Yes, thank you, convener. I appreciate the approach both yourself, this committee and officers have taken to this, where there's been changes proposed in previous committees. I think just to underline the fact that it's very, very important it goes through formal procedures and channels and that consultations like this are taken on board rather than us making ad hoc decisions. So with that, I second it. Thank you. We wouldn't normally do this, but would anyone else like to comment? No? In that case, thank you very much indeed for approving the recommendations. Section 8, then we have 8.1, which is the report on the food, health and safety business plan for 2024/25. And Andrew Mitchell and Heather Dick are here for the report. There's also a presentation from Heather. >>Over to you, Mr Mitchell, and welcome, Heather, to committee. >>Thank you, convener. So briefly the report brings before members the Council's food, health and safety plan, which the Council is required to prepare and agree for each financial year as part of the Food Law Code of Practice. And the principal purpose of the document is to allow external bodies such as Food Standards Scotland, who have oversight of the Council's functions in relation to food safety, the ability to audit and monitor in terms of performance how the Council is doing in order to assist the committee, because the report and plan can be quite technical. Heather is going to give a short presentation and take you through some of the issues which we would want to highlight to members to give members an understanding. We would ask members to bear in mind that environmental health is more than just food, health and safety, although it is probably the largest of the functions in terms of demand upon the service, there are other issues the service deal with in terms of statutory role, in terms of health and safety enforcement, role in terms of environmental protection, commenting and planning applications, dealing with statutory nuisance and a whole host of other things, which collectively Environmental Health Service is dealing with, trying to manage in terms of the demands upon the service. I think with that I will pass over to Heather. Thank you for the introduction, thanks to the Convening Committee for giving us the opportunity to talk to you about environmental health. As Andrew said it is quite a wide reaching service, we have three food, health and safety teams and one environmental protection team that do a lot of great work across the city, but today's focus is the food, health and safety business plan. There is a lot of statistics and information on what activities have been over the year, I won't focus directly on that during my presentation, but it is all in the plan for you to have a look at. Environmental health is the sort of service that quite often the public don't realise they need until we are in a situation of a global pandemic or a major outbreak and then it is really important to understand the need for qualified and competent officers to assist in that situation. I'm going to skip through the first couple of slides because Andrew has given an introduction. I'm going to skip through these first couple of slides due to Andrew's introduction and just move on to our resource. So fully staffed, the food, health and safety team should have five full-time equivalent officers. We have reported vacancies of 9.8 full-time equivalent officers in the plan, but unfortunately that is now higher due to recent retirements. This mirrors the national outlook across Scotland, just to sort of drill down a little bit in terms of this graph. Locally in Edinburgh we have 4.3 environmental health officers per 100,000 in 2023 versus 6.88 environmental health officers per 100,000 across Scotland. So our situation in Edinburgh is slightly more acute because of some of the city challenges that makes it even more challenging for us. So our service is currently operating with 78% fewer EHOs than we did in 2005, unfortunately. I just want to highlight the importance to committee of retaining our vacancies. Obviously sitting with a number of vacancies and in light of the council's budgetary challenges over the next few years, we would just like to ensure that we can keep those vacancies with a view to trying to bring the right people into the service. There are 28 students sitting exams in the autumn, so we are hopeful that we might be able to bring some of them into the council. So City of Edinburgh has some unique challenges for food, health and safety service. With the highest number of food businesses in Scotland it's 7,769. With this rapid opening, closing and change of ownership nature which causes additional resource challenges for the officer because it takes a lot of inspection time to get a business up to speed and then six months later it could be closed. We start the process again with lots of high-profile events that require environmental health interaction. We have serious accidents to investigate, which could be six months, a year, two years of investigation from two officers before we end up being able to report that to the fiscal. So again, high resource. Complex food businesses. We also have a lot of compliance issues linked to the age and type of premises. Lots of older buildings, cellars, potential for vermin access. So again, enforcement challenges there. The current economic situation is also a further challenge. Less staff, less time for food safety potentially. We can also end up in businesses that don't have enough money to switch on their boilers, so we can quite often find there's no hot water in the premises. So again, more resource challenges. So the combined effect of stopping all of our proactive work during COVID caused a general decline in compliance. So when we were back inspecting, it's taken longer to get businesses up to the correct standard, but also there is this backlog. Another challenge, post-COVID we moved to a new food law rating scheme. So historically, our highest-risk businesses were inspected every six months. We're now inspecting our highest-risk businesses every one to three months. So while it's great that the emphasis is on our highest-risk businesses, it means that we're doing more frequent inspections and arguably inspecting a smaller number of businesses as opposed to getting to some of the other businesses that we would like to. So because of our prioritization of food law work post-COVID, we've had to do a lot more reactive food law work. And when we do get to these businesses in a reactive nature, say food complaint, the businesses are requiring greater levels of intervention. We've also unfortunately been able to do less proactive health and safety intervention work. This is something we're aware of and we would like to address over the next year. There could be increased pressure in the event of a public health emergency, and that's something else we need to consider. There may well be future requirements to prioritize our work. In terms of resource in the future, student training is really important. We've had two students over the last few years, and in 2020 they sat exams, and we now have one working with us as a fully qualified DHO, and that's great, but we need more of that. We need to embrace work experience requests, local education initiatives. We need to bring graduate and moderate apprenticeships into regulatory services and expose them to all the career options, including environmental health that are available to them. We need to work with REHES, that's our Institute of Environmental Health, to promote training of officers. We need to improve the retention of the staff we have, and we need to continue recruiting. We've had five attempts at recruitment over the last two years, and we've brought in a number of officers just not unfortunately enough to deal with the backlog of vacancies that we have. We also need to make sure our stakeholders are well informed, so yourselves as councillors, Foodstanders Scotland, senior council officials, and just ensure that we're open and honest about our situation and what we can and can't achieve. So just to conclude, is food safe to eat in Edinburgh? We would say that yes, the services assessment is that the city does remain a safe place to eat. Data that we have available in terms of clinical disease numbers and self-reported food poisonings, range broadly similar to last year and years historically out with the COVID period. We've had no significant outbreaks of foodborne illness, and our environmental health officers and enforcement officers and service are well-trained, experienced and competent in the new city, carrying out inspections and education on a daily basis in a reactive manner. Many thanks for listening. I'm happy to take any questions. That's just a background of some statistics about inspections, et cetera, that we've undertaken over the year. Many thanks. Thank you very much, Ella, for that very illuminating and informative presentation. Do we have any questions, Councillor Poggs and then Councillor Mayotte and Councillor Graham? Thank you very much. That was very interesting. Obviously, you talked a fair bit about the recruitment and retention challenges that you face. That's obviously one of the key challenges that you're highlighting for us today. You mentioned it was a national issue, not an Edinburgh-specific issue, but what do you think is behind this? Why are people not entering the profession? Why are people leaving the profession just now? It's a number of things. It's an ageing profession, unfortunately. There's a larger number of people in the 50-plus bracket. Unfortunately, there have been some academic challenges, so to qualify as an AHO, historically, you had to do a degree in environmental health. That's still the case, but there have been reduced uptake in the university course. The courses have closed. There was a course at Edinburgh years ago. It then moved to Strathclyde. It's currently with West of Scotland, but there's been some challenges there. They're looking at a master's at Abertay. That has been the challenge. In terms of geographically, there's only one course, usually, in Scotland. In Edinburgh, because we don't have a course in education here, arguably some of the officers that might qualify say in the West, they might not come and want to work in the City of Edinburgh. There have been various challenges. However, there are lots of things happening. They are changing the way that you can qualify, both as an environmental health officer and a food safety officer, so they're making it more accessible. There are lots of things happening that should hopefully improve the challenges. Mr Mitchell, do you want to comment? I suppose there is a broader point in terms of, as local government finance has become more challenging, their ability to commit to the more traditional means of educating environmental health officers, training standards officers, building standards officers has reduced and, therefore, that has a knock-on impact on the academic opportunities for people to do that. So it's not a unique challenge to this service, but it is one that's particularly acute. As a national strategic challenge within the profession, your professional body will obviously be taking these matters very seriously and addressing them. Just as a committee or as a council, as an employer, are we doing everything we can to support those efforts of