Case Studies and Testimonials

PSS continues business development with Licence Bureau’s backing

Public Sewer Services (PSS) has been highly impressed by the FORS Driver Licence checking service provided in partnership with Licence Bureau since it began using its compliance offering in 2017.

Part of the initial reason for the water and drainage solutions supplier outsourcing the licence checking function to Licence Bureau, was to not only enhance its own duty of care practices but also support the business’ drive for accreditations and work contract tenders.

The partnership has proved invaluable in achieving this with the business holding CHAS (The Contractors Health and Safety Assessment Scheme), FORS (Fleet Operator Recognition Scheme) and  Van Excellence accreditations, amongst many others.

The additional benefits, according to John Moran, transport and accreditation manager, are that the partnership approach has helped alleviate the burden of keeping on top of licence checking in house – a challenge for any business fleet operator. Rather, an ‘at a glance’ dashboard provides John with all he needs to know relating to the PSS fleet at any given moment – freeing up his time to focus on more progressive areas of the business.

‘We have been very impressed with Licence Bureau’s Driver Licence checking provision since we partnered with them in 2017,’ said John. ‘With a little over 100 staff and just under 150 vehicles on our fleet, and providing the types of services we do, licence status and entitlement to drive is continuously evolving and requires stringent management.’

John continued, ‘With Licence Bureau managing this process behind the scenes – including regular status updates on current team members and any new starters – I can confidently see ‘at a glance’ the exact status of our driver fleet.

‘Ultimately, our partnership with Licence Bureau works very well indeed and does exactly want we require of it.’

PSS was founded by managing director, Lee Freeman, in 1989 and today provides an in house one stop solution for all aspects of water and drainage. In 2017, 2018 and 2019 PSS was included in the London Stock Exchange Group’s ‘Top 1,000 companies to inspire Britain’.


Clancy Group praises Licence Bureau’s additional layer of compliance.

Colin Knight: Clancy Group

“Licence Bureau is providing a comprehensive risk management service in addition to the basic on line driving licence checks. The migration process to their system has been executed seamlessly with a high level of support during the process. The team at Licence Bureau has provided a bespoke service and have worked collaboratively with us to ensure our internal driving policies were uploaded onto their system. In addition, they have provided a mechanism to enable us to add a competency based knowledge test regarding our driving policies as part of the driver log on experience. This has added an additional layer of compliance to our internal risk management procedures.

We are very happy with the Licence Bureau system.”

Colin Knight: Head of Fleet Safety Management & Compliance at the Clancy Group


David Hatton, Transport Manager at Thompsons of Crews Hill ensures drivers are safe and legally compliant to operate their vehicles.

“With 13 drivers operating the 12 commercial vehicles on our fleet, with nine of those HGVs, we have a duty-of-care by law to check our drivers’ competency and capability to ensure they are safe and legally compliant to operate our vehicles. This compliance check was previously conducted in-house until we discovered, as part of our membership and Silver accreditation, FORS now offers a driver licence checking service through Licence Bureau.

“While we had thorough protocols in place, we knew as a business our licence checking procedures needed to be improved given recent and unfortunate incidents involving LGVs, so something had to change. This led us to deploy FORS’ driver licence checking service within Thompsons of Crews Hill, which has since performed checks quickly, securely and accurately offering the business, our drivers and our customers peace of mind knowing our fleet of drivers are safely operating each vehicle.

“The service has also minimised the time we’ve historically had to spend on licence checking and with this alleviation of work, we have more resources to now concentrate on other areas of the business.

“We have full confidence in the service provided by FORS and Licence Bureau to seamlessly operate in the background, continuously analysing any changes in our drivers’ details, to ensure we’re always compliant with duty-of-care obligations. We believe it has also promoted safer driving amongst our employees and can help make the roads a safer place, ensuring those who are behind the wheel are safe and qualified to do so.”


Stowe School attains the complete picture of driver risk through Licence Bureau’s audit

Stowe School

Stowe School was founded in 1923 a boarding school with just 99 boys and is now coeducational, with some 550 boys and 220 girls.  Alumni includes Richard Branson, Michael Grade, David Niven and Prince Ranier of Monaco.

