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The FTA says the government's planned Driver CPC training card would impose "unnecessary administrative burdens" and "significant transaction costs" on the freight industry. Chris Welsh, FTA general manager, campaigns, has written to the Department for Transport (DfT) urging it to reject EU Directive 2003/59, which states that Driver CPC mandatory training should be recorded in a card format.

Welsh says the current UK voluntary central government database designed to record driver CPC  training already meets the requirements of the EU Directive, and provides a more sophisticated method of collecting the information. In the letter to transport minister Jim Fitzpatrick, Welsh adds: "We believe that as this is an EU directive you have a certain discretion over how the directive is applied and implemented.

"UK operator licensing and enforcement arrangements are second to none in Europe, and the UK leads the way in modernising licensing services through state-of-the-art technology. "The UK central database and roadside enforcement arrangements therefore, in our view, fully comply with the provisions of the directive for the recording and enforcement of Driver CPC mandatory training requirements." The FTA believes the administrative cost of each card would be about £25.