your professional body? Is there more that we could do to support their efforts in addressing these issues? At the moment, yes. Should we come in the future, maybe with a change of structure or a request to recruit more student environmental health officers and include that in our structure, we would very much appreciate the support of the committee to do so. Thank you. I'm sure the committee would support. So please bring suggestions like that if appropriate and we will look at that. Yes, thank you Heather, that was very informative. If we've only got 28 students in Scotland this year, sort of said that the new ones. Can people from, is environmental health qualifications the same in England as in Scotland? And so can we advertise in England to get experience THOs up or is that not an option that's available to us because of differences in qualifications? There are some subtleties in the difference, particularly over the last few years in terms of competencies, but we do have various, we have English qualified THOs, we have Irish qualified THOs working in the service, so there's definitely potential there and that's something I'll consider we could advertise nationally. Usually if you have someone that's keen to work in authority in Scotland, they're looking on all of the usual sites like My Job Scotland, et cetera. Thank you. Do you want to come back Councillor Graham? I've got two questions. One for yourself, Heather, this is just a bit of curiosity. You say in your report that there's 16 ships were inspected. I just was curious as to what these ships were. And my other question is actually to officers then, because there is clearly a very challenging environment with recruitment, et cetera, should we as a licensing authority be considering halting temporary food outlets so that it alleviates the situation or is that, again, not within our power? Shall I address the ship's question first? So that will be ship sanitation certificates we've carried out and it could be anything from a cruise ship through to an oil tanker that will come into the third or fourth and request inspection because they require a ship sanitation certificate. In terms of the link to licensing, I think there is no -- each licensing authority must deal with applicants. There was some changes made to the legislation a number of years ago which has had some help so that a food trader gets a certification from wherever they are based and then that is accepted by every other local authority, whereas prior to that, if you travel to country with your food business, particularly for events, you almost had to be inspected each and every time you went into a local authority. So there have been some changes made in the past. Could I come back in? It was just to pick up on Councillor Maillot's comment about student numbers and the number of 20, just to give a bit of clarification, that's final year students sitting their professional exams, so there are other students progressing through the degree, so it's not only hopefully 20 students, it's just this year that should qualify. Does that answer the questions you had, Councillor Cremp and Councillor Dickson? Yes, question for Heather or the officers. In relation to people who can actually start up a business, do you think there is enough control, enough regulation on those who can just come in and start up a business willy-nilly? The reason I ask this question is because I go to Norway regularly, and in Norway no-one can set up a business selling food unless they have a qualification. So when a business starts up in city, they have to register themselves as a food business, and that is the only requirement and it's reliant on us inspecting, so there's not possibly a licence system at the moment. However, Foodstanders Scotland are considering changes, considering a number of things like FIFA intervention and potentially a national register for food businesses that could well consider these aspects of things. That's probably a policy decision rather than a local decision that we can make. I appreciate that. Would it be helpful to people like yourselves if it was more strictly controlled? I think there are lots of positives that could come from that. There could be a requirement for statutory training, potentially, and submitting their food safety management system before they start and then we need to know that there's a baseline of education there, which would be useful. As I say, I'll answer every time I come back from Norway, I always think about this, because they have a thing called the FAGBRE, which is professional papers, and you cannot open up a business over there selling food or dealing with food unless you have been through a course. Thank you. Thank you for all those questions. Councillor Colvall, you have one. Apologies, convener. Two questions. Firstly, I'm aware Foodstanders Scotland has an annual operating budget of about £23 million. I'm just curious, from your point of view, operationally, how do you liaise with them in Edinburgh? I appreciate you have to submit food plans and things like that, but is our city seeing any operational benefit from that, because obviously you can report food crime through them as well? That would be my first question. There's a number of ways we interact with Foodstanders Scotland. We're in constant contact with them. This, I would say, is quite a formal part of our interaction with them. With us, the Food Safety Business Plan, we have the Scottish National Database, so everything we do that's put into our IT systems is then uploaded to the Scottish National Database so they can see exactly what we're doing. We also have common systems, for example, the Clio system, so when there's a food alert or a recall, we get that information and there's that constant interaction. There's also lots of local liaison groups and national groups that we feed into as an authority as well. So constant interaction. Councillor Colvall. Thank you for that. And my second question, it may be more appropriate to the head of regulatory services. I was surprised by this last year as well, that the budget is funded through the council's revenue budget, which is quite different to a lot of other licensing services. So my two questions from that is, one, what is the context behind that? Is that legislative requirement that it can't be from the licensing pot of money? And secondly, for yourself, Heather, what proportion of funds do we raise from things like fines and fees, et cetera? I imagine it's very small, but any indication would be helpful. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Colvall. Thank you. I suppose the licensing can only be spent on licensed premises, and although some food premises have a separate license, say a sale of alcohol, it's catering, it's not the core function of the license, so the council Environmental Health Service and indeed other, like Trading Standard Service, are paid for by the revenue budget, and the report reflects the financial reality of the choices the council have had to make over the last number of years, and so when the report talks about, I think, something like 70 per cent less, so that's a combination of budgetary decisions that members have made as they've tried to reconcile the pressures that occur on the council's budget and some of that gap is the vacancies, whereas you have that shortage of qualified staff to fill them, so it's a combination of them coming together, so in terms of the money available to the service, were there to be any addition, that would have to come from a decision of the council part of the budgetary process. Just to address money coming into the service from interventions or certification, it's relatively low, unfortunately. Our main budget is around staff. We do make some money, actually ship sanitation certificates were mentioned earlier, we charge for those, small numbers of export health certificates potentially, but largely it's not an income generating service and we have considered that there are challenges around conflict of interest, because if we're income generating, for example training, then there's a conflict if we're then going into that business to enforce. Thank you very much for all these questions and answers. Are there any other comments, questions rather? No. It is reassuring to know that we have the best food protection for residents, that's possible within our current arrangements, given the rating scheme, and is committee then willing to agree and approve the recommendations to note the report and the business plan? Yes, thank you, thank you very much. Item 8.2 is the report on the age limitation and emission standards for taxis and private hire cars, annual update. Andrew Mitchell and Catherine Scanlon are here for the report and there's a Liberal Democrat group amendment which has been circulated. Mr Mitchell. Thank you, convener. So this would be your annual update on where your policy is. Policy originally adopted in 2018, the policy has been amended in order to adapt to circumstances between 2018 and 2023. Members will be familiar that the mandatory standard now is vehicles must comply with Euro 6 or equivalent, and those equivalents are specifically listed by decisions of the committee. The second aspect of the policy is obviously the 10-year age limit. The report in Paragraph 4.2 gives members an indication of where we are in terms of the fleets being upgraded in order to comply with the policy decisions of the committee, being 82 per cent of the taxi fleet compliance and 97 per cent of the private hire fleet. The principal issue, I suppose outstanding, which members will be aware from their time on licensing, will be those vehicles which are typically Euro 5, which are awaiting retrofit, and those vehicles which are approaching the 10-year age limit. The report highlights that for members to reflect upon the temporary relief that the committee agreed last April is due to expire in relation to Euro 5 vehicles which have been retrofitted, and also Euro 6 vehicles in terms of should they qualify for an additional period of glancing of the licence. The licensing subcommittee continues to deal with individual licence exemption requests and the numbers slightly smaller than previous years. However, the pattern is consistent with that, typically vehicles awaiting retrofit or approaching that 10-year age limit. Since the policy -- I suppose since committee last considered this, obviously the low-emission zone has taken effect. The service and indeed licensing subcommittee have been quite clear that any exemption granted to the council's licensing conditions are not of themselves -- they are not in any way relevant to the low-emission zones, and operators of vehicles, notwithstanding any licensing exemption they have, remain entirely responsible for ensuring that their vehicle is able to comply with the low-emission zone. And with that, we are happy to try and answer any questions members have. Okay. Over to questions from committee. Councillor Matusquale, you have a question. I think it's 4.9 where it says restricted availability of vehicles, and I'm just wondering if this also applies to retrofit services. Thank you. So I think the issue has been canvassed before at this committee and indeed regular licensing sub. There is a limited number of suppliers who can carry out the retrofits work. This authority, as well as many other authorities, are implementing similar