The school employs over 250 staff ranging from Teachers, Administrators, and pastoral support workers to ground staff and minibus drivers and including volunteers providing support to ensure the school is well maintain, pupils are cared for and the magnificent grounds are looked after.

Helen Bagby (Head of Support Services) and Rebecca Donaldson (Health and Safety Manager) look after the vehicle and driver management for Stowe ensuring driver compliance is maintained and any areas of risk identified and controls put in place.

Helen comments,

“Early last year we identified a need to ensure all staff who drive on business for Stowe were properly checked and that we understood where any potential risks might be. 

Some of our staff and volunteers transport pupils to activities both around the school grounds and offsite. We also have a team of drivers who only drive electric buggies so our risk management solution needed to encompass a wide range of drivers and multiple vehicle types.

We needed to first understand our overall level of risk and that our drivers understood their obligations and that we were discharging our own duty of care responsibilities correctly.”

Working closely with Licence Bureau, Helen and Rebecca started the process by auditing all staff members to This was mainly an electronic process with drivers completing the audit online – backed up by a paper audit, both of which were processed by Licence Bureau.  Soon after the audit was complete they set about gaining driver consent and undertaking licence checks. The process was swift and efficient with all the results available immediately on line.

“This gave us the most accurate picture of driver risk we’ve ever had and enabled us to start putting processes in place to identify and mitigate any areas of non-compliance.  Licence Bureau provided experience, guidance and recommendations to ensure we gained full compliance with the minimum amount of employee intervention.”

The next phase of the compliance process will be to undertake grey fleet checks and identify any areas of driver training education and policy review which will ensure the school meets its compliance obligations in full and keeps drivers, pupils and staff members safe when undertaking business journeys.  

“Licence Bureau’s guidance, experience and range of compliance services has meant this process has gone incredibly smoothly and ensured that driver safety and risk mitigation in this critical area for the school is in safe hands.”


Testimonial from Pamela Dennison of W.S. Dennison

“Having entered the FTA Truck Driver of the Year competition, I had to complete a variety of tasks in the lead-up to the event, which included Licence Bureau’s comprehensive online risk assessment test.

As W. S. Dennison provides furniture distribution and logistics across UK and Ireland, running a mixed fleet of trucks, we need to ensure our drivers’ knowledge, attitudes and skills comply with healthy and safety laws. The data from the assessment provides a robust audit trail and comprehensive risk profile, which puts the business in an informed position to decide which type of corrective education and training to utilise, leading to risk reduction, safer drivers and fewer accidents.

From my experience of the risk assessment, I was so impressed with the service W. S. Dennison has since looked to deploy the online assessment and training system provided by Licence Bureau. As a means of furthering our duty of care, this excellent tool will seamlessly manage all driver training, helping to contribute to our existing robust risk management programme.”

Picture of a truck


Licence Bureau Ensures Absolute Road Safety Compliance for JLL

Leading global commercial real estate services and investment management firm, JLL has appointed Licence Bureau to carry out drivers’ licence checking of its employees.

Employing more than 2,500 people and operating from 29 offices throughout the UK, providing a range of services to the property sector including investment, project management and professional services, JLL needed to partner a company which could fulfil its extensive vehicle compliance requirements.

With its award-winning Compliance Managed Services (CMS) portal, Licence Bureau will maintain the records of the company’s drivers who represent JLL on business as part of its duty of care obligations.

The system manages drivers’ details whether behind the wheel of a company car or as part of its grey fleet whereby employees use their own vehicle for company business.

In order to assess the drivers and non-drivers within JLL, Licence Bureau undertook an audit of over 900 employees, before beginning the process of seeing whether they are eligible for a Permit to Drive on business.

Licence Bureau implements regular checks of drivers’ licenses, up to a cumulative 400 across the business, monitoring entitlement to drive as well as tracking the number of endorsements or other critical information, such as whether a licence is about to expire. Any alerts are immediately flagged up to the JLL management team.

Malcolm Maycock, managing director of Licence Bureau, commented: “With drivers’ information and driving records stored electronically as well as large organisations having offices and staff spread over a wide geographical area, it is extremely difficult to be confident that your records are up-to-date, often not until it’s too late.

