The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: Mr C complained about delay by Transport for London in processing his application to obtain a private hire driver’s licence. We uphold the complaint, finding fault by the Authority. It has delayed Mr C being able to sit assessments he needs to pass to obtain a licence, for over a year. This has caused him injustice as distress. The Authority has accepted these findings and at the end of the statement we set out the action it has agreed to take to remedy this injustice and make service improvements.
The complaint
I have called the complainant ‘Mr C’. He complains about a series of delays and poor communications by Transport for London (‘the Authority’) after he applied for a licence to drive a private hire vehicle.
Mr C says because of the delay he had to sell a vehicle he had bought which the Authority had licensed for private hire use in November 2022. He also incurred debts waiting for the Authority to process his application and enable him to begin trading.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended) We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended) If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
Before issuing this decision statement I considered: Mr C’s complaint to the Ombudsman and supporting information he provided; The Authority’s reply to his complaint, discussed below; relevant Government guidance given to licensing authorities; relevant guidance published by the Ombudsman.
I also gave Mr C and the Authority a chance to comment on a draft version of this decision statement. I took account of any comments they made before finalising the statement.
What I found
Relevant law and policy background Since 1 April 2023 the Authority has required applicants who want to drive private hire vehicles in London to pass three assessments as part of the application procedure. These are: a topographic assessment; an English language requirement (ELR) test; a safety, equality and regulatory awareness (SERU) test.
Before April 2023 TFL only required drivers to take a topographic test. However, it has introduced transitional arrangements for drivers who obtained their licences before then, to ensure all drivers have sat the three assessments by March 2025 at the latest.
The requirement for applicants to sit ELR and SERU tests follow the Government publishing statutory taxi and private hire vehicle standards. These require licensing authorities to ensure applicants have received safeguarding training and that a “test of a driver’s proficiency should cover both oral and written English language skills”.
Government guidance (Taxi and private hire licensing best practice guidance for licensing authorities in England –November 2023) suggests licensing authorities may consider abolishing topographic tests for private hire taxi drivers. However, in London, the test is compulsory because of the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998 (Section 13(3)).
The same Government guidance says that licensing authorities should aim to deliver their service in a “timely and efficient manner”. It does not provide any more specific guidance on how long a driver’s application to obtain a private hire licence should take.
Key facts In November 2022 Mr C applied to the Authority for a private hire vehicle driver’s licence. He had bought a car to use as a private hire taxi and obtained a vehicle licence from the Authority the same month, allowing for this use. Mr C chose to obtain the vehicle licence before his driver’s licence because of the Authority introducing new rules restricting the type of vehicles licensed as private hire taxis from January 2023. His car could not therefore obtain a licence after that date.
The Authority offered Mr C a date for a topographic assessment in December 2022. However, he could not attend and asked for an alternative. What followed, detailed in the Authority’s reply to Mr C’s complaint was a sequence of errors. I list these as follows: first, the Authority failed to record Mr C’s request for a different date correctly. Instead, it recorded him as failing to attend the assessment; second, at the start of February 2023 the Authority recognised its mistake, but it was another six weeks before it contacted Mr C to arrange another assessment date; third, after Mr C succeeded in obtaining a new assessment in April 2023, he narrowly failed to achieve the pass mark. But the Authority did not tell him the outcome; fourth, it then invited him to sit another assessment in June 2023, but the Authority says it cancelled this in error; fifth, the Authority then offered Mr C another date to sit the assessment later in June, which he could not attend. It wrongly recorded this as another failed assessment and went on to withdraw Mr C’s application; sixth, when Mr C challenged this, the Authority repeated the wrong advice that he had failed two assessments. So, it again told him it had withdrawn his application; seventh, Mr C again challenged this and in August 2023, the Authority acknowledged withdrawing his application in error. It said it would offer him a new assessment date but failed to do so until February 2024 (which Mr C did not attend); eighth, meanwhile, frustrated by the above, Mr C made a complaint to the Authority in October 2023. This did not go to its correspondence team for investigation; ninth, because the Authority failed to answer his complaint, Mr C contacted us in January 2024. We contacted the Authority and asked it to send Mr C its reply. This it failed to do before the end of April 2024.
When the Authority replied to Mr C’s complaint in April 2024, it: recognised it had made errors handling his application and apologised for these; said to become a licensed driver Mr C would still need to pass the three assessments. He had three chances to take these, and it would not count his absence in February 2024 as a failed attempt. A named officer would ensure personal oversight to ensure there were no further errors in its handling of his application; said it would waive the £108 fee for the tests and offered Mr C a symbolic payment of £300 in recognition of his time and trouble, frustration and distress; said that its senior management would undertake a ‘full review’ of its assessment process to understand the failings in this case and aim to prevent a repeat.
My findings
Because of the list of errors in this case, I must make a finding of fault against the Authority. Any of the errors listed would justify such a finding.