policies, and that results in, as we understand or as reported to us, a delay as people are competing for a finite resource in order to get the retrofits completed. Does that answer your question, Councillor? Do you want to follow up? I'll just follow up, but I'm not sure there will be an answer to this. So are there any more available since we started this? Because I know we've spoken about this in the past. I'm just wondering if someone has understood the lack and maybe a business opportunity. Thank you. I'm not aware of any changes to that market since the committee last considered this. Thanks. Do you have any other questions on this report? No? It would appear not. In that case, I will speak to the report and the amendment which has been tabled. This report highlights the need to review the current temporary extension of the age and emissions policy as it affects Euro 5 retrofitted, Euro 5 vehicles and Euro 6 vehicles. Over the past 12 months, members of this committee sitting as the licensing subcommittee have worked very hard to approve dozens and dozens of claims for exemption to the age and emissions policy in order to facilitate grant applications for Euro 5 taxes to be retrofitted using the clean vehicle retrofit accreditation scheme operated by the energy saving trust. These exemptions apply only to the licensing authority's age and emissions policy as noted by Mr Mitchell. As has been explained by the committee to every single applicant for an exemption, the licensing authority has no powers to grant exemptions from the emission rules that apply to the LEZ. Therefore, each Euro 5 taxi must comply with the LEZ from 1 June by being retrofitted. Following the temporary extension to the age and emissions policy last year, the higher car trade working group was set up to consider issues of concern to the trade and any suggestions from the trade that might address those concerns. The group has met three times. The most recent meeting included councillors as well as trade representatives and licensing officers. It has focused on two principal areas, age and emissions policy and enforcement issues. The Lib Dem amendment to the report invites the group to propose measures to encourage the transition towards a zero emission public hire fleet. Another issue identified in this report is the roadworthiness of older vehicles, particularly those over 10 years. So the amendment asks officers for options that might encourage better vehicle maintenance given the limited options available for new vehicles, particularly taxis. And finally, as the temporary extension to the age policy has expired, the amendment proposes a further extension to facilitate these two requests. I move the report along with the Lib Dem amendment and would ask Councillor Caldwell to second. Formerly convener, thank you. Thank you. There being no alternative proposals, are we happy to accept that? Recommendations and amendments. Thank you very much. The next report is item 8.2, which is on licensing training for taxi and private hire drivers. There is an SNP group amendment and a liberal Democrat group agenda. Catherine Scanlon will speak to the report. Over to you, Ms Scanlon. Thank you. This report is an update for committee on the taxi and private hire driving. The training, just as a recap, was introduced in 2020. This committee agreed back in 2016 that compulsory training should be undertaken by all taxi and private hire drivers. This was restated in 2020, but that introduction of training was delayed due to COVID. The foundation training, which is for brand new drivers, carried on during COVID so that more drivers could be introduced to the trade, and that gave an entry level knowledge. The existing drivers, their training, compulsory training, was postponed due to COVID and then reintroduced in November 2023. The report itself gives an update on the numbers that have carried out the training, the number of courses that we have run, feedback that we have had, complaints that we have received about it. It is fair to say it has caused much discussion and not all drivers are happy about having to undertake training. The idea originally behind the training was to drive up standards. It was to match a world-class city with a world-class service. We had heard lots, committee had heard lots about our professional drivers, and the training is to ensure that they are fully up to date with new legislation, changes in road layout, and things like the introduction of the LAZ, HMRC, tax requirements for them. All of this is incorporated. It is a reminder of licensed conditions, which is an area that is always a challenge. There is a lot of conditions, there are policy changes, and not forgetting that Scottish Government are supportive of training. They identify training to vocational drivers as best practice and local authorities should take a positive approach to this. The report is providing the update that officers said they would do last February. It lays out two options that have been identified in relation to non-attendance, more prevalent from taxi drivers, but by no means exclusive to taxi drivers. I think we have sent out far more invitations to attend training than has been taken up, and that does have an impact on the training. If we are inviting 25 people to train and 3 attend, the experience of those attending has an impact on filling that discussion point. One of the major taxi companies has now commenced paying for the training and that has really improved the training experience because full courses generate full discussions. There are two options that we have identified in terms of the commitment to this compulsory training. They are listed in your report in 4.17. The first option is where drivers have failed to comply with meaning consideration could be given to granting a licence for a six-month period with a condition requiring that the driver complete the training by the end of that period. This in essence means limiting the length of a licence issued. Alternatively, as part of the licence application process, there is documentation that we require. If we don't receive that documentation, we return the application as incomplete. Lack of completion of mandatory training, so if we don't have, for instance, the evidence of criminal convictions or right to work, we classify it as an incomplete application. If we did this with training, we would stop, in essence, a driver renewing or being able to renew. Obviously, that has an impact on their ability to work. It's understood that Glasgow City Council has adopted this stance currently. I suppose, in summary, there is a risk in the absence of being able to get the drivers to undertake the training. They will continue to avoid it. In terms of balancing that risk with measures that are proportionate, officers will make it to 4.17.1, which is limiting the length of the licence to allow drivers an additional period of time to undertake that training, remembering that it is a condition of their licence that they undertake the training. Where a driver does not comply with the requirement to complete the training, then this breach of conditions would be considered. This option is set out in 4.12. It could be further considered if 4.171 does not get the drivers to engage. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Do you have any questions? If this is agreed as per the addendum recommendations today, what's the drivers who are sort of in the system and coming up for renewals have to accommodate this? So we currently send out an invitation to training three months in advance. So we would, if committee agreed this today, we would then include that in the invitation to attend driving. Obviously, we would share that committee have supported this through the trade groups, and it would then, in essence, kick in in three months' time. Do you want to come back on that? I just want to clarify, because obviously there will be people who have applied for their licence already, and it may be determined after this has been agreed, but what we're saying is that we won't enforce, we won't introduce this to anyone who's already in the system with an application in but hasn't had their application. Applicants are starting sort of, you know, a three-month run in time, because when they're that invitation to renew. Yes, that's correct. Thank you for that clarification. Councillor Graham and then Councillor Matusquale. Thank you. This is an official report, so obviously the language in it, compulsory, mandatory, et cetera, are essential, but my question is around whether we couch this training in a more positive manner, not saying you have to do this, but actually selling it as something that's part of a continual professional development, which is very much a part of life now, you know, the ongoing training and the aspects that you've picked up yourself, Catherine, about legislation changing, the LEZ coming in. I know that first aid's a component and first aid advice changes over years, so something you were told ten years ago about how to treat something, do we try to couch it in a more positive manner rather than saying you just must do this? I think to be fair we don't just say you must do this. We do talk about continuous professional development, but what is communicated back is you can't tell us how to do our job. We're not trying to tell taxi drivers or private hire drivers how to do their job. We're trying to ensure they have the most up-to-date knowledge. We're trying to improve the standards, refresh knowledge over a period of time. We do class it as continuous professional development, and this was supported by the trade representatives of the taxi and private hire groups. So I think in terms of there is a reluctance to go back to school, in essence. If you haven't done training for a long time, it can be I'm not going to get anything out of this. I mean, we did include, we tried to be fair in the feedback that we included in the report. We gave good feedback and we gave the poor feedback. I think for us, the poor feedback is around those courses that are either booked and not turned up at or at the very beginning where they were severely undersubscribed. I think the benefits of this course, 29% of people who've attended have been surprised in a positive way. They have learned something. We do have attendees who do want to disrupt and start the course. This is rubbish, don't want anything to do with it. And that policy changes. There is knowledge to share on conditions. The number of conditions is extensive. Refreshing knowledge on accessibility, on the equalities act. These are all crucial, crucial pieces of information, which as the people who interact with Scottish government on the development of legislation, then we feel best placed to deliver that training. We do try to promote it as a positive experience. And to be fair, normally around, I thought I was going to get nothing out of this. I've actually quite enjoyed it. They enjoy the interaction. They enjoy the shared experience and just giving each other tips. I'll give a quick example. We had an application from two taxi drivers and they weren't aware they could automatically drive private hires. As a taxi driver, you can drive a private hire vehicle. So in some cases, it's back to basics. In others, we're trying to share some things that are more complex. What does it mean? Where can I go in the city? Where can I operate? Where