News

Recruitment agencies specialising in providing drivers should be licensed and checked in order to make sure they are complying with the laws on drivers' hours and tachographs. Stephen Gee, managing director of Oxfordshire-based G-Force Employment, believes that introducing some form of licensing for driver agencies would ensure they are working to the same strict standards as hauliers and distribution companies.

This, ideally, could be run by VOSA or the traffic commissioners and the Recruitment  and Employment Confederation (REC) could also be involved, he adds. He even suggests that a recruitment consultant in each agency should be a Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC) holder. "Regulating the supply of temporary labour to the logistics industry would ensure full and complete compliance by all employers," Gee tells Motor Transport.

Andrew Horner, chair of the REC's drivers' sector group, supports this. "It would be superb if every agency was licensed, especially if it was via VOSA or something similar. It would protect the general public and other road users," he says. Horner adds that all agencies were licensed until the government stopped the practice in the late 1980s.