One of Oxfordshire’s biggest trade employers is taking care of all its compliance requirements, from commercial vehicle drivers to grey fleet drivers, with the help of Licence Check’s DAVIS platform.
Transformed in 2018, ODS delivers the council’s direct services operations, providing managed services for the construction of housing, highways , buildings and maintenance of roads, parks and properties.
It’s backed by a 330-strong vehicle fleet – cars, light commercials and heavy goods vehicles – plus another 250 grey fleet cars and vans, with almost 900 registered drivers on its books; and switched to the DAVIS platform two years ago.
According to Chris Noonan, transport manager (compliance and training), the DAVIS solution has overhauled the way that ODS is able to check the licences of its various classes of drivers with total accuracy, speed and clarity – whilst also providing simplicity of use.
“As the person responsible for fleet operations and licence checking, there is no way that I could manually check all the licences across our 895 registered drivers. DAVIS gives us the ability to manage all drivers through one compliance system, on a transparent basis, with highly visual management reporting, exception alerts and with excellent back-up and support from the team at Derby,” he said.
This is aided by the dashboard-style reporting in DAVIS, which shows results at a glance and highlights any exceptions, with alerts automatically flagging events such as drivers approaching 12 penalty point limits, or photocard licences or business insurance expiring.
“This makes my job so much easier and allows me to see at glance where action is required,” said Chris Noonan.
With such a large volume of licences, one of the key benefits of introducing DAVIS has been the speed of licence checking, thanks to the use of e-mandates for driver permissions and rapid response times from the DVLA. Drivers can now be added to the system and an initial licence check carried out within just 30 minutes.
“This has been a major improvement. Now, no-one is allowed to drive any of our vehicles without first having had an in-vehicle assessment with me and also having an initial licence check,” he said.
To manage its grey fleet vehicles as effectively as possible, ODS uses the DAVIS grey fleet module which manages the compliance around employee-owned vehicles. This includes verifying vehicle registration, road tax and MOT and recording key requirements such as motor insurance policies, with the correct level of business use cover and reporting upcoming expirations.
“We have a large number of grey fleet drivers – some 250 in total. And if any drivers want to claim mileage for using their own vehicle on council business, they have to be on DAVIS. It’s non-negotiable,” added Noonan.
“For example, within our building services department we have around 70 van drivers who use their own vans for council work activities. They are all uploaded onto the DAVIS system and all relevant checks and compliance confirmation is carried out, just as if they were using the council’s own vehicles,” he finished.