can I not operate? And so it definitely, definitely is around that continuous professional development. I think in the report, we're trying to get across that this committee said it was compulsory and it's being opted out on an ongoing rig. We have amended and refined the courses we've gone along and we are looking for, I suppose, means in which to share this knowledge to ensure our drivers continue to offer visitors and businesses operate in Edinburgh. So I think for us, we view this as a positive and that committee consider how we could revisit that, try to encourage drivers. We're not looking to exclude anybody, but we really feel that this training is of benefit and it's to try to find a way to get any language we use. We do remind drivers that it is part of their conditions. Because I think some are thinking, no, what are you going to do? And it is that, right, these are the options before you. This is what you can do. This is how you can do it. And I think we're asking committee today to consider which option they might like or another option and also I should have said, sorry, ask the fees because cost is a big part of this. I hope that answers your question. I'm not coming from an angle that I don't support the fact that training and continued professional development is something that is vital and key in any profession and I've gone through the same kind of journey with my own profession prior to a counsellor so I can relate to a lot of what you said. Once they've done the course and they actually realise how much they get out of it, is something that we should plug. Thank you. Councillor Matusz-Guillaume. Thank you. I'm going to be very brief and I'm not even sure if I can hear the full answer because I have to leave to pick up my son. So it's a question in three parts. The first part is Catherine already assured about the accessibility inequalities are updating in the course. Our cyclist awareness as well in that course. The second one is will, is this train repeated from time to time or do the drivers do it once and don't revisit again? And the third one is we have one decision to do to make today. I understand that. What would be the next steps? Thank you. So if I can remember them in order. Cyclists awareness is within the training. Sorry. Second point. I had to do with repeating the training eventually. I'm sorry, I did just bombard you with questions. It's fine. And the training is a three day training course initially for existing drivers. And then every three years there's a one day refresher. And that really is about those changes in policy, road layout, legislation, the highway code rules are built into HMRC. Now it's compulsory that we carry out or collect information and that's shared with HMRC. So these are things that many of the drivers won't hear from anyone other than ourselves. And the third point, question. My third point was so if we decide, we brought the motion about accepting your recommendations, but so after those six months, if the drivers don't do the training, what will happen? Thank you. If you know, obviously, or maybe we need to revisit this at some point. So I think there's two options there. Committee, we're recommending that committee give drivers a six month license when they renew if they haven't carried out the training ahead of their renewal. Within that six months, they have an opportunity to book and complete the training. And we are if that does not encourage people to undertake the training, we are suggesting at that point that by not undertaking the training, we would class their renewal application as incomplete and it would be returned to them as invalid and their license would subsequently fall. Does that answer that question for you? I have to leave. Can I just jump in, convene and ask for the SNP amendment because I won't be here. Yes, I understand. Thank you, Councillor. Thank you. Do we have any other questions? No? Councillor Dixon. Thanks very much. Just a couple of quick ones on the six month period. Does that make the six month period a little more onerous for yourselves when you restrict it to a period? Would it be better if we had the drivers just register, you know, if they follow a line? Because I think I agree the standards must be kept as high as possible. If you are someone coming from overseas and you step into a taxi or a private hire car and you are thinking, jeez, this guy doesn't know where he is going. Some of the information will be given about taxi drivers asking, I don't know where this place is. That shouldn't be happening. I think training is essential and standards should be kept as high as possible. As long as the driver is booked in and we know he is going to set this training. I hear what you are saying about some of them not wanting to do it. I think logistically for us we have estimated that we could carry out training for all drivers within a three year period. And that coincides with many license holders' length of license. The six month period we feel would give us enough time. It is more onerous to keep chasing and chasing and chasing than it is to say, right, the six months I should have revisited at that point. If they don't do it within that time we would then send them on to committee. Because there could be a particular set of circumstances where they were not able to, but that would be for committee to decide at that time. So for us we feel confident that that six month period would enable us to slot them into training and if somebody wasn't able to come on one course they have got other options and they could spread it over a period of time. So we feel it's reasonable and we feel it's deliverable. Thanks. Are there any other questions on this report? No? In that case I'm aware from this report and from individual comments I have received that a number of concerns have been raised about the training from existing drivers. But to be clear I am firmly behind the need for professional training for all licensed drivers in order to keep up with developments in law policy and practice to address driving and operational issues. The training as we have seen from the report has been generally well received by those who have taken it and I commend officers for the content and delivery of the modules. The Lib Dem amendment simply asks whether any improvements might be possible around the timing and access to the course modules. Perhaps running some parts online, maybe during evenings, to encourage better attendance. In my opinion training to existing drivers is optional, but I appreciate that within a three month period it may not have been possible to attend training, and so to give a second chance to existing drivers who failed to attend the intermediate training at the first time of asking I think is the right approach. Continued professional development should raise standards across the trade. So I move the report with the Lib Dem addendum. By the way I have just noticed the last point in our addendum should begin with the word 'agrees' rather than 'agree'. Perhaps that could be noted. Would Councillor Caldwell please second? I am happy to second with that verbal adjustment. I think this is very welcome and I very much appreciate the time officers, trade and the convener have put into considering how we move forward here. In my mind, partnership working is a bit of a cliché in Council terms, but we've got to have a bit of pull and give when it comes to matters like this. I am acutely aware from an earlier report in the cars that an enforcement team went out and tried to get un-booted fares on actually failed that very, very important condition. I am also aware that the last licensed enforcement report from December showed a marked increase in complaints with a significant number relating to driving manner and inappropriate parking. So I think combined with all of that continued dialogue with the trade on how things can be improved for them is a very important part of this training. In terms of flexibility as well, again that can't be understated on why that's such a big thing because enforcement can only go so far. We actually need to be working with the trade. I think this report and amendment seeks to do that. So with that I second. Thank you. The S&P amendment has been withdrawn. I think we are in agreement. Thank you very much. It is an hour and 50 minutes since we started. Do we want a break just now or are we happy to continue? There is not that much left. We will just continue. Thank you very much. Item 8.4 is a report on landlord registration fees. Andrew Mitchell will speak to this report. Thank you. Briefly this report addresses the terms of the motion agreed on the 9th of May. I am happy to take any questions from members. Are there any questions on this report? Technical point for committee services. From reading the report, which has obviously taken a significant amount of time for officers to prepare and it's clear that nothing could be done, why was the motion passed in the first place at full council? That's just my lack of knowledge as a still relatively new council. So I guess that in time frame at the council meeting it wasn't possible to clarify absolutely the response. This report clarifies exactly where the council stands. That's unfortunate. Sometimes the timing or the possibility of clarifying an item at the time of a council meeting is difficult, and therefore they need to deal with it on the day, frankly. The letter has been sent. I haven't had a reply. I'm expecting a reply which will be totally in alignment with the report we have in front of us. The answer to that is in due course. Any other thoughts or comments or questions on this report? I agree with the recommendations. Thank you. >> Section 9 is motions. This again threw me a bit when I was asked to do this, and then I found a sticker, this sticker, which is very, very nice, on cabs. So basically what I'm asking for is that we look at the sticker and allow it to be in cabs. Mr McCulloch has very eloquently earlier on highlighted how well the black cab trade contribute to the city, not just from the point of view of their actual professional service that they provide, but the voluntary contributions they make to the city, et cetera, which are well known. I want to keep this very brief, not keep people from lunch. >> And a second? Formerly, Carvino, thank you. >> Thank you. Any other comments? I'm going to ask if there are any questions to officers on this before we do that. Fair enough. Too late for that, apparently. In that case, comments from anyone else? Anyone like to make any comments on this? Or are we happy to agree? Comments from Councillor Mode. I'm sorry I didn't have time to put in a formal amendment. I just think it would be helpful just if this report is going to be prepared, if that could also cover any regulations around what can and can't be displayed about why this has to come forward as a motion rather than just the association of Hackney carriage drivers being able to stick that in, because there's obviously a bit of background here and it's probably just helpful to rehearse that. I'm sure officers would have rehearsed that, but I think it would just be helpful to rehearse that in a response to this motion. >> I agree. I think it would be helpful to have that context. In that case, happy to agree. Yes? And does that take us to the end of business? Yes, we are at the end. Thank you very much for your attendance.

Yes, thank you, convener. I appreciate the approach both yourself, this committee and officers have taken to this, where there's been changes proposed in previous committees. I think just to underline the fact that it's very, very important it goes through formal procedures and channels and that consultations like this are taken on board rather than us making ad hoc decisions. So with that, I second it. Thank you. We wouldn't normally do this, but would anyone else like to comment? No? In that case, thank you very much indeed for approving the recommendations. Section 8, then we have 8.1, which is the report on the food, health and safety business plan for 2024/25. And Andrew Mitchell and Heather Dick are here for the report. There's also a presentation from Heather. >>Over to you, Mr Mitchell, and welcome, Heather, to committee. >>Thank you, convener. So briefly the report brings before members the Council's food, health and safety plan, which the Council is required to prepare and agree for each financial year as part of the Food Law Code of Practice. And the principal purpose of the document is to allow external bodies such as Food Standards Scotland, who have oversight of the Council's functions in relation to food safety, the ability to audit and monitor in terms of performance how the Council is doing in order to assist the committee, because the report and plan can be quite technical. Heather is going to give a short presentation and take you through some of the issues which we would want to highlight to members to give members an understanding. We would ask members to bear in mind that environmental health is more than just food, health and safety, although it is probably the largest of the functions in terms of demand upon the service, there are other issues the service deal with in terms of statutory role, in terms of health and safety enforcement, role in terms of environmental protection, commenting and planning applications, dealing with statutory nuisance and a whole host of other things, which collectively Environmental Health Service is dealing with, trying to manage in terms of the demands upon the service. I think with that I will pass over to Heather. Thank you for the introduction, thanks to the Convening Committee for giving us the opportunity to talk to you about environmental health. As Andrew said it is quite a wide reaching service, we have three food, health and safety teams and one environmental protection team that do a lot of great work across the city, but today's focus is the food, health and safety business plan. There is a lot of statistics and information on what activities have been over the year, I won't focus directly on that during my presentation, but it is all in the plan for you to have a look at. Environmental health is the sort of service that quite often the public don't realise they need until we are in a situation of a global pandemic or a major outbreak and then it is really important to understand the need for qualified and competent officers to assist in that situation. I'm going to skip through the first couple of slides because Andrew has given an introduction. I'm going to skip through these first couple of slides due to Andrew's introduction and just move on to our resource. So fully staffed, the food, health and safety team should have five full-time equivalent officers. We have reported vacancies of 9.8 full-time equivalent officers in the plan, but unfortunately that is now higher due to recent retirements. This mirrors the national outlook across Scotland, just to sort of drill down a little bit in terms of this graph. Locally in Edinburgh we have 4.3 environmental health officers per 100,000 in 2023 versus 6.88 environmental health officers per 100,000 across Scotland. So our situation in Edinburgh is slightly more acute because of some of the city challenges that makes it even more challenging for us. So our service is currently operating with 78% fewer EHOs than we did in 2005, unfortunately. I just want to highlight the importance to committee of retaining our vacancies. Obviously sitting with a number of vacancies and in light of the council's budgetary challenges over the next few years, we would just like to ensure that we can keep those vacancies with a view to trying to bring the right people into the service. There are 28 students sitting exams in the autumn, so we are hopeful that we might be able to bring some of them into the council. So City of Edinburgh has some unique challenges for food, health and safety service. With the highest number of food businesses in Scotland it's 7,769. With this rapid opening, closing and change of ownership nature which causes additional resource challenges for the officer because it takes a lot of inspection time to get a business up to speed and then six months later it could be closed. We start the process again with lots of high-profile events that require environmental health interaction. We have serious accidents to investigate, which could be six months, a year, two years of investigation from two officers before we end up being able to report that to the fiscal. So again, high resource. Complex food businesses. We also have a lot of compliance issues linked to the age and type of premises. Lots of older buildings, cellars, potential for vermin access. So again, enforcement challenges there. The current economic situation is also a further challenge. Less staff, less time for food safety potentially. We can also end up in businesses that don't have enough money to switch on their boilers, so we can quite often find there's no hot water in the premises. So again, more resource challenges. So the combined effect of stopping all of our proactive work during COVID caused a general decline in compliance. So when we were back inspecting, it's taken longer to get businesses up to the correct standard, but also there is this backlog. Another challenge, post-COVID we moved to a new food law rating scheme. So historically, our highest-risk businesses were inspected every six months. We're now inspecting our highest-risk businesses every one to three months. So while it's great that the emphasis is on our highest-risk businesses, it means that we're doing more frequent inspections and arguably inspecting a smaller number of businesses as opposed to getting to some of the other businesses that we would like to. So because of our prioritization of food law work post-COVID, we've had to do a lot more reactive food law work. And when we do get to these businesses in a reactive nature, say food complaint, the businesses are requiring greater levels of intervention. We've also unfortunately been able to do less proactive health and safety intervention work. This is something we're aware of and we would like to address over the next year. There could be increased pressure in the event of a public health emergency, and that's something else we need to consider. There may well be future requirements to prioritize our work. In terms of resource in the future, student training is really important. We've had two students over the last few years, and in 2020 they sat exams, and we now have one working with us as a fully qualified DHO, and that's great, but we need more of that. We need to embrace work experience requests, local education initiatives. We need to bring graduate and moderate apprenticeships into regulatory services and expose them to all the career options, including environmental health that are available to them. We need to work with REHES, that's our Institute of Environmental Health, to promote training of officers. We need to improve the retention of the staff we have, and we need to continue recruiting. We've had five attempts at recruitment over the last two years, and we've brought in a number of officers just not unfortunately enough to deal with the backlog of vacancies that we have. We also need to make sure our stakeholders are well informed, so yourselves as councillors, Foodstanders Scotland, senior council officials, and just ensure that we're open and honest about our situation and what we can and can't achieve. So just to conclude, is food safe to eat in Edinburgh? We would say that yes, the services assessment is that the city does remain a safe place to eat. Data that we have available in terms of clinical disease numbers and self-reported food poisonings, range broadly similar to last year and years historically out with the COVID period. We've had no significant outbreaks of foodborne illness, and our environmental health officers and enforcement officers and service are well-trained, experienced and competent in the new city, carrying out inspections and education on a daily basis in a reactive manner. Many thanks for listening. I'm happy to take any questions. That's just a background of some statistics about inspections, et cetera, that we've undertaken over the year. Many thanks. Thank you very much, Ella, for that very illuminating and informative presentation. Do we have any questions, Councillor Poggs and then Councillor Mayotte and Councillor Graham? Thank you very much. That was very interesting. Obviously, you talked a fair bit about the recruitment and retention challenges that you face. That's obviously one of the key challenges that you're highlighting for us today. You mentioned it was a national issue, not an Edinburgh-specific issue, but what do you think is behind this? Why are people not entering the profession? Why are people leaving the profession just now? It's a number of things. It's an ageing profession, unfortunately. There's a larger number of people in the 50-plus bracket. Unfortunately, there have been some academic challenges, so to qualify as an AHO, historically, you had to do a degree in environmental health. That's still the case, but there have been reduced uptake in the university course. The courses have closed. There was a course at Edinburgh years ago. It then moved to Strathclyde. It's currently with West of Scotland, but there's been some challenges there. They're looking at a master's at Abertay. That has been the challenge. In terms of geographically, there's only one course, usually, in Scotland. In Edinburgh, because we don't have a course in education here, arguably some of the officers that might qualify say in the West, they might not come and want to work in the City of Edinburgh. There have been various challenges. However, there are lots of things happening. They are changing the way that you can qualify, both as an environmental health officer and a food safety officer, so they're making it more accessible. There are lots of things happening that should hopefully improve the challenges. Mr Mitchell, do you want to comment? I suppose there is a broader point in terms of, as local government finance has become more challenging, their ability to commit to the more traditional means of educating environmental health officers, training standards officers, building standards officers has reduced and, therefore, that has a knock-on impact on the academic opportunities for people to do that. So it's not a unique challenge to this service, but it is one that's particularly acute. As a national strategic challenge within the profession, your professional body will obviously be taking these matters very seriously and addressing them. Just as a committee or as a council, as an employer, are we doing everything we can to support those efforts of