DriverCheck helps Scottish Water manage road risk

Scottish Water has been able to meet legal compliance and duty of care responsibilities for more than 4,000 drivers and several vehicle classes, thanks to automated driving licence checking service from DriverCheck, part of Ebbon Compliance.

Scottish Water operates an owned fleet of more than 1,700 vehicles - 300 cars, 1,300 vans and 120 heavy goods vehicles (HGVs).  As well as its owned fleet, Scottish Water also has 1,600 grey fleet drivers who use their own vehicles on company business.

With more than 4,000 drivers, it is a significant undertaking for Scottish Water to check driving licences to ensure that everyone driving for business purposes holds a valid licence for the category of vehicle they are driving, says fleet manager, Elaine Pringle.

“From that perspective, the DriverCheck service works really well for us,” she said. “It provides automated, reliable driving licence checking, working continually and silently in the background, highlighting any issues.”

She explained: “We take a risk-based approach to driving licence checks. The frequency of checks is dependent on the type of vehicle being driven. Our HGV drivers’ licences are checked every three months, van drivers every six months and grey fleet drivers’ licences are checked annually.

“For our grey fleet, we also use DriverCheck services to confirm that vehicles being driven on business purposes are legally compliant, checking tax and MOT status and confirming the right level of business insurance.”

DriverCheck head of operations, Yvette Giannini, said that automated licence checking was vital for an organisation with as large and diverse driver pool as Scottish Water, both from legal compliance and management of occupational road risk perspectives.

“With as many drivers as Scottish Water have and the complex nature of their operations, anything other than a fully automated service would never be an option,” she said.

“Automatic updating through the DriverCheck client portal dramatically reduces the chances of error, as well as cutting the amount of admin time required.”

DriverCheck is part of Ebbon Compliance which, with Licence Check, carries out a combined 1.6 million licence checks per annum.