Drivers licensed by Slough Borough Council

The request was partially successful.

Dear Slough Borough Council,

This is a freedom of information request lodged under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 for full and detailed disclosure and publication of easy to read charts bearing the following information:

Nationality, ethnic origin, religion, gender of each of the following categories of driver licensed by Slough Borough Council

Hackney carriage
Private hire
Private hire operator
Chauffeur

Yours faithfully,

Mr I Hillas

FOI, Slough Borough Council

Thank you for your email.

 

Providing excellent customer services is one of the council’s key
priorities.

 

Your enquiry will now be forwarded to the relevant department to answer.

 

We will reply fully to all written enquiries within 10 working days
although we aim to reply to emails sooner than this.

 

If your enquiry is a Freedom of Information request, the council may take
up to 20 working days to respond.

 

 

If you do not receive a satisfactory response by this time you can contact
our complaints department. More details here:

[1]http://www.slough.gov.uk/council/complai...

 

http://www.slough.gov.uk/business/regene...

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References

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_Freedom of Information, Slough Borough Council

This is to acknowledge receipt of your FOI request which is receiving attention

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_Freedom of Information, Slough Borough Council

Dear Mr Hillas

 

I can confirm that the councils licensing service does not record religion
or ethnic origin. 

 

To provide nationality for all the councils licenced Hackney carriage,
Private hire, Private hire operator and Chauffeurs would entail an officer
carrying out a manual search on each individual record, as this has not
been recorded in a researchable format.

 

It has been calculated that to search each record would take approximately
2 minutes and this would take this part of your request over the
prescribed limit as laid down by the FOIA.  Please Accept this email as a
partial notice of refusal under S12 of the FOIA. 

 

However I am able to provide you with the following information:

 

Private Hire Drivers – 725, 10 are female

Hackney carriage Drivers – 75, no female drivers

Combination Drivers (i.e. this is a joint private hire and hackney
carriage drivers licence) 96, no female drivers

Private Hire Operators – 55, 4 are female

Chauffeurs – They are one man bands who hold a private hire drivers
licence and operator licence so will be included in the above.  We are
unable to extract the exact numbers but can confirm that none are female

 

So 951 in total with 14 female drivers.

 

Regards, SBC FOI Officer 

 

 

 

 

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Dear _Freedom of Information,

In every other activity regarding people, housing and their Council licensable livelihoods, including Slough Borough Council's own recruitment processes, the Council has statutory duties to record Equality and Ethnic Monitoring data collected in the various adminstrative processes connected with them. The Equality and Ethnic Monitoring data has to be in a format in which it is readily accessible for easy full disclosure and publication. There are no exceptions. One set of Equality and Ethnic Monitoring data should not be made more readily accessible for one set of Council adminstrative functions than any other.

Equality and Ethnic Monitoring data for all drivers licensed for hire and reward should be stored in data formats which can be easily accessed and published, spreadsheets for example. Hardly rocket science.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Hillas

_Freedom of Information, Slough Borough Council

Dear Mr Hillas

This is to acknowledge receipt of your email

In order for this to be considered a valid FOI request please supply your full name as per the attached guidance produced by the ICO.


Regards, SBC FOI Officer

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Janik2 left an annotation ()

* On 23 March 2017 Mr Hillas submitted a FOI request to Slough Council.

* On 4 April 2017 an anonymous person claiming to be (one of the several) "SBC FOI Officer" answered the question.

* On 13 April 2017 Mr Hillas queried the council's answer.

* On 18 April 2017 an anonymous person claiming to be (one of the several) " SBC FOI Officer" demanded Mr Hillas' " full name" even though the LAW does not require the giving of a " full name".

Slough Council should be abolished and the poorly performing staff sacked. Slough needs quality but has too much crap who really don't like serving the public.

Janik2 left an annotation ()

http://www.slough.gov.uk/jobs/our-values...

"Our employees care deeply about the work we do for Slough and its residents, visitors and businesses. Find out more about our five values and how they drive our behaviour and how we work:"

Get the fancy booklet from http:/slough.gov.uk/downloads/our-values.pdf

Slough Witch left an annotation ()

Furthermore, SBC has responded (albeit unsatisfactorily) to the original request without contesting its validity as an FOI. It is only when Mr Hillas legitimately challenged the inadequate response that they have raised the validity of the original request.

Mr Janik is quite right to point out that there is no requirement to provide a full name when making a FOI request. 'Mr I Hillas is perfectly adequate.

Mustafa Khan left an annotation ()

It is very strange a Council does not collect diversity data to make sure it is reaching all parts of the community in slough. If it does not collect the data how can it say that all businesses and residents have fair and equal access to Council services?

Dear _Freedom of Information,

Disgraceful conduct for and on behalf of Slough Borough Council from you, bullying a Freedom of Information requestor because Slough Borough Council has failed in its statutory duty to record and report. Comply with Slough Borough Council's anti-bullying and dignity policies

Slough Borough Council are required by law to apply diversity monitoring to all its activities, and that includes driver licensing.

Yours sincerely,

Mr I Hillas

Slough Swan left an annotation ()

No, No Mr Hillas,

You have gotten everything wrong. The law does not apply to Slough Council's activities because Cllr Sohail Munawar, the Leader of Slough Council, has publicly proclaimed

"My primary role is to ensure the council adopts and effectively delivers my parties manifesto and strategic agenda."

source: nonexecutivedirectors.com/sohail-munawar-ned-30541.html

May I helpfully suggest you complain to the Labour Party's national leader Jeremy Corbyn about the shocking state of affairs with Slough Council's FOI dis-service? No good complaining to Cllr Munawar or even to FOI person Jane Ward. Trust Cllr Munawar to be telling the truth - its all the Labour Party's fault.

Mr Hillas left an annotation ()

Having some council tax funded keyboard warrior employed in any council's freedom of information section does not present a very favourable image of that council's comittment to transparency and accountability. Exploiting their employment in a council freedom of information section to in essence to use council IT facilities to harangue and bandy words with any Freedom of Information requestor is an absolute affront and disgrace.

_Freedom of Information, Slough Borough Council

This is to acknowledge receipt of your email which is receiving attention

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_Freedom of Information, Slough Borough Council

Dear Mr Hillas

 

As requested an independent review has been undertaken and I have been
asked to respond as follows:

 

 

The licensing department asks all customers, including driver applicants,
to complete a customer satisfaction survey, which includes an equalities
monitoring section. This is not mandatory and unfortunately completion
rates are very low. There is no requirement in any Licensing application
function including taxi and private hire licensing to record religion or
ethnicity directly  in the driver application form ( and this information
would have no bearing in the application process) and nationality has only
recently been included to comply with immigration laws.

 

As has been stated, there is no capacity to automatically search this
field at this time, so the process would have to be undertaken manually
which would take your request over the time limits as laid down by the
Freedom of Information Act.

 

The Equality Act does not require monitoring per se and it is not an end
in itself.  If you feels there has been discrimination in the process
locally, you should send the council full details and an officer we will
investigate the matter further.

 

Regards, SBC FOI Officer

 

 

 

 

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