Taxi company and school safeguarding arrangements
Southport Inquiry · The Southport Inquiry Report: Phase 1 · Issued 13 April 2026 · Addressed to: Department for Transport
Source — verbatim from the inquiry
●Inquiry recommendation
The Department for Transport should ensure that local authorities establish effective arrangements between licensed taxi companies and schools. These should enable school safeguarding teams to access taxi booking information where relevant to a legitimate safeguarding or risk concern relating to a child who should be at school.
Southport Inquiry, The Southport Inquiry Report: Phase 1 · 13 Apr 2026 Source PDF →
Published evidence summary
Publicly available evidence relating to this recommendation:
- The Department for Transport stated in its response that it is the lead department and expects to complete significant elements by mid-2027, that it will work with the Department for Education and the Information Commissioner's Office to develop guidance on sharing of booking data between schools and private hire vehicle operators expected to be published by mid-2027, and that the draft Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Bill will be brought forward for pre-legislative scrutiny during this Parliamentary session (Government Response to Phase 1 of the Southport Inquiry, CP 1623, Home Office, July 2026).
Sources
How was this evidence gathered?
Response — verbatim from government
●Department for Transport
The Department for Transport (DfT) is the lead department and expects to complete significant elements of this recommendation by mid-2027, while the draft bill is subject to parliamentary timings. Progress and next steps:
- DfT will work with Department for Education (DfE) and the Information Commissioner's Office to develop guidance on sharing of booking data between schools and private hire vehicle operators, which we expect to publish by mid-2027.
- The draft Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Bill will be brought forward for pre-legislative scrutiny during this Parliamentary session.
- The draft Bill provides an opportunity to consider the full delivery of this recommendation through future primary legislation when parliamentary time allows.
Department for Transport · 2 Jul 2026 Written response →
Evidence trail — what's actually happened since
- 2 Jul 2026 · Department for Transport Government response published 2 July 2026 (CP 1623). The government accepted this recommendation; the lead department reports implementation is in progress. Source →
Each entry above links to a primary source — gov.uk written statement, consultation response document, or inspection report. The Index does not characterise government intent; it tracks what has been published.
How this page is built
Source and Response are verbatim from primary documents. The Evidence trail records published activity since — written statements, consultation outcomes, inspection findings, parliamentary references. The Index does not paraphrase or characterise intent; it tracks what has been published. Where the evidence is the absence of action (a missed deadline, a slipped timetable), that absence is documented from primary sources rather than inferred.
This recommendation's data is verified periodically against primary sources. The Index is monitored for staleness weekly.