. If the adjustments requested are reasonable, it should put these in place.

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Final decision

41. I have ended my investigation. I have found fault not leading to injustice and have recommended a service improvement to ensure against the fault occurring in future.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman