TAXI LICENSING: THE JANUARY 2013 AUDIT

Earlier this year Milton Keynes Council revealed that a taxi driver with four convictions for sexual
assault had been driving in the city for three years.
Nadeem Ahmed Kianis licence was revoked and an internal investigation was launched.
But I have discovered that the taxi licensing service was rated as weak as long ago as January 2013,
with a string of problems identified.
Does this suggest there were systemic problems in the taxi licensing service that may have
contributed to Nadeem Kiani obtaining a licence?

The January 2013 audit rated the service as weak, and identified three issues:

1. The administration of Taxi Live (the IT system that looks after all the information on taxi
drivers)
2. Income control
3. Vehicle safety checks

In all 17 risks were identified at that time.

The key points around Taxi Live are:

The service was unable to support proactive assurance vehicles, drivers and operators are
appropriately licensed
The current database is not fit for purpose
42 medicals were overdue
Licensed activities are not sufficiently monitored
Issues with the accuracy of the database
No sharing of information between Taxi Licensing and Home to School Transport
department
Taxi Live showed that 81 CRB and 61 medical certificates were overdue; and that 168 MoT
and 182 insurances were out of date
Taxi Live showed driver license expiry dates are incorrect and that drivers had no operators
listed

Details of the audit report in January 2013 can be found here: http://cmis.milton-
keynes.gov.uk/CmisWebPublic/Binary.ashx?Document=41192