Dundee taxi fare increase limited to 20p — challenge anticipated
Dundee Taxi Association is taking legal advice with a view to challenging a decision on taxi fares taken by the city council's licensing committee.
- By Brian Allison
- Published in the Courier : 05.11.10
- Published online : 05.11.10 @ 03.49pm
The committee agreed to an increase in taxi fares at a meeting on Thursday, but not as much as the DTA and Unite union had sought.
DTA chairman Graeme Stephen said it would seek to challenge the way the decision was reached. The committee decided there should be a 20p increase in the initial meter charge, from £2.40 to £2.60, but the rest of the fares structure should remain as it is. That was in line with recommendations by officials of the council's development department.
A proposal by the DTA and Unite would have seen the initial charge go up to £3, though that would have covered a longer distance.
Mr Stephen said the committee had previously indicated it would back the DTA/Unite proposal but had now turned around. He said the DTA believed the committee had not followed the proper procedures. In conjunction with the Scottish Taxi Federation, the DTA is taking legal advice.
However, a council spokesman said "We are confident that the committee followed the proper procedures in this case."
Earlier, the committee heard Mr Stephen argue in favour of the higher DTA/Unite increase, which he said was necessary to meet rising operating costs for taxis caused by a range of factors including fuel prices, insurance premiums, and an imminent VAT hike.
Mr Stephen pointed out that, unlike buses, taxis did not receive fuel subsidies and the operators are all self-employed so do not get sickness or holiday pay.
He said all those items have to be covered by the fares and the increase they asked for would only be enough to meet the rising costs of keeping a taxi on the road, which he said accounted for almost half the cost of the fares income.
Discrimination claim
The committee also heard from Jan Goodall of the Dundee Celebrate Age Network and Susan Gunn of Dundee Voluntary Action, both of whom objected to the increase being sought by the DTA and Unite.
They claimed the higher increase would discriminate against older and disabled people with mobility problems who were particularly reliant on taxis, even for short journeys.
Both said a full equality impact assessment of the fares proposals should have been carried out by the council, to give the opportunity for groups representing older and disabled people to make their views known in advance.
Asked about that by Councillor Helen Dick, council solicitor Brian Woodcock said advice indicated an equality impact assessment was not needed.
It is now accepted that advice was erroneous but Mr Woodcock said the views of representatives of older and disabled people had now been given to the committee by the deputations on Thursday and should be taken into account.
Committee convener Rod Wallace moved the fares increase be limited to 20p. He said a working group should look at simplifying the fare structure. Mr Wallace's motion was approved unanimously.
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