"Research shows employee licence checking essential for dealers" - Pinewood

14 December 2009

 

One in five dealer employees have penalty points on their licence - while around one in 100 have nine or more and could lose the right to drive through a single offence at any moment, new research shows.

 

Checks made by dealer management software specialist Pinewood through their Licence Link software show that 15% of drivers have between 3-5 points on their licence, four per cent have 6-8 points and one per cent have nine or more.

 

Licence Link was developed by Pinewood's sister company CFC Solutions for the fleet sector where it has proven to be a major success since its launch at the start of 2009.

 

Pinewood has been making it available to dealers since September because the risk management issues facing fleets also apply to dealers, with a legal onus on employees to regularly check licence validity, with rapid take up.

 

Pinewood managing director Neville Briggs said: "The results for licence checking for dealers are proving to be very similar to those seen on CFC's company car and van fleets.

 

"The findings underline the importance of dealer managers undertaking regular licence checks. A driver who is one offence away from a ban is a significant risk management issue for an employer as well as a potential operational problem if they are penalised and banned in the future.

 

"Also, of course, drivers who have any points at all need to be regularly checked. They are a high-risk group on your fleet and should be monitored thoroughly, regularly and carefully."

 

Licence Link is designed to make employee licence checking as simple as possible. Once basic driving licence information is entered onto the system, dealer managers can choose how often automatic checks are made with the DVLA database - for example, annually for low mileage, low risk drivers or more frequently for high mileage, high risk employees.

 

Risk summary reports will automatically group drivers into different levels of risk group - for example, those with 1-3, 4-7, 8-12 and 12 plus points, and Licence Link can be set up so that those with higher numbers of points are checked more often.

 

Automatic alerts are sent to the dealer manager if the DVLA checks show changes to endorsements, the categories of vehicle that an employee is allowed to drive or if there are events such as disqualification or a photo card expiring.

 

The data sent to the DVLA is encrypted for security reasons. Pinewood recently attained the ISO27001 international data security accreditation, providing customers with a high degree of reassurance that all data it handles is as safe as possible.

 

Briggs continued: "Changes in corporate risk management, especially the arrival of the Corporate Manslaughter Act, have made licence checking an essential task for dealer managers but it remains one that can be onerous and difficult to manage, especially using a paper based system or spreadsheet.

 

"Licence Link provides a live, easy and cost effective way for dealer managers to automate the whole process, identifying drivers who represent a higher risk and, crucially, supporting dealers with an auditable trail of the checks made."

 

Further features in Licence Link include the ability to upload and store document scans against each driver record, such as an image of each driver's licence and driver declarations. These files are held online and encrypted securely.

 

Access to Licence Link is via a credit payment scheme. To run checks, a dealer buys credits in advance and as each licence check is made, the system displays the credits remaining, providing a constant balance reminder for the dealer manager.

 

 

For further details please contact Simon Wells at
Paperchase Public Relations on 01283 711311
or e-mail simon@paperchasepr.co.uk