Licence paper counterpart no longer valid from 8 June

The long-promised abolition of the paper counterpart to the photocard driving licence is finally going ahead.

As of 8 June, the counterpart is no longer being issued to drivers in England, Scotland and Wales by the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), and is no longer valid.

However, the changes do not affect photocard licences issued by Northern Ireland’s Driver & Vehicle Agency (DVA – see box).

From 8 June, the photocard (or a paper licence, for those issued prior to the photocard’s introduction in 1998) remains the official document detailing which vehicle types a person can drive; but the only legal source of penalty point endorsements is the DVLA’s driver record, information from which will be available online, or by phone or post.

The change marks a significant departure for fleet operators, who will no longer be able to rely on the paper counterpart in order to determine an employee’s eligibility to drive. 94 per cent of respondents to a Freight Transport Association exercise said they relied on a physical check (Transport Operator, May).

To compensate, the DVLA has launched its new, free, 24/7 Share Driving Licence service, which allows drivers to grant permission for their records to be accessed by employers.

The system requires the holder of the licence to log into the gov.uk website (www.gov.uk/view-driving-licence), and generate a one-time access code – which can then be passed to an employer in order for the check to take place.

(Drivers can also use this service to view their own records, such as vehicles they can drive, penalty points and disqualifications.)

The employer then must enter the code within 72 hours, along with the last eight digits of the driving licence number, at the driving licence check page (www.gov.uk/check-driving-information).

A second service, to be known as ‘Access to Driver Data’, will provide real-time licence data via a business-to-business interface, says DVLA.

“Access to this [second] service will be subject to users agreeing contractual terms,” said the agency. “Connection and enquiry costs are currently under consideration. The service is currently scheduled to be available in summer 2015.”

Alternative phone-based and postal systems are also in place, both of which require the driver’s permission.

The counterpart abolition was originally scheduled for January, but was postponed partly due to the intervention of trade associations, including the FTA, which had expressed concerns about proposals for an online system. One such concern regarded the inability of large firms to efficiently check multiple driver records.

As late as April, FTA was still warning that the new online licence checking system would “not meet business’s needs”.