The Association of Car Fleet Operators (ACFO) has launched the first in a series of ‘how to’ best practice guides for the public and private sector fleet policies and procedures.
The AFCO Best Practice Guide to Employee Driving Document Checking says that the regular checking of driving licences of all employees that drive on business should be a crucial part of all organisations’ occupational road risk management policies.
There is currently no legislation that specifically requires an employer to check the driving records of their employees. However, the guide says: “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, which is often known as the ‘grey’ fleet - 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 also outlines driving licence checking procedure and best practice frequency and the key information employers should look for on UK licences and those held by foreign nationals to ensure validity.
ACFO chairman Julie Jenner said: “We believe the guide provides extremely valuable guidance not only for ACFO members to check that they are following our best practice recommendations, but also for the fleet community at large to adopt.
“The guide has already been extremely well received by several government departments and in correspondence they have acknowledged that they are either already working along the lines we recommend or that our advice will be used to further define departmental guidance and procedures.
“Given the level of welcome for the guidance we are therefore planning to compile further guides that will provide best practice advice in a number of other risk management areas such as journey planning and fuel and mileage monitoring.”
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