Counterpart abolition – Driving Monitor release series of quick ‘How to’ video guides on the changes ready for 08/06/15

With the UK driving licence counterpart being abolished as of 08/06/15 UK fleet managers have been asking questions as to what will happen with the DVLA services from this date forward.

Driving Monitor have polled its customers to find out what key questions are being raised the most and have found the following top 5 questions:

1. Will I be able to check the employees’ licences using the new DVLA system as we have more than a handful of driver?
2. Does the DVLA system give me any management reports as to the status of my drivers across the business, or is this a one time view of a single driver?
3. If this is a free service, how much will it cost my admin staff to operate?
4. Does the DVLA service provide alerts or notifications as to points offences on licences?
5. Do I need to consider any data protection issues for checking employee licences or can I use the new ‘View Driving Licence’ as an employer on behalf of the driver?

In response to these questions Driving Monitor have produced a series of free video guides to give UK fleet managers the inside track on what to look out for when using the new digital services. These video guides are also accompanied by a free guide download document, which sets out the different options for the digital services.

Kevin Curtis, Managing Director of Driving Monitor commented, “These free how-to guides are based on our experience of working with the DVLA over the last few years – and clearly map out what a manager would need to do to ensure their company duty-of-care is fully met.

There’s been a lot of confusion surrounding the counterpart abolition and we’ve been working hard with our customers in the transition period now that the paper licence is phased out.

For example we rolled out our new eConsent system called ePass (Electronic Permit and Safety System) which connects the driver consent with the new live realtime checking service we have recently launched. This means for the first time a manager can verify the status of their employees’ licences within seconds. Traditionally we’ve had to collect a paper mandate consent form to be able to check an employees licence – this has been replaced by our new digital platform where drivers sign online or via their mobile device.

The new platform has opened up a whole range of new services we can offer with instant real-time checks. We can also get instant results when a driver completes our Driving Monitor risk assessment profiler, meaning the DVLA data is right up-to-date allowing the risk assessment to be 100% accurate instantly. We have also recently tested the new realtime service against the current overnight batch service that we use via a secure DVLA link. Our results found that 100% of records that were previously suppressed via the overnight EDECs service were checked successfully via the new realtime service. This is a marked improvement on reducing the number of records that previously were held up by the DVLA if they were working on a licence. We can now use the new realtime service to reduce the number of blocked records.”

Kevin Curtis went on to say, “One of the main areas of confusion we’ve found talking to customers is that the DVLA’s new platform negates the need for any ongoing licence checking system – however it’s clear this one-time free check service that’s on the DVLA website is completely different to the risk management solutions available from ADLV approved suppliers.

There needs to be a distinction from the service that the DVLA are providing and the services that companies such as Driving Monitor offer fleet and Health & Safety managers. The new DVLA ‘Share My Licence’ service just launched this summer only offers a single view approach and relies on the driver registering for the service (and soon drivers will also need to go through the government gateway ID verification platform). Once a driver has been through this process (10 mins) they would then activate a one-time use code for their employer to use. They would then need to print a form to give to their employer, which then starts the process of the employer needing to access the web service. The employer would then need to access the DVLA portal with the one-time use code to verify the driving licence (a further 5 mins).

What will become apparent very quickly is that employers will not want their drivers taking up valuable time going through an online approval process to register, then to generate a one-time use code that needs to be handed to the employer. Fleet managers also need to understand that the new DVLA service is not designed to give any ‘management’ reporting or any view across more that one employee.

Companies such as Driving Monitor offer a completely managed service, from collection of consent to full web dashboard and automated reports on licence status, points, categories and entitlements.

We find that when a company has more than a handful of drivers the need for an auditable report to cover their Duty of Care comes into play. Fleet managers are far more savvy these days and understand the importance of combining their licence checks with other safety checks such as risk assessments and telematics data. They are demanding integrated services to take the burden away from their admin teams and this is where companies such as Driving Monitor add real value.

With the costs of a driving licence check being relatively low it doesn’t take long for a company manager to work out that trying to take on the administration of these services in-house soon costs more in staff admin time than using online services such as Driving Monitor.”

Driving Monitor are giving these live demonstrations at the Safety & Health Expo in London on 16^th, 17^th & 18^th June 2015 (www.safety-health-expo.co.uk). For live session times and to register your place for the demos you can visit the events zone at www.DrivingMonitor.com/events.

To access the free video guides and top tips downloads you can visit:
www.driving-licence-checks.co.uk/free-guide