Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the time the Council took to issue him with his private hire vehicle licence. There is not enough evidence of delay or other fault in the Council’s licensing process to warrant us investigating.

The complaint

1. Mr X is a private hire taxi driver. He applied to change his licence because he was changing his taxi vehicle, which requires new licence plates issued by the Council. Mr X complains the Council took two weeks to process and issue his new licence.
2. Mr X says the wait stopped him from working as a taxi driver so could not earn money. He says he was already in financial difficulty at the time because his previous vehicle had broken down and was not worth the repair costs, he had not been able to use it for his work for several weeks, and also had to fund the new vehicle.
3. Mr X wants the Council’s licensing department to be held to account, to act professionally, give licence-holders appointments and take their plight into account. He considers the Council should have fully trained staff to offer a quality service to licence-holders. He wants the Council to have turn-around times for issuing licences and compensate people where losses happen.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information from Mr X, relevant national guidance on taxi licensing, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. The ‘Taxi and private hire vehicle licensing best practice guidance for licensing authorities in England’, last updated in November 2023, says:

‘3.3 Delivering licensing services

Taxi and private hire vehicle licensing is a statutory function of licensing authorities and it is important they consider how best to deliver this service in a timely and efficient manner.’

7. The guidance does not go on to specify any limits on the time a licensing authority must not exceed to process licence applications or renewals. The Council’s own service standard to process the licence Mr X sought is 10 working days. It says it dealt with Mr X’s licence within that time, which Mr X does not dispute. We recognise Mr X wanted the licence sooner. But we cannot say the Council has not complied with the national guidance by taking 10 working days to process his application, and that this was fault, because the guidance does not set any timescales for licencing authorities when doing this work.
8. The Council’s service standard of 10 working days is not such a disproportionate or excessive time for its officers to do the processing work required that it amounts to delay or other fault. The Council issued the licence in a timely manner. There is not enough evidence of fault in the time the Council took to process Mr X’s licence to warrant us investigating, so we will not do so.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of delay or any other fault in the Council’s licensing process to warrant us investigating.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman