Giving taxi support would be ‘challenge’ for council
EXTRA funding to support taxi and private hire car drivers would have to be sourced from Glasgow City Council resources according to the council leader.
At a recent committee meeting, leader Susan Aitken said she had “great sympathy” for the trade which has experienced hardship throughout the pandemic.
She also pointed out that other industries had also suffered in the last year and that the council’s discretionary fund, supplied by the Scottish Government, had been used to benefit city centre businesses and cab drivers.
Conservative councillor Thomas Kerr asked how Glasgow’s funding model compared to other local authorities.
He said: “The motion we brought forward which was passed unanimously at the last full council states that the inequity in support for taxi and private hire drivers between Glasgow and other local authorities must be addressed and called for the report to be brought before this committee to address that inequality.
“The report [presented today] doesn’t make any mention to any of those comparisons between our discretionary fund and funds offered by other councils.
“Could you outline how our funding model compares to other models and if you don’t have that information to hand it would be good if you could get that information over to us?”
Aitken said that she had already lobbied the Scottish Government for more taxi and private hire car driver funding and that she would be happy to continue this.
She said: “If you look at the levels of support other local authorities gave to their city centre businesses it was considerably less than we provided in Glasgow.
“I think it would be a very significant challenge for us as a council to find resources over and above for our drivers. We would then be treating one sector of the economy in a way we haven’t done with others who have been supported by using funding which has come from the Scottish Government.
“If we are talking about using this council’s own resource to support one particular sector that’s quite a significant change in approach.
“In terms of lobbying the Scottish Government, we successfully did secure extra funds for the extra period we were in Level 3.
“There’s nothing to stop us lobbying for more money for taxi drivers and I’m more than happy to keep discussing that.”