With less than a year to go until the Driver CPC deadline, a training company has warned hauliers against complacency in regards completion of the mandatory qualification.
Driver Hire Training said that with less than a year until the 9 September 2019 Driver CPC cut-off for HGV drivers, data shows fewer total hours of periodic training have been recorded at this point compared with last. and that monthly training intensity is lower.
David Slack, commercial director at Driver Hire Training, said: “At this time five years ago, the market was hotting up as drivers and employers started to realise that time was running short to complete their training.”
“Yet official government statistics show that in July 2018, nearly 220,000 fewer hours were uploaded than in the equivalent month in the last five-year cycle.
“What’s more, the ‘lag’ in training hours is getting worse,” he said.
Driver Hire Training has identified several common themes via customers about why people are not completing their training.
These include a belief that Driver CPC will no longer be a requirement after Brexit (the UK government has said it will remain regardless), operational pressures meaning that drivers cannot be released for training, a limited budget for training and training not being a high priority.
“We know that at busy times, training can be a low priority,” said Slack. “However the maths is quite simple. At the current rate, there’s a real danger that there just won’t be enough places available for drivers to complete their training.
“Even if there are, some training providers may offer poor quality; prices are likely to rise, and the operational impact of taking drivers off the road for several days could be enormous.”
The Driver CPC requires every commercial driver to complete 35 hours of periodical training every five years.
Driver Hire Training has created a free calculator - at driverhiretraining.co.uk - that allows you to see how many training days are needed within your business to ensure that all your drivers have completed their hours.
The warning from Driver Hire follows the RHA’s, which advised drivers not to leave CPC training to the last minute.
