Council rapped for failure to give full remedy to overcharged taxi drivers

The Local Government Ombudsman has attacked a local authority over its failure to pay the recommended level of compensation for taxi drivers it overcharged.

In 2011 the Ombudsman, Anne Seex, issued a report which found that Castle Point Borough Council had overcharged licensed tax drivers since January 2004.

She recommended that the authority reimburse the complainant and remedy the injustice caused to other drivers.

Castle Point refunded £99 to the original complainant and gave him £75 in recognition of the time and trouble in pursuing the complaint.

The LGO’s second report was prompted by a complaint from another driver, Mr A, who said he and 24 other drivers had not been given a remedy following the first report.

The council argued that it had offered all the drivers a free Criminal Record Bureau check worth £44 and had reduced the licence fee. It insisted that it had fulfilled all the recommendations contained in the first report.

But the LGO has now concluded that Castle Point had not provided a full remedy that met her original recommendation.

Seex said the offer of a free CRB check was welcome but not enough to remedy the full injustice faced by the second complainant and the other drivers.

Her report also said that the licence fee “cannot form part of the wider remedy because it merely moves the fee towards the amount it would have been had the fault in 2003 not occurred”.

The LGO has recommended that Castle Point should calculate how much it has overcharged Mr A and the other 24 drivers and refund those amounts, and pay £50 to Mr A in recognition of his time and trouble in pursuing the complaint.

Seex said the council should alternatively pay £55 to Mr A and to each of the 24 drivers, in addition to providing the free CRB check.

“The council should apply the same approach to remedying injustice in other similar cases that come to its attention,” the LGO’s report added.