your professional body? Is there more that we could do to support their efforts in addressing these issues? At the moment, yes. Should we come in the future, maybe with a change of structure or a request to recruit more student environmental health officers and include that in our structure, we would very much appreciate the support of the committee to do so. Thank you. I'm sure the committee would support. So please bring suggestions like that if appropriate and we will look at that. Yes, thank you Heather, that was very informative. If we've only got 28 students in Scotland this year, sort of said that the new ones. Can people from, is environmental health qualifications the same in England as in Scotland? And so can we advertise in England to get experience THOs up or is that not an option that's available to us because of differences in qualifications? There are some subtleties in the difference, particularly over the last few years in terms of competencies, but we do have various, we have English qualified THOs, we have Irish qualified THOs working in the service, so there's definitely potential there and that's something I'll consider we could advertise nationally. Usually if you have someone that's keen to work in authority in Scotland, they're looking on all of the usual sites like My Job Scotland, et cetera. Thank you. Do you want to come back Councillor Graham? I've got two questions. One for yourself, Heather, this is just a bit of curiosity. You say in your report that there's 16 ships were inspected. I just was curious as to what these ships were. And my other question is actually to officers then, because there is clearly a very challenging environment with recruitment, et cetera, should we as a licensing authority be considering halting temporary food outlets so that it alleviates the situation or is that, again, not within our power? Shall I address the ship's question first? So that will be ship sanitation certificates we've carried out and it could be anything from a cruise ship through to an oil tanker that will come into the third or fourth and request inspection because they require a ship sanitation certificate. In terms of the link to licensing, I think there is no -- each licensing authority must deal with applicants. There was some changes made to the legislation a number of years ago which has had some help so that a food trader gets a certification from wherever they are based and then that is accepted by every other local authority, whereas prior to that, if you travel to country with your food business, particularly for events, you almost had to be inspected each and every time you went into a local authority. So there have been some changes made in the past. Could I come back in? It was just to pick up on Councillor Maillot's comment about student numbers and the number of 20, just to give a bit of clarification, that's final year students sitting their professional exams, so there are other students progressing through the degree, so it's not only hopefully 20 students, it's just this year that should qualify. Does that answer the questions you had, Councillor Cremp and Councillor Dickson? Yes, question for Heather or the officers. In relation to people who can actually start up a business, do you think there is enough control, enough regulation on those who can just come in and start up a business willy-nilly? The reason I ask this question is because I go to Norway regularly, and in Norway no-one can set up a business selling food unless they have a qualification. So when a business starts up in city, they have to register themselves as a food business, and that is the only requirement and it's reliant on us inspecting, so there's not possibly a licence system at the moment. However, Foodstanders Scotland are considering changes, considering a number of things like FIFA intervention and potentially a national register for food businesses that could well consider these aspects of things. That's probably a policy decision rather than a local decision that we can make. I appreciate that. Would it be helpful to people like yourselves if it was more strictly controlled? I think there are lots of positives that could come from that. There could be a requirement for statutory training, potentially, and submitting their food safety management system before they start and then we need to know that there's a baseline of education there, which would be useful. As I say, I'll answer every time I come back from Norway, I always think about this, because they have a thing called the FAGBRE, which is professional papers, and you cannot open up a business over there selling food or dealing with food unless you have been through a course. Thank you. Thank you for all those questions. Councillor Colvall, you have one. Apologies, convener. Two questions. Firstly, I'm aware Foodstanders Scotland has an annual operating budget of about £23 million. I'm just curious, from your point of view, operationally, how do you liaise with them in Edinburgh? I appreciate you have to submit food plans and things like that, but is our city seeing any operational benefit from that, because obviously you can report food crime through them as well? That would be my first question. There's a number of ways we interact with Foodstanders Scotland. We're in constant contact with them. This, I would say, is quite a formal part of our interaction with them. With us, the Food Safety Business Plan, we have the Scottish National Database, so everything we do that's put into our IT systems is then uploaded to the Scottish National Database so they can see exactly what we're doing. We also have common systems, for example, the Clio system, so when there's a food alert or a recall, we get that information and there's that constant interaction. There's also lots of local liaison groups and national groups that we feed into as an authority as well. So constant interaction. Councillor Colvall. Thank you for that. And my second question, it may be more appropriate to the head of regulatory services. I was surprised by this last year as well, that the budget is funded through the council's revenue budget, which is quite different to a lot of other licensing services. So my two questions from that is, one, what is the context behind that? Is that legislative requirement that it can't be from the licensing pot of money? And secondly, for yourself, Heather, what proportion of funds do we raise from things like fines and fees, et cetera? I imagine it's very small, but any indication would be helpful. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Colvall. Thank you. I suppose the licensing can only be spent on licensed premises, and although some food premises have a separate license, say a sale of alcohol, it's catering, it's not the core function of the license, so the council Environmental Health Service and indeed other, like Trading Standard Service, are paid for by the revenue budget, and the report reflects the financial reality of the choices the council have had to make over the last number of years, and so when the report talks about, I think, something like 70 per cent less, so that's a combination of budgetary decisions that members have made as they've tried to reconcile the pressures that occur on the council's budget and some of that gap is the vacancies, whereas you have that shortage of qualified staff to fill them, so it's a combination of them coming together, so in terms of the money available to the service, were there to be any addition, that would have to come from a decision of the council part of the budgetary process. Just to address money coming into the service from interventions or certification, it's relatively low, unfortunately. Our main budget is around staff. We do make some money, actually ship sanitation certificates were mentioned earlier, we charge for those, small numbers of export health certificates potentially, but largely it's not an income generating service and we have considered that there are challenges around conflict of interest, because if we're income generating, for example training, then there's a conflict if we're then going into that business to enforce. Thank you very much for all these questions and answers. Are there any other comments, questions rather? No. It is reassuring to know that we have the best food protection for residents, that's possible within our current arrangements, given the rating scheme, and is committee then willing to agree and approve the recommendations to note the report and the business plan? Yes, thank you, thank you very much. Item 8.2 is the report on the age limitation and emission standards for taxis and private hire cars, annual update. Andrew Mitchell and Catherine Scanlon are here for the report and there's a Liberal Democrat group amendment which has been circulated. Mr Mitchell. Thank you, convener. So this would be your annual update on where your policy is. Policy originally adopted in 2018, the policy has been amended in order to adapt to circumstances between 2018 and 2023. Members will be familiar that the mandatory standard now is vehicles must comply with Euro 6 or equivalent, and those equivalents are specifically listed by decisions of the committee. The second aspect of the policy is obviously the 10-year age limit. The report in Paragraph 4.2 gives members an indication of where we are in terms of the fleets being upgraded in order to comply with the policy decisions of the committee, being 82 per cent of the taxi fleet compliance and 97 per cent of the private hire fleet. The principal issue, I suppose outstanding, which members will be aware from their time on licensing, will be those vehicles which are typically Euro 5, which are awaiting retrofit, and those vehicles which are approaching the 10-year age limit. The report highlights that for members to reflect upon the temporary relief that the committee agreed last April is due to expire in relation to Euro 5 vehicles which have been retrofitted, and also Euro 6 vehicles in terms of should they qualify for an additional period of glancing of the licence. The licensing subcommittee continues to deal with individual licence exemption requests and the numbers slightly smaller than previous years. However, the pattern is consistent with that, typically vehicles awaiting retrofit or approaching that 10-year age limit. Since the policy -- I suppose since committee last considered this, obviously the low-emission zone has taken effect. The service and indeed licensing subcommittee have been quite clear that any exemption granted to the council's licensing conditions are not of themselves -- they are not in any way relevant to the low-emission zones, and operators of vehicles, notwithstanding any licensing exemption they have, remain entirely responsible for ensuring that their vehicle is able to comply with the low-emission zone. And with that, we are happy to try and answer any questions members have. Okay. Over to questions from committee. Councillor Matusquale, you have a question. I think it's 4.9 where it says restricted availability of vehicles, and I'm just wondering if this also applies to retrofit services. Thank you. So I think the issue has been canvassed before at this committee and indeed regular licensing sub. There is a limited number of suppliers who can carry out the retrofits work. This authority, as well as many other authorities, are implementing similar