“Our system gives employers peace of mind in the increasingly and, rightly so, compliant culture in which businesses have to operate.”

JLL’s head of UK operations, Darren Battle, (pictured)  added: “We have a duty to both our employees and other road users that when driving on company business they comply with all the required legislation. Licence Bureau’s portal provides us with a highly effective way to manage what would otherwise be a massive task which we would struggle to handle manually. The tool gives us complete confidence that we are fully compliant when it comes to driver eligibility.”


 

Hillcrest Housing Association

The issue of managing driver licence checking compliance can be a complicated and time consuming affair for many companies.

Hillcrest Housing Association’s quality and performance administrator, Kelly Banner has considered the features, advantages and benefits and of utilising Licence Bureau’s services in the case study below.

Kelly comments, “Adopting Licence Bureau’s services has allowed us to introduce a new system of checking licences and enabled us to process checks in a systematic and organised manner, which has previously been a challenge within our complicated group structure.”

HILLCREST HOUSING ASSOCIATION CASE STUDY

1. How you have found the service?

The service that Licence Bureau has provided has been excellent and very straight forward. We cannot fault the service.

2. The main benefits delivered to you

The main benefits that have been delivered to us include:

  • licence checks that were not being carried out previously are now being completed;
  • it is competitively priced for the volume of checks we undertake;
  • there is easy access to advice and guidance; and
  • it is a one stop shop for all current and future checks.

3. What have these benefits allowed you to change or introduce?

The benefits above have ensured that checks are done in a timely manner while taking the pressure off of our small fleet team.

We are also much more confident that our drivers, who represent our company, are thoroughly verified and as up to date as possible. Public safety is always a top priority for us and the Licence Bureau help us achieve this.

4. Please comment on the reporting system (portal) and risk alerts etc.

The reporting system and portal is excellent and extremely easy to use. I check the portal daily and have never encountered any issues with it. If there are works to be carried out, we are warned of these in advance before we even sign in.

The risk alerts are straight forward and everything is explained well and in terms that are easy to understand.

5. How have you found the support from the Licence Bureau team?

The support from Licence Bureau team is outstanding, their response time is excellent.

Staff are very friendly and there is never anything that they can’t assist with. Their guidance as we settled into the system was superb and they are always happy to answer questions both big and small. The team really know their system inside out!

Licence Bureau could not ask for better a representative of their company than Luke Stroud. Luke is extremely helpful and professional at all times.

6. Is there anything else that you have found useful?

The initial meeting with Licence Bureau was superb, this allowed us to see exactly what we would get out of the system and what it would look like and how easy it would be for us to use.


Pimlico Plumbers

”Our reputation is built on the quick and proficient service delivered by our engineers, and with Licence Bureau’s easy-to-use licence checking portal, we can focus on providing our clients with the high quality work they can depend on.”
George Lusham, Transport Manager Pimlico Plumbers

Pimlico Plumbers are the country’s largest independent plumbing and service company, wholly based within Greater and Central London. They take pride in providing excellent, no nonsense service at a great value.

This can only be delivered through their fleet of 160 Volkswagen Transporter vans and Golf cars navigating the streets of the capital 24 hours a day from their riverside headquarters in Lambeth.

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All 160 of Pimlico’s vans are fitted with trackers, ensuring the large operations team can simultaneously monitor the location of its drivers, which is crucial in providing a premium service to a long list of clients within an hour of callout.

Operating a large number of vehicles and drivers in London, not to mention providing service of the highest quality, is a constant challenge. Therefore, Pimlico need a proven approach to ensure all of its 160 drivers are compliant when covering a collective annual mileage of approximately 260,000 miles.

This is where the Freight Transport Association’s Driver Licence Checking Service provided by Licence Bureau comes in. Pimlico uses the fleet driver licence checking company’s online Compliance Managed Services (CMS) portal to successfully manage its fleet.

Because all 160 vans are permanently kept by their drivers, licence checking is essential in ensuring that they are qualified to operate within the busy confines of London, where it’s easy to quickly acquire penalty points.

