Doug,
Is the seperate license fee for any different area that we work? or is it just for each seperate council area covered by a seperate council.
What I'm getting at is the six area's I cover they are all covered by the same council.
The licence is by council areas this is why i need 3 licences (Angus, Perth and Kinross and Dundee)3 fees and 3 police checks ironically i am police checked by one police force (tayside police)
Dean
So it's done by towns/cities rather than counties. For me that would mean a lot more than three licence fees then. It might be possible for a larger business to carry such an ongoing expense but I'm a sole trader. Although I earn quite well at times, I have to in order to repay old debts. Licensing fees at around £100 - £200 per year per area would mean perhaps a grand a year (or more) directly out of my turnover. OK so it would be tax deductible but I don't think that's really the point. Another issue is that suddenly I would be faced with detached office workers deciding whether I am allowed to carry on the profession that I've been doing for the past 17 years. So I do have convictions that are long since spent and very unlikely to be the type of convictions that would affect an application. I have mentioned it before but I was the victim of a road rage incident some time back - thankfully all verbal. At one point, it looked like I was going to be physically assaulted. If I had needed to physically defend myself, I could have been on an assault charge as there were no witnesses. Assault is regarded quite seriously by the courts. Because some idiot wanted to have a go at me, I could have lost my W/C license (if they existed) for committing an assault in the act of defending myself. It's no real consolation to me that I could appear in front of a panel of prodnosed busybodies to beg for my livelihood back either (probably suspended from working pending the hearing).
I used to be mildly against licensing. My view has hardened over time. I believe it's more a device for restricting the numbers of window cleaners so that the licensed can earn more money (supply and demand).
Although I find that window cleaning can be well paid when I apply myself, probably the best bit about it is the relative freedom I have to work when I want, WHERE I want.
I do not believe that licensing in England would be practical because:
1) It probably would not be adequately policed to filter out dole cheats etc.
2) It would be treated as an extra tax.
3) If it did become adequately policed, the cost of policing it would be ringfenced resulting in much higher license fees once the practice was established (N.B. with resident only parking areas, the cost of extra traffic wardens is met by charging residents for annual parking permits thus ringfencing the costs. Central government paid for the white lining and receive all revenue from the fines). I've no reason to believe that a W/C license would be treated any differently from resident parking areas in terms of ringfencing the money.
4) Licensing would be used as a big stick with which to beat the honest window cleaners.
5) One relatively benign transgression against the law could be used to remove someone's entire source of income. It's no good saying it couldn't happen to you either. We can all make mistakes or be found guilty of something that we haven't done. It could easily turn out that the type of offence that could stop a social worker, care worker, policeman, fireman, school teacher from working, could also be used against window cleaners in the same way - even though the level of responsibility and the degree of association with a customer is at a very different level. Although it could be argued that each case coiuld be judged on its own merits, would you trust them some unelected, unaccountable panel in a council chamber to make the right decision? I don't. Even with the prospect of not being re-elected, the elected and the accountable frequently make glaring blunders so what hope for those who are not held to account for their errors?
6) If the principle of licensing were to be applied to many more trades, it would be a great way of controlling millions of (self-employed) people at a stroke i.e. don't engage in legitimate protest against any government policies because you might get randonly pulled out of a demonstration, arrested, suffer trumped up charges to justify the arrest, and lose your livelihood. Not so fanciful really as I went on a few demos in my younger days. The ones arrested weren't the illegal ones who were throwing bricks from the back but the ones at the front pushed forward by the crush.
OK so some of what I've written is unlikely to happen but other bits of it are real possibilities.
I do have some sympathy with why many would like a license to come into being. I understand that having too many dole cheats working as window cleaners can hold the rates down even if your own customers aren't directly targetted. Traditionally this has happened more in areas of higher unemployment such as Scotland and the North of England and I live in the Southeast where perhaps we haven't usually had higher levels of unemployment (although the early to mid 90s was pretty bad). So I do understand the concerns of people and it could get worse in my area too if, as predicted, the economy is heading into a recession/depression. But I do feel strongly that a window cleaning license is the sledgehammer to crack the nut. There is already a mechanism in place to catch dole cheats and illegal workers. We already pay for that out of general taxation. It probably has limited effect. I doubt that any license policing would be policed more diligently than what's already in place.
Poll