Are you checking if it’s valid?

Regular checking of employee driving licences should be a crucial part of an organisation’s occupational road risk management policy, argues ACFO's Julie Jenner

Are you 100 per cent certain that every single employee or volunteer at your organisation who takes to the road on a business trip – either in a company-provided vehicle or their own car – is in possession of a valid driving licence and that you have an auditable record to that effect?
    
If the answer to each of those two questions is ‘yes’ then congratulations. But, anecdotal evidence would suggest that you are among the significant minority that has taken to heart the best practice advice of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) that all employers have a clear duty of care to check the competency and capability of their at-work drivers.
    
As the HSE’s ‘Driving at work: Managing work-related road safety’ document makes clear, those checks should start with management checking the validity of a driving licence on recruitment and periodically thereafter.
    
Employers should also check the validity of any occupational driving entitlements such as LGV/PSV (Large Goods Vehicle/Public Service Vehicle) as part of the recruitment process and periodically thereafter, if this is a requirement for the job description.

DRIVING LICENCE BUREAUCRACY
Legally all drivers must comply with British minimum age requirements. The key ones are 17 years for cars and motorcycles and 21 years for large lorries and buses.
    
But, beyond that the maze of driving licence bureaucracy takes over. Issues that you as an employer should know about in relation to every driver include:
•    Groups of vehicle types they can drive
•    Endorsements and disqualifications
•    Medical conditions and disabilities
•    Current address details
•    Driving in Britain on a non-UK or EU licence
Such information is available to you either directly from an employee’s driving licence or via a check with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) or by using one of the many third party professional organisations undertaking licence checks.
    
Recently, press reports highlighted that a company car driver banned for a total of 16 years was identified to his employer following licence checks undertaken on behalf of fleet supplier ALD Automotive.
    
The incident was identified as the worst case of disqualification seen by ALD Automotive and the worst ever recorded by the Licence Bureau, the contract hire and leasing company’s licence checking partner.
    
The unnamed driver received four, four-year driving bans in the space of 16 weeks from the courts. Two four-year bans for drink-driving were followed by two separate incidents of driving whilst disqualified and a number of other related offences such as supplying false details and driving without insurance.
    
The courts imposed the bans to run concurrently, which means they expire in November 2013. The employee previously received a 12-month driving ban in 2002.
    
Malcolm Maycock, of the Licence Bureau, said: “This driver is the worst case of disqualification we have seen in seven years of licence checking. We have uncovered many cases of drivers picking up consecutive convictions for speeding offences or similar in a short space of time, but not this number of offences which have led to such a lengthy driving ban.”

DRIVING LICENCE OFFENCES
While that incident maybe the worst example publicly highlighted as a result of a licence check, it is not the only indiscretion, which include:
•    Employees who did not have a licence despite claiming they did
•    Employees who only had provisional entitlement to drive
•    Employees whose provisional entitlement to drive had expired
•    Employees who had 12 points on their licence and were on the verge of being disqualified
•    Employees who had been disqualified under totting up
•    Employees with live drink/driving offences
•    Employees with recent periods of disqualification
•    Employees who had failed to inform their employer of a serious, live motoring offence at the time of recruitment
•    Employees who had failed to inform the DVLA of a change of address
•    Employees who had failed to renew their photocard driving licence after the statutory ten-year period
All of these represent either an actual offence or a significant risk to the employer from an incident involving an employee driving at work.

BEST PRACTICE GUIDE
It is against that background that ACFO has compiled its ‘Best Practice Guide to Employee Driving Document Checking’. The guide highlights the reasons why the regular checking of driving licences of all employees that drive on business, whether in a company vehicle or their own, should be a crucial part of all organisations’ occupational road risk management policies.
    
Although there is no legislation that specifically requires an employer to check the driving records of their employees, the Road Traffic Act 1988 (88) (2) says that ‘it is an offence for a person to cause or permit another person to drive on a road a motor vehicle of any class if that other person is not the holder of a licence authorising him to drive a motor vehicle of that class’.
    
Therefore any employer who is found to have permitted a person to drive a vehicle on business – whether a company-supplied vehicle or a privately-owned vehicle – without ensuring they have a valid licence, is guilty of an offence. Crucially, organisations – particularly charities and public sector organisations – should also ensure that licence checking also extends to volunteer drivers as well as employees.
The guide outlines:
•    Driving licence checking procedure and best practice frequency
•    The key information employers should look for on UK licences and those held by foreign nationals to ensure validity
•    Who should carry out the checks

A BREACH OF HEALTH AND SAFETY
There is no doubt that driving licence checking is a vital component in compiling an adequate risk assessment of each employee and, indeed, the whole organisation in terms of at-work driving.
    
With the entire public and private sectors focused on reducing their risk exposure, a failure to undertake licence checks on all employees who drive on business should be considered as a fundamental weakness in health and safety and duty of care policies and procedures.
    
Having decided to implement a driving licence checking system it must be both simple and comprehensive and understood by all managers and employees. But, simultaneously, it must be comprehensive enough to satisfy any investigating body that the company or organisation has done everything that can be reasonably expected of them to ensure drivers are appropriately licensed.
    
Equally, employees should be told the reasons why driving licences are being checked and, as part of their terms of employment, be made aware that it is their responsibility to comply with the policy; and subsequently inform their employer of any change in driving licence status. That will include anything from a change of address to an endorsement and a change of name to a disqualification.
    
Best practice dictates that the onus is on employees to inform their employer of driving licence changes. Any failure to do so can then be viewed by the employer as a possible breach of contract leading to, at the very least, some form of disciplinary hearing.
    
Organisations should appoint or nominate at least one person to manage whatever checking system is to be adopted. Employers should also ensure that the appointed person is given adequate training, time and resources with which to carry out the licence checks.
    
The frequency of driving licence checking should be determined in each organisation according to the initial risk management analysis carried out by the organisation. However, best practice dictates that every six months, every employee who drives a vehicle on any journey in connection with the business or organisation should have their licence checked by a clearly stated process.
    
Employers should photocopy all parts of each employee’s driving licence for record keeping purposes and the copy should be signed and dated by the appointed person. The appointed person should then confirm that the details on that licence match those in the employee’s personnel file. These details for clarity are:
•    Driver number - information on how to decode this is available at www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/DriverLicensing/DG_068315
•    Check that the address of the licence holder is valid and matches the one on their employment file
•    Check the date of birth of the licence holder matches the one on their employment file
•    Check the licence categories match those vehicles that the licence holder may be required to drive
•    Check the licence issue number is the latest according to the DVLA

PHOTOCARDS
Today, many employees will have photocard licences, which were first issued in July 1998 and carry a wealth of data.
    
Crucially, unlike the ‘old fashioned’ paper licences – which continue to be in circulation – photocard licences expire after ten years and must be renewed. In addition, the counterpart document of the photocard driving licence and the paper driving licence contains any endorsement details.
    
And, too further complicate matters, some employees may be in possession of a foreign driving licence. Information on how to check these is available in the ACFO guide.
    
The information gathered will help highlight where individuals are a ‘low’, ‘medium’ or ‘high’ risk when behind the wheel. As a result, employers will be able to provide remedial training, help, advice and information to reduce any perceived risks and simultaneously improve the safety of their most valuable asset – staff – and that of the entire organisation.

Further information:
Web: www.acfo.org