At the heart of Pimlico’s and the FTA’s operations are speed and efficiency, so leaving its licence checking to Licence Bureau’s easy-to-use system is a no-brainer, as it quickly and continuously analyses any changes in its drivers’ details, to ensure compliance with Duty of Care obligations, while enabling their tradespeople to focus fully on the job in hand.

An ever-expanding list of clients has inevitably necessitated a demanding recruitment drive in London, meaning licence checks on any future additions to its 160 drivers will be quickly carried out by Licence Bureau’s portal.

Alongside Pimlico Plumbers’ core offer of specialist work in plumbing, heating and carpentry, this dedicated work cannot be undertaken without specialist equipment.

Therefore, trusting the FTA’s Driver Licence Checking service provided by Licence Bureau to guarantee their fleet of drivers can safely operate vehicles that are equipped with potentially hazardous materials, gives Pimlico something they provide to their customers on a daily basis – peace of mind.

George Lusham, Transport Manager at Pimlico Plumbers, said “The FTA’s system provided by Licence Bureau is an extremely helpful, efficient and resourceful tool that ensures our drivers remain compliant. Our reputation is built on the quick and proficient service delivered by our engineers, and with Licence Bureau’s easy-to-use licence checking portal, we can focus on providing our clients with the high quality work they can depend on.”


KBC Logistics

Dave Ashford, Transport & Compliance Manager at KBC Logistics says, “The reason I looked at a licence checking system emanated from the experience last year. I used to check and copy licences and counterparts every six months, one particular driver was checked in November 2012, unbeknown to us he was subsequently disqualified in March 2013, by pure luck we had put this driver on shunting duties at another site although he had covered other drivers shifts a couple of times which would have meant driving one of my trucks on the public road.

On June 9th this driver in his private car was involved in a collision with a motorcyclist. The motorcyclist died at the scene.

“My traffic office were contacted by the drivers brother on Monday morning and he informed them that the driver would not be at work that day and may be off for a while. Nothing further was said until two CID and two traffic collision investigation officers appeared at my office door later that day, they informed me that he had been involved in a accident and also that he was disqualified, even though on this occasion I had fulfilled my obligation it was a scary prospect to think that this could have been any one of my operational drivers and it identified a flaw in my systems.

I have since signed up to Licence Bureau, I chose them because they notify me if there is an issue and they also include skeletal records for non UK licence holders, only today I had a call from them telling me that one of my drivers with a Polish licence possess a UK counterpart with 6 points, I would have no way of knowing if the driver did not inform me, which in this case he hadn’t, unsurprisingly!”


Marshall Leasing

“Marshall Leasing have been working with the Licence Bureau for a couple of years now. It is a solid working partnership with a team we can trust. Our clients need straight answers and commonsense advice when it comes to the emotive issue of driving licence validation. Licence Bureau provides exactly the right level of reassurance and clarity”.


Hitachi Capital

Hitachi Capital are the market leaders in the supply, funding and management of company vehicles. We take pride in our level of product knowledge, in the competence and ability of our team and are committed to a process of continuous improvement.

A significant development in that process has been our decision to work in partnership with the Licence Bureau and to adopt their Driving Licence Verification Service to ensure that our customers meet the statutory and moral obligations by confirming that their employees are entitled to drive on their behalf. The Licence Bureau provide Hitachi Capital with a secure and confidential licence checking service that integrates seamlessly with our in-house reporting framework to deliver comprehensive and easily understood updates and reports to our customers.

Steve Pinchen, Market Development Manager for Hitachi Capital says “The impact of the introduction of the licence checking service was almost immediate and certainly significant with the enrolment of Group 4 Securicor within weeks of the launch. Group 4 Securicor is an international security solutions group, operating in over 100 countries throughout the world and employing around 400,000 people, and they viewed enrolment in the Licence Bureau service as an essential component of their UK fleet and driver management process Hitachi Capital provides our customers with choice, quality and genuine personal service at every turn, our decision to work with the Licence Bureau has proved to be a welcome enhancement to that service and one that I would recommend to any fleet manager”


Freeths LLP

We have recently started to use the Licence Bureau as part of our process when joining new employees to the Firm. The service provided by the Licence Bureau is extremely efficient and helpful. We would recommend them to other organisations.

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