No compliance U-turn in Northern Ireland

By Categories: NewsPublished On: Tuesday 24 June 2014

There will be no U-turn on the road to greater compliance in Northern Ireland, the recently-appointed head of the Transport Regulation Unit (TRU) Donna Knowles told the Road Haulage Association’s one-day conference at Templepatrick in June.

Ms Knowles spoke at length about the current legislation on operator licensing, what should be done to support and encourage operators to become and remain compliant, and the intention to bring as many operators as possible within the licensing regime – from own-account operators with one vehicle to larger fleets.

She also pledged the support of the TRU to advise and help anyone who wants to be licensed on how to go through the process.

“When mistakes are made we understand and advise accordingly,” Ms Knowles pledged.

As far as intentional non-compliance was concerned, this was a matter of “no tolerance.”

Since July 2012, the TRU has engaged in approximately 90 public inquiries on applications or compliance issues, with either revocations or various other sanctions being applied.

Delegates also heard from Jeremy Logan, who is head of compliance and roadside enforcement at the Driver & Vehicle Agency (DVA).  He highlighted the DVA’s work, focusing on operators’ responsibilities. Operator compliance had improved but in 2013-14 the roadworthiness defects analysis still showed that further improvements could be made.

Of the 640 vehicles checked by the DVA in the last 12 months, 557 vehicles had no roadworthiness defects (87 per cent), 50 vehicles had one roadworthiness defect (7.8 per cent) and 33 vehicles had two or more roadworthiness defects (5.2 per cent).

The most common defects reported were lights/signals (27.1 per cent) and brakes (24.8 per cent).

Mr Logan went on to detail the DVA business plan for 2014-15. Compliance monitoring was high on the agenda, with at least 250 truck operators due to have a compliance inspection.  DVA also intends to develop an Operator Compliance Risk Scoring (OCRS) system similar to that in operation in Great Britain, to help enforcement officers identify high-risk vehicle operators.