It would seem mismanagement is in vogue. The Global economic crisis we are currently enduring, by all accounts, comes down to our leaders and managers. Leaders have made poor decisions and the managers it seems were blinded by greed. The people in charge of all the money and the lending were out of control, there was no wisdom, and nobody listened when warnings were given. In fact those who stood up and spoke out were dismissed or demoted whilst those who were largely instrumental in this catastrophe walked away with large bonuses and even larger pensions. We see this everyday on the news or in the papers but it isn’t just the financial people or the Governments. This is the way things are throughout the system. Hospitals, social services, the prison system, immigration, local authorities and anything else you can think of. The fact is this is the way the entire world seems to be run, the people in charge think they know best and refuse to bend and usually they have no actual knowledge of that which they are charged with controlling.
Most managers and leaders are chosen for their ability to say ‘Yes’ the yes men employed simply to toe the line, to do their job without question. Unfortunately this does not work and if you look around …in fact look no further than Taxi Licensing and you may find a prime example. They appear to know best, they appear to listen but they do nothing. They attend meetings a lot, they do a lot of photocopying, they’re on the phone a lot, they have long lunch breaks and longer weekends!
They justify their jobs by looking busy and talking like car salesmen, sounding sympathetic but never really doing their job. They think they are doing their job because they come to work and they get paid but really what do they do? I had a much better living before the ‘new breed’ of ‘Licensing and Public Protection Officers’ came along. This is the way things are now, fancy titles, big salaries and very little quality. With the same attitudes of the recession makers, they know best but what do they know about the economics of driving a Taxi. How the Taxi driver makes their living, seasonal trends within the market, running costs, pension provision, sickness, holidays, repairs & maintenance. Mention these things to a licensing officer and they will schpeel off a long sentence with the words ‘Market Forces’ somewhere in the middle of it. This usually gets us off their back because we are easily fobbed off as all we can do is drive, swear and eat pies. Actually we can do a lot more than that but we just switch off when someone speaks drivel, that’s something we learn through years of Taxi driving.
It may be true that the role of Licensing is to do the admin of the licensing system and to safeguard the public. There is a taxi infrastructure however which needs to be maintained. That is: Adequate rank spaces in proportion to plates issued, vigorous enforcement, (for the protection of the public) and safe licensing. There are Local authorities who simply go through the motions of Taxi licensing without any wisdom, we are CRB checked, we take locality tests, we have regular medicals, our cars are regularly checked and tested for roadworthiness and cleanliness etc. Commendable you might say. A member of the public on reading this would say “I feel safe in the knowledge that Taxis and drivers are thoroughly checked out in this way” But! Then you have Local authorities who will license hundreds of cars with no intention of enforcing them because they are fully aware that these cars will be working as private hire in other towns and cities far away from the town in which they are licensed, The driver doesn’t even need to visit that town to get licensed it’s all done ‘mail order’. There are so many Taxis of all shapes, colours & sizes with so many different Local authority licence plates on them. The taxi trade and the Local authority have spent years trying to educate the public as to what a Taxi is; the Taxi which can be hailed in the street and the Private Hire car which can be pre-booked by telephone etc. Now we have Private Hire cars with so much livery plastered all over them that they look more like a Taxi than a Taxi, Basically any crook or villain could cover his car in writing and signage and easily be mistaken for a Taxi. There are also cars driving around with a Taxi sign on the roof and a plate on the back but any punter would be mistaken if they believed that this was a Taxi, it might not be! It may be a Taxi from another County which is working in another area as a private hire car. Yet there is no enforcement in place to check this Taxi, it could be anybody in a car with a topsign and a plate on the back…who knows if it is genuine or not?
Taxi licensing brings in a lot of revenue for Local authorities and as such is deserving of some payback. There is a Taxi study highlighted by Ian Shanks last year which has been largely ignored by those that licence. If they took the time to read it they may see just what an asset they have in the Taxi/PH trades ……..Quote from Ian Shanks article “…..after four years and much hard work by the disliked Mr Fidler and others they have forced Nexus to have a study done and paid for by Nexus on taxis/PH ! …” READ IT HERE:
We don’t want to be fined for coming to work because we are forced to park illegally due to a lack of Rank spaces (approx 80 spaces in Newcastle for 800 Taxis) we don’t want to be continually moved on by the police, we don’t want to compete with out of town cars which flood our streets, despite a High Court ruling last year: READ IT HERE: It’s not only about fair play to the Taxi Driver. It’s about dangerous policies & practises just like the dangerous, unsustainable polices that lead to the current Global economic crisis. These may seem totally unrelated but the attitudes involved are the same. The way in which Taxi licensing is approached across this country will eventually lead to catastrophe. How was a Taxi driver in London able to get away with drugging and sexually assaulting numerous women in his cab for so long? How did a known sex offender, in the City of Newcastle upon Tyne, almost drive off with a young girl last year, but for the actions of a Taxi driver who spotted him? More cases like this will happen as time goes on due to the lack lustre approach to Taxi licensing and when they do it’s us the taxi drivers who are tarred with the same brush, the ordinary punter will not blame licensing, they will look at Taxi drivers with suspicion and fear and in some cases loathing.
Just as the Banking industry had it’s catastrophe, the fundamental management styles that have become the norm will create smaller catastrophes with far reaching implications. When the Pooh hits the fan for the Taxi trade it will be the trade that suffers until the men and women in charge become leaders once more and not just ‘Yes’ people. Look at me being politically correct even I am becoming infected!
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