[DASERVICES]

  Certain counties in Scotland, Taxi drivers have to provide their NI insurance
  number when applying for a license. This has been proved succesful in
  catching the fiddlers that they may be looking into introducing it with
  window cleaners.

   The Police and the council do regular checks, this will kill of the £2.50
   merchants.

   Doug

[Iain p]

A license is a load of s**t

YOU DO NOT NEED A LICENSE TO CLEAN WINDOWS.

REMEMBER that it's only a council prefrence and not a leagal requirment!!!!!!!

I worked for 3 years without a license. The only reason I got mine is because I was being harrased by the council  by letters and phone calls so I gave in. But I'm totally against this license thing. There are hundreds of dfferent traders out there and do they need a license???

Iain

[jouk45]

yea, does any of these occupations have to pay a license fee.
did you know most house breakins  are due to the milkman given information to crooks, when on holidays, out at work, ect, they are a higher risk than the window cleaner, and when ever anything happens, whos the first person they call on, take two guesses

milkman
paperboy
debt collector
the gardener
the cleaners

[ducky]

i am in glenrothes in fife never been asked to show it.when we work in dunfermline we get stoped all the time.

[Paul Coleman]

How much are you charged for these licenses?

[jouk45]

 its £70 for 3 years, for your area only, if i was given any work outside the boundries
i have to pay another license fee for that area,

[ducky]

£110 for 3 years thats all off fife.

[windows_chepstow]

  Certain counties in Scotland, Taxi drivers have to provide their NI insurance
  number when applying for a license. This has been proved succesful in
  catching the fiddlers that they may be looking into introducing it with
  window cleaners.

   The Police and the council do regular checks, this will kill of the £2.50
   merchants.

   Doug

Doug,

Anything that prevents benifit fraud is a good thing, but your post assumes a premise of 'all benifit fraudsters are cheap'.

But I can't see why this should be the case.  I know one or two window cleaners who don't charge much, are happy with their income, and as far as I'm aware; are honest.

[ecowasher]

this doesnt go for england and wales i take it?

[markybop]

Here in West Dumbartonshire its £70 for the year! I think it's a license to print money for the council as it aint inforced atall!

[Spoonbill1970]

when we work in dunfermline we get stoped all the time

Hi,

Where have you been stopped in Dunfermline? And by whom? The police? The council?
Have only ever been asked once in my life for license and that was the day after I first got it 20 years ago.

I know they had a purge a few years ago, but to my knowledge, no-one I know has ever been asked to produce it in recent years.

I'd be interested in your reply.

Cheers,
JSP

[ducky]

been stoped in abbveiw.cairnyhill.what ur name might no u.and town hill :

[zeusjazmin]

here in east ayrshire it is alegal requirment.
i was charged by the police for not having my licence on me(it was 30 yards away in my car)
it is £190 for 3 years and you must pass a police check to get a licence also provide proof of pli

[Paul Coleman]

its £70 for 3 years, for your area only, if i was given any work outside the boundries
i have to pay another license fee for that area,

This is the biggest problem as far as I'm concerned.  Living near the boundaries of three counties (and working in all three) and spreading my work in eight towns, under such a regime, I could have to pay as much as £560 for three years if they started doing it in England.  I sincerely hope that if these control freaks ever try it on in England, at least the licence should cover a very large area.  Although I see good arguments for and against licensing, I feel that I would be against its introduction.  One of the big attractions of window cleaning is the relative freedom I have.  I dislike excessive state interference and I have issues about prodnosed control freaks.  No wonder I'm self-employed     .  Even the little bit of PAYE office cleaning that I do has to be a key job where I have a certain amount of flexibility regarding which hours I work.

[Paul Coleman]

here in east ayrshire it is alegal requirment.
i was charged by the police for not having my licence on me(it was 30 yards away in my car)
it is £190 for 3 years and you must pass a police check to get a licence also provide proof of pli

Charged by the police for having it in your van?  They have got to be kidding.  I sincerely hope this didn't go to court.
One of the problems with being charged with a petty offence is that the police have the legal right to take and keep a DNA sample.  Even if the CPS do not take the matter further or even if you are eventually found not guilty, they have your genetic fingerprint for life.
This is one of the reasons I dislike control freakery.  Give these authoritarian dictators an inch and they'll take a mile.  I'll probably get nicked now for not writing that as centimetres and kilometres.
Having said that, I do actually feel that having PLI should be a legal requirement and I was amazed when I first discovered that it wasn't.

[jouk45]

shiner, dont forget every worker has to have a license to by law, i think a window cleaners license should cover the whole of scotland and not one area,   imagne this, you have a full drivers license, for glasgow only,   so if you wanted to travel to london for instance,   it would cost a fortune for all the diffrent licenses to get their???    the scottish license system is like that, crazy

[Paul Coleman]

shiner, dont forget every worker has to have a license to by law, i think a window cleaners license should cover the whole of scotland and not one area,   imagne this, you have a full drivers license, for glasgow only,   so if you wanted to travel to london for instance,   it would cost a fortune for all the diffrent licenses to get their???    the scottish license system is like that, crazy

Another concern of mine is that licensing is only the first step in a larger agenda.  For example; taxi drivers are controlled regarding how much they are permitted to charge. I would not stand for the state telling me how much I could charge to clean windows.

[ecowasher]

a cheery bunch up north! 

[DASERVICES]

Doug,

Anything that prevents benifit fraud is a good thing, but your post assumes a premise of 'all benifit fraudsters are cheap'.

But I can't see why this should be the case.  I know one or two window cleaners who don't charge much, are happy with their income, and as far as I'm aware; are honest.

Tosh,

Sorry it seems offence , I'm sure there are honest guys out there that can live on £2.50
a house. Over here in Scotland we pay for insuranse and each county we work in we
have to have a seperate license. I cover 3 counties so 3 licenses, which is pretty expensive.

What bugs me is come the summer time I know for a fact there are guys running around
without any insurance etc.. who try to undercut you by charging peanuts. Luckily I haven't
been effected yet but I know a couple of window cleaners who are cheesed off.

We pay all this money but there never seems to be any controls in place.

I agree with licenses but the enforcing it is a problem.

Once again sorry if I offended anyone.

Doug

[zeusjazmin]

when i received a fixed penalty of £35 i phoned the procurator fiscal(crown prosecution in england) and stated that i would refuse to pay,i threatened to go to the newspapers with it,i was then informed that i would not have to pay,also reminded to wear my id badge at all times.