Bristol Taxi Crisis

Big changes are coming for Taxi Drivers in Bristol due to the National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse which was produced by Baroness Casey and published in June.

Chapter 7: Taxi licensing

As a key part of the nighttime economy, taxis have historically been identified as a way children can be at risk of sexual exploitation.

Local authorities issue taxi licences in line with statutory guidance issued by the government. Some go above and beyond this statutory guidance as a means of combating child sexual exploitation but they are being hindered by a lack of stringency in other local authorities, and legal loopholes which mean drivers can apply for a licence anywhere in the country.

Proper safeguards in the licensing of taxis is as much about protecting the drivers as the passengers.

The Department for Transport should close this loophole immediately and introduce more rigorous standards.

Recommendation 11

The Department for Transport should take immediate action to put a stop to ‘out of area taxis’ and bring in more rigorous statutory standards for local authority licensing and regulation of taxi drivers

Government response: The Department for Transport will legislate to address the important issues raised in the report, tackling the inconsistent standards of taxi and private hire vehicle driver licensing.

We will work as quickly as possible and consider all options – including out of area working, national standards and enforcement – seeking the best overall outcomes for passenger safety.

In the interim we will act urgently to make improvements, including consulting on making local transport authorities responsible for taxi and private hire vehicle licensing, and determining how existing statutory guidance can be strengthened to further protect the public.

We are also reviewing authorities’ compliance with existing guidance and will hold those who do not follow it to account.

There are 2 types of taxi

Hackney Carriage - You can get a hackney carriage from a taxi rank, or flag one down in the street.

Private Hire Vehicle - You must pre-book private hire vehicles and you cannot flag them down in the street. It's illegal for a private hire vehicle to take a journey that wasn't pre-booked, or to accept a fare by being hailed.

Out of Area Taxis

PHV's licenced in one area can operate anywhere in the country.

Many PHV Drivers get licenced in an area outside of where they live and operate, because it might be quicker to get licensed that way, or the criteria for getting a lenience might be less stringent.

Birmingham Council welcome the proposed changes to stop taxi's operating "out of area".

Cllr Gareth Moore, Cons, Erdington, claimed at a full council meeting that drivers set to be rejected for a licence in Birmingham had blatantly claimed they would just go to Wolverhampton "because they will give me one and I won't have to do half the things you are expecting me to do". "There's this real problem where we as a council strive to have high standards in terms of our licensed taxi drivers but we are repeatedly undermined by other councils quite happily having a race to the bottom, who are willing to let people who should not be licensed to have one."

It has been reported that Wolverhampton has registered about a third of England's taxi drivers and is inundated with applications. Slower processing times and higher fees elsewhere had encouraged many drivers to choose Wolverhampton.

Bristol Taxi License Process is Broken

Taxi Drivers applying for a licence in Bristol, have to meet specific requirements including:

Safeguarding training

You don't need to complete this before you can have a licence. You'll need to complete it by your first renewal. If you haven't completed the training before we issue your first licence, we'll only be able to licence you for one year.

Initial safeguarding training session - We currently don’t have any sessions available. We're in the process of arranging another session and we'll update this webpage when it is available.

This means that a taxi driver can be licensed in Bristol for a year without having to complete the safeguarding training.

Knowledge test

To drive a taxi or private hire vehicle in Bristol you need to have a good understanding of the local area as well as be able to demonstrate skills in customer service.Our Public Safety and Protection Committee have approved a change to the private hire knowledge test. Questions which require geographical knowledge of the city will be removed and replaced with questions covering disability awareness, legislation, policy and other relevant topics. The changes will take some time to implement and the test will continue in its present form until the new test is in place.

Hackney carriage drivers need to answer 90% of questions correctly.
Private hire drivers need to answer 75% of questions correctly.
There's also a minimum pass mark in each section. This is 40% or 50% depending on the section.

Example Questions

The pass rate for this test is very low with only 8 out of 133 people (6%) who took the test this year managing to pass. When the test is changed to remove the local area knowledge questions, this pass rate should increase.

Gold standard training

All new drivers need to complete our Gold Standard training programme. Our current provider has stopped offering this training, so we're looking for a new one. If you apply for a new hackney carriage or private hire driver licence, or renew and you're required to complete the gold standard, we'll issue your licence without the need for this training until our new provider has been approved. If you're granted a licence without completing the gold standard training we'll tell you when a new provider has been selected.

This means that a taxi driver can be licensed in Bristol without having to complete the mandatory "Gold Standard training programme".

DVSA advanced driving test

The Driver Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) advanced taxi driving test has been stopped by the DVSA. We'll approve a different provider of the test as soon as we can. Applications for the grant of new private hire or hackney carriage driver licences will be granted without the need for this test to be undertaken until a new provider has been approved.

This means that a taxi driver can be licensed in Bristol without having to complete the mandatory "DVSA advanced driving test".

Bristol Taxi Forum

Bristol City Council engage with the Taxi Drivers in Bristol via the "Bristol Taxi Forum" which gives an opportunity for you to informally ask questions of those involved in taxi licensing and to make suggestions on how taxi licensing policies can develop over time.

The Bristol Taxi Forum has not held a meeting since January 2024. This suggests there is no active engagement between the Council and Bristol Taxi Drivers.

The Council did publish a Taxi Newsletter in June 2025.

I wonder if Bristol Taxi Forum will re-start meetings soon?

The newsletter did describe the issue of drivers either failing to inform the police who was driving at the time of a traffic offence, lying about who was driving, or allowing their Taxi or Private Hire Vehicles to be driven by an unlicensed driver.

These are some cases which have been to Court in the last few months.

How bad is it?

In Bristol we have got a serious taxi licensing problem:

Where applicants are not properly tested or trained.
Where the pass rate for the "Knowledge Test" is only 6%
Where a number of drivers are allowing their taxis to be driven by unlicensed drivers.
Where "out of area" drivers are likely to be banned from operating in Bristol.

What can be done?

Rather than expecting Bristol Council to fix their broken licensing system, perhaps it would be better to move to a model where taxi licences are issued by WECA instead. This would reduce the number of licensing schemes in the region, reducing costs, increasing efficiency, and allow taxi drivers outside of Bristol to operating in the City.