policies, and that results in, as we understand or as reported to us, a delay as people are competing for a finite resource in order to get the retrofits completed. Does that answer your question, Councillor? Do you want to follow up? I'll just follow up, but I'm not sure there will be an answer to this. So are there any more available since we started this? Because I know we've spoken about this in the past. I'm just wondering if someone has understood the lack and maybe a business opportunity. Thank you. I'm not aware of any changes to that market since the committee last considered this. Thanks. Do you have any other questions on this report? No? It would appear not. In that case, I will speak to the report and the amendment which has been tabled. This report highlights the need to review the current temporary extension of the age and emissions policy as it affects Euro 5 retrofitted, Euro 5 vehicles and Euro 6 vehicles. Over the past 12 months, members of this committee sitting as the licensing subcommittee have worked very hard to approve dozens and dozens of claims for exemption to the age and emissions policy in order to facilitate grant applications for Euro 5 taxes to be retrofitted using the clean vehicle retrofit accreditation scheme operated by the energy saving trust. These exemptions apply only to the licensing authority's age and emissions policy as noted by Mr Mitchell. As has been explained by the committee to every single applicant for an exemption, the licensing authority has no powers to grant exemptions from the emission rules that apply to the LEZ. Therefore, each Euro 5 taxi must comply with the LEZ from 1 June by being retrofitted. Following the temporary extension to the age and emissions policy last year, the higher car trade working group was set up to consider issues of concern to the trade and any suggestions from the trade that might address those concerns. The group has met three times. The most recent meeting included councillors as well as trade representatives and licensing officers. It has focused on two principal areas, age and emissions policy and enforcement issues. The Lib Dem amendment to the report invites the group to propose measures to encourage the transition towards a zero emission public hire fleet. Another issue identified in this report is the roadworthiness of older vehicles, particularly those over 10 years. So the amendment asks officers for options that might encourage better vehicle maintenance given the limited options available for new vehicles, particularly taxis. And finally, as the temporary extension to the age policy has expired, the amendment proposes a further extension to facilitate these two requests. I move the report along with the Lib Dem amendment and would ask Councillor Caldwell to second. Formerly convener, thank you. Thank you. There being no alternative proposals, are we happy to accept that? Recommendations and amendments. Thank you very much. The next report is item 8.2, which is on licensing training for taxi and private hire drivers. There is an SNP group amendment and a liberal Democrat group agenda. Catherine Scanlon will speak to the report. Over to you, Ms Scanlon. Thank you. This report is an update for committee on the taxi and private hire driving. The training, just as a recap, was introduced in 2020. This committee agreed back in 2016 that compulsory training should be undertaken by all taxi and private hire drivers. This was restated in 2020, but that introduction of training was delayed due to COVID. The foundation training, which is for brand new drivers, carried on during COVID so that more drivers could be introduced to the trade, and that gave an entry level knowledge. The existing drivers, their training, compulsory training, was postponed due to COVID and then reintroduced in November 2023. The report itself gives an update on the numbers that have carried out the training, the number of courses that we have run, feedback that we have had, complaints that we have received about it. It is fair to say it has caused much discussion and not all drivers are happy about having to undertake training. The idea originally behind the training was to drive up standards. It was to match a world-class city with a world-class service. We had heard lots, committee had heard lots about our professional drivers, and the training is to ensure that they are fully up to date with new legislation, changes in road layout, and things like the introduction of the LAZ, HMRC, tax requirements for them. All of this is incorporated. It is a reminder of licensed conditions, which is an area that is always a challenge. There is a lot of conditions, there are policy changes, and not forgetting that Scottish Government are supportive of training. They identify training to vocational drivers as best practice and local authorities should take a positive approach to this. The report is providing the update that officers said they would do last February. It lays out two options that have been identified in relation to non-attendance, more prevalent from taxi drivers, but by no means exclusive to taxi drivers. I think we have sent out far more invitations to attend training than has been taken up, and that does have an impact on the training. If we are inviting 25 people to train and 3 attend, the experience of those attending has an impact on filling that discussion point. One of the major taxi companies has now commenced paying for the training and that has really improved the training experience because full courses generate full discussions. There are two options that we have identified in terms of the commitment to this compulsory training. They are listed in your report in 4.17. The first option is where drivers have failed to comply with meaning consideration could be given to granting a licence for a six-month period with a condition requiring that the driver complete the training by the end of that period. This in essence means limiting the length of a licence issued. Alternatively, as part of the licence application process, there is documentation that we require. If we don't receive that documentation, we return the application as incomplete. Lack of completion of mandatory training, so if we don't have, for instance, the evidence of criminal convictions or right to work, we classify it as an incomplete application. If we did this with training, we would stop, in essence, a driver renewing or being able to renew. Obviously, that has an impact on their ability to work. It's understood that Glasgow City Council has adopted this stance currently. I suppose, in summary, there is a risk in the absence of being able to get the drivers to undertake the training. They will continue to avoid it. In terms of balancing that risk with measures that are proportionate, officers will make it to 4.17.1, which is limiting the length of the licence to allow drivers an additional period of time to undertake that training, remembering that it is a condition of their licence that they undertake the training. Where a driver does not comply with the requirement to complete the training, then this breach of conditions would be considered. This option is set out in 4.12. It could be further considered if 4.171 does not get the drivers to engage. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Do you have any questions? If this is agreed as per the addendum recommendations today, what's the drivers who are sort of in the system and coming up for renewals have to accommodate this? So we currently send out an invitation to training three months in advance. So we would, if committee agreed this today, we would then include that in the invitation to attend driving. Obviously, we would share that committee have supported this through the trade groups, and it would then, in essence, kick in in three months' time. Do you want to come back on that? I just want to clarify, because obviously there will be people who have applied for their licence already, and it may be determined after this has been agreed, but what we're saying is that we won't enforce, we won't introduce this to anyone who's already in the system with an application in but hasn't had their application. Applicants are starting sort of, you know, a three-month run in time, because when they're that invitation to renew. Yes, that's correct. Thank you for that clarification. Councillor Graham and then Councillor Matusquale. Thank you. This is an official report, so obviously the language in it, compulsory, mandatory, et cetera, are essential, but my question is around whether we couch this training in a more positive manner, not saying you have to do this, but actually selling it as something that's part of a continual professional development, which is very much a part of life now, you know, the ongoing training and the aspects that you've picked up yourself, Catherine, about legislation changing, the LEZ coming in. I know that first aid's a component and first aid advice changes over years, so something you were told ten years ago about how to treat something, do we try to couch it in a more positive manner rather than saying you just must do this? I think to be fair we don't just say you must do this. We do talk about continuous professional development, but what is communicated back is you can't tell us how to do our job. We're not trying to tell taxi drivers or private hire drivers how to do their job. We're trying to ensure they have the most up-to-date knowledge. We're trying to improve the standards, refresh knowledge over a period of time. We do class it as continuous professional development, and this was supported by the trade representatives of the taxi and private hire groups. So I think in terms of there is a reluctance to go back to school, in essence. If you haven't done training for a long time, it can be I'm not going to get anything out of this. I mean, we did include, we tried to be fair in the feedback that we included in the report. We gave good feedback and we gave the poor feedback. I think for us, the poor feedback is around those courses that are either booked and not turned up at or at the very beginning where they were severely undersubscribed. I think the benefits of this course, 29% of people who've attended have been surprised in a positive way. They have learned something. We do have attendees who do want to disrupt and start the course. This is rubbish, don't want anything to do with it. And that policy changes. There is knowledge to share on conditions. The number of conditions is extensive. Refreshing knowledge on accessibility, on the equalities act. These are all crucial, crucial pieces of information, which as the people who interact with Scottish government on the development of legislation, then we feel best placed to deliver that training. We do try to promote it as a positive experience. And to be fair, normally around, I thought I was going to get nothing out of this. I've actually quite enjoyed it. They enjoy the interaction. They enjoy the shared experience and just giving each other tips. I'll give a quick example. We had an application from two taxi drivers and they weren't aware they could automatically drive private hires. As a taxi driver, you can drive a private hire vehicle. So in some cases, it's back to basics. In others, we're trying to share some things that are more complex. What does it mean? Where can I go in the city? Where can I operate? Where