Rehman/Wakefield & PH Association, R (on the application of) v Wakefield Council

Under section 70(1)(c) of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, licensing fees for hackney carriages and private hire vehicles may recover reasonable administrative and other costs connected with the control and supervision of the vehicles. That wording does not extend to enforcement costs arising from drivers’ conduct, such as speeding, smoking, parking offences or unlawful conduct. There is no general principle permitting a licensing scheme to be self-funding. The power to charge fees must therefore be found in the statutory language. A licensing authority must also avoid cross-subsidy between separate work streams, licence regimes and licence types.

The claimant sought judicial review of Wakefield Council’s decision of 24 January 2018 approving fees for hackney carriage and private hire vehicle licences from 1 February 2018. Permission was granted on one of the two proposed grounds. The challenge concerned the Council’s inclusion of enforcement costs relating to drivers’ conduct within fees charged to vehicle owners and operators. The central issue was whether those costs fell within section 70(1)(c) of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, and what consequence followed from the Council’s historic inclusion of them.

1. The claim succeeded. The fees decision was quashed because it incorporated enforcement expenses which section 70 did not permit the Council to recover from vehicle and operator licence fees.
2. Section 70(1)(c) permits recovery of reasonable administrative and other costs connected with the control and supervision of hackney carriages and private hire vehicles. The phrase concerns the vehicles, not the drivers. Enforcement of conduct such as speeding, smoking, inappropriate parking, excess passengers, refusal to carry assistance dogs and other uncivil or unlawful conduct relates to drivers’ activities.
3. The wording could not be extended by analogy merely because drivers operate the vehicles. The distinction between vehicle-related matters and driver-related conduct was legally material. Section 53, which provides a separate statutory scheme for driver-licence fees, could inform the construction of section 70, but the court declined to construe section 70 expansively simply because the costs might otherwise fall on council-tax payers.
4. There was no general principle that local-authority licensing schemes must be self-funding. The authority to recover costs had to arise from the relevant statutory provision. Any resulting gap in recovery was a matter for Parliament.
5. The court accepted the principle in R (on the application of Cummings) v Cardiff City Council that licensing arrangements must not involve cross-subsidy between different work streams, regimes or licence types. A broad-brush assessment of costs was permissible, but unlawful cross-subsidisation required correction.