THE biggest organisations in the UK's fleet training industry have begun work on a Driving Standards Agency initiative to find ways of promoting driver training more effectively to the fleet sector. In April the DSA called together representatives from across the driver training world, ranging from training providers through to road safety organisations and the police, to win their support in tightening up standards.

The DSA is proposing the introduction of training provider accreditation, a common training syllabus and confidential benchmarking to allow like-for-like comparisons of corporate safety records. The first goal the DSA wants to achieve is the establishment of a trainer register which it expects to have in place by the end of the year. The DSA met initially to gauge the amount of interest, but work has now started on meeting these goals.

The organisations taking part have been split into two committees. The first, including representatives from the Institute of Risk Management, the British School of Motoring and British Telecom, is working on formulating the trainer register. The second committee is looking at the interventions that could be used to bring about the change in company culture. Jeff Pickering, assistant chief driving examiner at the DSA, said: 'Progress on the trainer register has been made. We are looking at having entry requirements for individual trainers by examination. We've agreed that entry to the register can be gained either through being able to prove you have existing qualifications or by getting them. We need to look at which qualifications are out there and which ones are appropriate.'