can I not operate? And so it definitely, definitely is around that continuous professional development. I think in the report, we're trying to get across that this committee said it was compulsory and it's being opted out on an ongoing rig. We have amended and refined the courses we've gone along and we are looking for, I suppose, means in which to share this knowledge to ensure our drivers continue to offer visitors and businesses operate in Edinburgh. So I think for us, we view this as a positive and that committee consider how we could revisit that, try to encourage drivers. We're not looking to exclude anybody, but we really feel that this training is of benefit and it's to try to find a way to get any language we use. We do remind drivers that it is part of their conditions. Because I think some are thinking, no, what are you going to do? And it is that, right, these are the options before you. This is what you can do. This is how you can do it. And I think we're asking committee today to consider which option they might like or another option and also I should have said, sorry, ask the fees because cost is a big part of this. I hope that answers your question. I'm not coming from an angle that I don't support the fact that training and continued professional development is something that is vital and key in any profession and I've gone through the same kind of journey with my own profession prior to a counsellor so I can relate to a lot of what you said. Once they've done the course and they actually realise how much they get out of it, is something that we should plug. Thank you. Councillor Matusz-Guillaume. Thank you. I'm going to be very brief and I'm not even sure if I can hear the full answer because I have to leave to pick up my son. So it's a question in three parts. The first part is Catherine already assured about the accessibility inequalities are updating in the course. Our cyclist awareness as well in that course. The second one is will, is this train repeated from time to time or do the drivers do it once and don't revisit again? And the third one is we have one decision to do to make today. I understand that. What would be the next steps? Thank you. So if I can remember them in order. Cyclists awareness is within the training. Sorry. Second point. I had to do with repeating the training eventually. I'm sorry, I did just bombard you with questions. It's fine. And the training is a three day training course initially for existing drivers. And then every three years there's a one day refresher. And that really is about those changes in policy, road layout, legislation, the highway code rules are built into HMRC. Now it's compulsory that we carry out or collect information and that's shared with HMRC. So these are things that many of the drivers won't hear from anyone other than ourselves. And the third point, question. My third point was so if we decide, we brought the motion about accepting your recommendations, but so after those six months, if the drivers don't do the training, what will happen? Thank you. If you know, obviously, or maybe we need to revisit this at some point. So I think there's two options there. Committee, we're recommending that committee give drivers a six month license when they renew if they haven't carried out the training ahead of their renewal. Within that six months, they have an opportunity to book and complete the training. And we are if that does not encourage people to undertake the training, we are suggesting at that point that by not undertaking the training, we would class their renewal application as incomplete and it would be returned to them as invalid and their license would subsequently fall. Does that answer that question for you? I have to leave. Can I just jump in, convene and ask for the SNP amendment because I won't be here. Yes, I understand. Thank you, Councillor. Thank you. Do we have any other questions? No? Councillor Dixon. Thanks very much. Just a couple of quick ones on the six month period. Does that make the six month period a little more onerous for yourselves when you restrict it to a period? Would it be better if we had the drivers just register, you know, if they follow a line? Because I think I agree the standards must be kept as high as possible. If you are someone coming from overseas and you step into a taxi or a private hire car and you are thinking, jeez, this guy doesn't know where he is going. Some of the information will be given about taxi drivers asking, I don't know where this place is. That shouldn't be happening. I think training is essential and standards should be kept as high as possible. As long as the driver is booked in and we know he is going to set this training. I hear what you are saying about some of them not wanting to do it. I think logistically for us we have estimated that we could carry out training for all drivers within a three year period. And that coincides with many license holders' length of license. The six month period we feel would give us enough time. It is more onerous to keep chasing and chasing and chasing than it is to say, right, the six months I should have revisited at that point. If they don't do it within that time we would then send them on to committee. Because there could be a particular set of circumstances where they were not able to, but that would be for committee to decide at that time. So for us we feel confident that that six month period would enable us to slot them into training and if somebody wasn't able to come on one course they have got other options and they could spread it over a period of time. So we feel it's reasonable and we feel it's deliverable. Thanks. Are there any other questions on this report? No? In that case I'm aware from this report and from individual comments I have received that a number of concerns have been raised about the training from existing drivers. But to be clear I am firmly behind the need for professional training for all licensed drivers in order to keep up with developments in law policy and practice to address driving and operational issues. The training as we have seen from the report has been generally well received by those who have taken it and I commend officers for the content and delivery of the modules. The Lib Dem amendment simply asks whether any improvements might be possible around the timing and access to the course modules. Perhaps running some parts online, maybe during evenings, to encourage better attendance. In my opinion training to existing drivers is optional, but I appreciate that within a three month period it may not have been possible to attend training, and so to give a second chance to existing drivers who failed to attend the intermediate training at the first time of asking I think is the right approach. Continued professional development should raise standards across the trade. So I move the report with the Lib Dem addendum. By the way I have just noticed the last point in our addendum should begin with the word 'agrees' rather than 'agree'. Perhaps that could be noted. Would Councillor Caldwell please second? I am happy to second with that verbal adjustment. I think this is very welcome and I very much appreciate the time officers, trade and the convener have put into considering how we move forward here. In my mind, partnership working is a bit of a cliché in Council terms, but we've got to have a bit of pull and give when it comes to matters like this. I am acutely aware from an earlier report in the cars that an enforcement team went out and tried to get un-booted fares on actually failed that very, very important condition. I am also aware that the last licensed enforcement report from December showed a marked increase in complaints with a significant number relating to driving manner and inappropriate parking. So I think combined with all of that continued dialogue with the trade on how things can be improved for them is a very important part of this training. In terms of flexibility as well, again that can't be understated on why that's such a big thing because enforcement can only go so far. We actually need to be working with the trade. I think this report and amendment seeks to do that. So with that I second. Thank you. The S&P amendment has been withdrawn. I think we are in agreement. Thank you very much. It is an hour and 50 minutes since we started. Do we want a break just now or are we happy to continue? There is not that much left. We will just continue. Thank you very much. Item 8.4 is a report on landlord registration fees. Andrew Mitchell will speak to this report. Thank you. Briefly this report addresses the terms of the motion agreed on the 9th of May. I am happy to take any questions from members. Are there any questions on this report? Technical point for committee services. From reading the report, which has obviously taken a significant amount of time for officers to prepare and it's clear that nothing could be done, why was the motion passed in the first place at full council? That's just my lack of knowledge as a still relatively new council. So I guess that in time frame at the council meeting it wasn't possible to clarify absolutely the response. This report clarifies exactly where the council stands. That's unfortunate. Sometimes the timing or the possibility of clarifying an item at the time of a council meeting is difficult, and therefore they need to deal with it on the day, frankly. The letter has been sent. I haven't had a reply. I'm expecting a reply which will be totally in alignment with the report we have in front of us. The answer to that is in due course. Any other thoughts or comments or questions on this report? I agree with the recommendations. Thank you. >> Section 9 is motions. This again threw me a bit when I was asked to do this, and then I found a sticker, this sticker, which is very, very nice, on cabs. So basically what I'm asking for is that we look at the sticker and allow it to be in cabs. Mr McCulloch has very eloquently earlier on highlighted how well the black cab trade contribute to the city, not just from the point of view of their actual professional service that they provide, but the voluntary contributions they make to the city, et cetera, which are well known. I want to keep this very brief, not keep people from lunch. >> And a second? Formerly, Carvino, thank you. >> Thank you. Any other comments? I'm going to ask if there are any questions to officers on this before we do that. Fair enough. Too late for that, apparently. In that case, comments from anyone else? Anyone like to make any comments on this? Or are we happy to agree? Comments from Councillor Mode. I'm sorry I didn't have time to put in a formal amendment. I just think it would be helpful just if this report is going to be prepared, if that could also cover any regulations around what can and can't be displayed about why this has to come forward as a motion rather than just the association of Hackney carriage drivers being able to stick that in, because there's obviously a bit of background here and it's probably just helpful to rehearse that. I'm sure officers would have rehearsed that, but I think it would just be helpful to rehearse that in a response to this motion. >> I agree. I think it would be helpful to have that context. In that case, happy to agree. Yes? And does that take us to the end of business? Yes, we are at the end. Thank you very much for your attendance.