‘Human error’ allowed banned taxi driver to transport children to school

Richard Evans, local democracy reporter

“Human error” allowed a home-to-school taxi driver to continue to work despite his licence being revoked.

The revelation was unearthed at this morning’s (22 July) governance and audit meeting at Conwy Council’s Bodlondeb HQ during a discussion about internal performance.

During the debate, Llandudno councillor Tom Montgomery grilled council officers on safeguarding issues affecting school taxis.

‘Safeguarding issues’

Cllr Montgomery suggested a taxi driver had been allowed to work – possibly for years – despite having his licence revoked.

“I can see in appendix D that we are due to have a follow-up report on the home-to-school transport audit report that came out not so long ago,” said Cllr Montgomery.

“In that report it touched on safeguarding issues.

“Before I was a member, there was a safeguarding issue that was raised in licensing that a fellow member brought to my attention.

“It was resolved.

“Long story short, licensing committee revoked a licence but never obtained the physical licence back from the individual, and several years later that individual was discovered to be conducting home-to-school transport work, which obviously raised a series of safeguarding concerns given the nature of why his licence was revoked.

“The licensing body resolved that the cabinet members would come to the body to explain how a situation where an individual who was unlicensed was able to conduct home-to-school transport work.

“That resolution was, if I’m correct, made on the 1/12/2021.

“Apparently, that update from cabinet members has never been forthcoming.

“So I just wanted to query, when audit is looking at safeguarding, whether we have looked at if home-to-school transport is communicating effectively with licensing to make sure all of the individuals who are completing home-to-school transport work are properly licensed by this authority.”

Checks

Conwy’s transport manager Andrew Dawson said: “I can respond from the school transport aspect, in that we work closely with regulatory services.

“So we do have quite a number of meetings.

“Obviously, in that case, that was a human error at the time.

“But since that point, processes have been tightened up a lot.

“In terms of school transport, we check all our drivers.

“Obviously some taxi drivers don’t work for school transport, falls outside of us.

“But yeah, in terms of the ones that fall within school transport, we do check.”

Cllr Montgomery added: “So you cross reference with licensing to make sure they have their licences?”

“Yes, totally,” Mr Dawson responded.

“We go to schools and do joint inspections together.”

Cllr Montgomery then said he would pursue the matter outside of the meeting.