I have decided against making my own detailed enquiries to explore further the reasons Mr C experienced such repeated poor customer service. This is after noting the Authority’s commitment given to Mr C that it intends learning lessons from this complaint through a senior management review. But I note that when I spoke to Mr C as part of this investigation, he explained to me: the difficulties he had in contacting the Authority. In particular, he told me he could not speak to someone about his application or complaint. I note on its website the Authority does not provide a contact number for applicants or licensees, or for those who have made a complaint. Instead, it provides only an email address; the frustration he experienced in being unable to book his own assessments online, something that other authorities enable applicants to do.
I consider these are matters the Authority should consider as part of its review, something it has agreed (see ‘agreed actions’ below). I also consider Mr C’s experience shows a consistent lack of responsiveness by the Authority to correct its errors. For example, when it became clear in February 2023 that Mr C had not failed to attend his first assessment but had instead let it know in advance he could not attend. He had to wait several more weeks to receive a second assessment date. The fair and proportionate action would have been to provide him with a second assessment date straight away. This too is something I return to in my recommendations below.
Before I turn to those, I have considered the impact of the Authority’s failings on Mr C. I summarise these as follows: first, Mr C has experienced unacceptable delay in his application to obtain a private hire driver’s licence. I note Government guidance does not place any clear expectation on how long an application should take, other than the outcome should be ‘timely’. Nor does the Authority set its own standard for how long applications should take. But it first offered Mr C an assessment around six weeks after his application. I do not consider we could find fault in that and so, I will use this as my benchmark. It was not the Authority’s fault Mr C could not attend his first assessment and so I consider Mr C could expect to wait an extra six weeks for a new date. Then, after Mr C did not pass the first assessment he could expect to wait another six weeks for a second assessment. Making 18 weeks in total. But at the time we issued our draft decision, it was 77 weeks since Mr C first applied. He contributed very little to the 59 weeks of delay. While Mr C could have attended the assessment in February 2024, I put no weight on his failure to do so. This is because at that point he had no clarity of where his application had reached following the series of errors before. The primary consequence of this delay is uncertainty, which we consider a form of distress. Mr C had uncertainty not knowing if or when he may complete the assessments needed to obtain a licence. But there is also distress in the avoidable frustration caused to Mr C by all this delay; second, Mr C also experienced avoidable time and trouble when that frustration led him to make a complaint.
I recognise Mr C considers his injustice extends to the costs he incurred in obtaining a vehicle licence. I understand he sold this vehicle as he could not earn an income from it. I also understand why Mr C licensed the vehicle before applying for a driver’s licence. But whenever somebody licences a vehicle for private hire before obtaining their driver’s licence, they do so at a risk. Because there is no guarantee they will succeed in passing the assessments and checks required to do so.
I cannot make any findings therefore about what income Mr C may have lost because of the delays he has experienced. I also note here the Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies cautions against us doing this given the number of variable factors present in any individual case.
Agreed action
Personal remedy I considered the actions proposed by the Authority in its response to Mr C’s complaint, go some way towards remedying his injustice. I welcome its apology to Mr C and its commitment of personal oversight of his application moving forward. I also welcome its offer to make a symbolic payment and ‘waiver’ of fees. However, in my view these measures do not go far enough and I noted Mr C had already paid fees when he applied in November 2022. I have therefore recommended, and the Authority has accepted, Mr C receive a higher symbolic payment. My recommendation assumed the Authority would not ask Mr C to pay any more fees to sit the three assessments he needs to pass to obtain his licence. Although if he does not pass any of the tests, I see no reason the Authority could not charge the re-assessment fee. It also assumes there will be no additional refund of fees Mr C paid in November 2022.
So, to remedy Mr C’s injustice, within 20 working days of this decision, the Authority agrees it will make a symbolic payment to him of £750. This is instead of, and not in addition to, the £300 it offered to Mr C in reply to his complaint.
I recommended this payment having considered the Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies. I recommended Mr C receive a payment of £500 for the distress caused to him because of the impact of the Authority’s delays. This is at the high end of what we recommend but takes account of the exceptional delay of over a year in progressing Mr C’s application. I recommend a further £250 for his time and trouble.
The Authority will provide us with confirmation when it has made this payment.
We also expect the Authority will now seek to progress Mr C’s application at the earliest opportunity – offering him dates when he can sit the three outstanding assessments as part of its ongoing oversight of his case.
Service improvements I welcome the Authority’s decision to undertake its own review of its assessment service, to understand the cause of its delays and to avoid a repeat. As part of that review, I have recommended, and it has agreed, that this will encompass: a review of how applicants can contact officers in person to discuss their case where this might lead to speedier resolution; consideration of whether the Authority can introduce an online booking procedure for applicants to take assessments; consideration of what measures it can introduce to ensure swift remedial action to correct any errors it makes. For example, to speedily rebook an applicant for an assessment where its error has resulted in a delay in them being able to do so; consideration about why it took six months to reply to Mr C’s complaint and whether this points to any wider problems in its procedures for recognising and replying to complaints.
The Authority will share with us the outcome of the review within three months of a final decision on this case. It will also send a copy to Mr C if he would like to receive one.
Final decision
For reasons set out above I uphold this complaint finding fault by the Authority causing injustice to Mr C. The Authority has agreed action that I consider will remedy that injustice. Consequently, I have completed my investigation satisfied with its response.
Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman