Bath & North East Somerset Council
Request for Information
Requested information
Please provide the most up-to-date number of registered drivers for each
Private Hire operator within your area.
Response
The primary legislation governing the issue of Private hire licenses requires
that the Council maintain a register of certain information that must be kept for
inspection by the public at all reasonable times. The Council complies with
this by keeping a register of Private Hire Drivers which it freely allows to be
inspected at its offices at the Transport Services Depot, Locksbrook Road,
Bath BA1 3EL. This complies with the requirement to have the information in
the public domain and protects the interests of licensees from unsolicited
contact by third parties.
Advice from the Office of Information Commissioners states that providing a
copy of the register is not lawful and as such would be a breach of the first
data principle. The Information Commissioner’s Office has stated
“The
Commissioner has balanced the interests of the public in having access to
this information against the rights and legitimate interests of the individuals
named in the register. He has concluded that whilst those individuals will have
been made aware that the details in the register would be available for local
inspection, they would also have a legitimate expectation that that would be
the extent of the publication by the local authority.”
The Private Hire register only requires that the name of the driver, the date for
which the licence is granted and the serial number of the licence be
registered.
There is no requirement to keep a public register of Private Hire Operators
and many of our Operators are self-employed individuals who operate from a
home address with a home telephone number and do not wish this
information to be divulged to third parties. Similarly we also have Executive
Hire Operators who work in the corporate and security sectors who do not
advertise publicly and offer a discreet service.
However some Operators may well advertise their services freely and these
will already be in the public domain and freely available through other
sources.
However in accordance with the Openness of Local Government Bodies
Regulations 2014 all licensing decisions including the grant of Private Hire
Operators can be found on the public portal available here which includes
trading names.
https://isharemaps.bathnes.gov.uk/data.aspx?RequestType=ParseTemplate
&Template=LicensingSearchSimple.tmplt