Inverclyde Council Reconsiders Rules on Overseas Criminal Record Checks for Taxi Drivers
Inverclyde Council is preparing to revise how it handles criminal background checks for taxi and private hire driver licence applicants who have spent time outside the UK.
Current policy demands overseas criminal record checks for any applicant born abroad or who has lived overseas for more than six months. If they can’t provide these documents, their application is marked incomplete and rejected. But now, that strict stance could be softening.
Why? Because the rules are becoming harder to enforce fairly. Applicants from countries in turmoil, like Afghanistan and Syria, are often unable to get official criminal background records from their home nations. For many, it’s not a matter of unwillingness, just pure impossibility.
“It’s been seen as too rigid,” said one council insider. “People who’ve made the UK their home for years are being caught out by red tape.”
To address the issue, the Council’s General Purposes Board is backing a new approach. Under the proposal, anyone who’s lived in the UK for at least five continuous years won’t need to provide foreign criminal record checks anymore.
Those who haven’t hit the five-year mark? They’ll still need to show documentation from each country they’ve lived in, or risk rejection. The goal is to strike a better balance between community safety and fair treatment.
Police Scotland will still run background checks for time spent within the UK, ensuring local standards are upheld.
Approaches vary across Scotland. Glasgow and East Renfrewshire already apply a five-year rule. Falkirk and Perth & Kinross, on the other hand, stick with a ten-year foreign residency threshold.
Inverclyde Council’s proposed shift mirrors broader changes across the country, as local authorities seek to modernise licensing policies. If approved, the move could ease the burden on honest applicants while still guarding the public interest.
No date has been confirmed for when the revised policy might come into force, but council officials say it will be “a priority” for upcoming meetings.
