FTA warning over new licence check system

The Freight Transport Association (FTA) has warned that the new online driver licence check system intended to be introduced by the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) in the summer: “will make driver licence checking extremely difficult for freight operators, and needs to be reconsidered as a matter of urgency.”

The online service is being introduced to compensate for the demise of the paper counterpart, which is due to be abolished from 8 June. The counterpart is currently the main tool used by fleet managers to ensure an employee’s entitlement to drive, FTA said, with 94 per cent of respondents to a recent working group exercise currently relying on a physical check.

FTA chief executive David Wells said: “Freight operators, which employ hundreds – and sometimes thousands – of professional drivers, have a legal obligation to check licences on a regular basis.  FTA is not convinced that the proposed online checking system will be robust enough to cope with industry demands.

“Despite FTA staff liaising with the DVLA to realise the commitment by the agency to provide an online alternative which businesses need, we believe that the system which is to be introduced in June simply does not deliver that commitment, and would make licence checking for our members extremely difficult.”

Wells also said he had written to the authorities to request that the licence check requirement should not be enforced: “until such time as the government provides a suitable means of doing so.”

The removal of the paper counterpart licence has been fraught with difficulty, having originally been scheduled for January until trade associations, among them FTA, lobbied for a postponement in order for a suitable online system to be developed.

Meanwhile, the fleet operators’ association ACFO has said it has received confirmation from the Information Commissioner’s Office that employers will not be breaking the law by accessing employees’ driving licence records if the process recommended by DVLA is followed. ACFO had queried whether requiring drivers to sign a mandate which would allow their records to be accessed would fall foul of the Data Protection Act.

But Richard Brown, managing director of licence checking and monitoring firm Licencecheck, said that there were “too many unanswered questions” surrounding the issue.

“The elimination of the paper counterpart was intended to remove red tape but, at the moment, the tight deadlines and practical difficulties of managing such change is adding to fleet managers’ woes – as if they didn’t have enough to think about already,” he said.

“It seems that for the driver’s consent [for the employer to access their records] to be effective, they need to understand why the information is being requested by the employer, what it will be used for and the possible consequences.  Will a busy fleet manager understand the need to carefully explain all this to the driver in these terms and at this level of detail?”