Nigel Grainger brings together a related set of skills that all fleets require, to greater or lesser
degrees, but which may not have the staffing or the skills to fulfil those needs.
Bringing his wealth of experience in all areas of fleet management he offers a bespoke service through his company Fleet Risk Consultants, providing you with a cost effective fleet that complies fully with your 'duty of care' requirements.If only life were simple, our clients wouldn’t need us
We look after a large number of clients and each one needs something different from us. One of the more interesting things at the moment is being caused by a disagreement between three different government organisations.
The client runs a number of Private Hire Vehicles and the some of the drivers they employ are from various parts of the European Union. This is important because a driving licence issued within the European Union is valid throughout the European Union and to refuse a licence is illegal.
However the local council are insisting on the drivers having a UK paper counterpart to the licence to show endorsements triggered by law breaking. The Driving Standards agency felt that this was not really necessary, but could understand the councils position. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency are of the opinion that they only need to issue paper counterpart for vocational licences (trucks and buses) and the driving of Private Hire Vehicles are not covered by that.
So the client is being told that they need something that is not being issued.
They have now asked us to clear the situation for them and we have discussed it with the council concerned and they are happy, but are unsure how they are going to know whether a driver has transgressed the law. The truth is they are not going to know because the DVLA have decided that they are not going to provide a way of checking driving licences online, due to cost considerations.
Hopefully our new transport ministers will see sense and allow the DVLA to start providing online licence checks. I believe that if they do it right it will be a revenue generator for the Agency.
Nigel Grainger
Senior Consultant
Fleet Risk Consultants