Fitness to hold a licence

Fitness To Hold A Licence – Subject to some exceptions, a business wishing to operate a goods vehicle in excess of 3.5 tonnes or a passenger vehicle with 8 or more passenger seats must hold an HGV Operator’s Licence.

Operator licences are not easy to obtain. You have to meet various criteria to be legally entitled to one. There are six different types of operator licences:

Standard National Goods – for goods vehicle operations within the United Kingdom

Standard International Goods – for goods vehicle operations within the UK and EU

Restricted Goods – restricted to carrying goods only in connection with the licence holder’s business, and not for goods carried on behalf of other people

Standard National Passenger – for passenger carrying vehicles within the UK

Standard International Passenger – for passenger carrying vehicles within the UK and EU

Restricted Passenger – for vehicles up to 16 seats and only where the passenger operation is incidental to the licence holder’s main business.

An operator’s licence only allows you to operate from one traffic area. For example if you wanted to have one transport operation based in the South West and another in the South East, you would need two licences.

When applying for an operator’s licence, an operator must demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Traffic Commissioner that they meet the criteria for having a licence. If any of the criteria are not satisfied, then the Traffic Commissioner is obliged by law to refuse the licence.

A basic outline of the main criteria is as follows:

1. Good repute / fitness to hold an operator’s licence
2. Financial standing – you have to show that you hold certain minimum financial reserves
3. Professional competence for standard licences – this means your business employs a transport manager who has professional qualifications
4. A base – you must have an operating centre where your transport operation is based and also an office where legal documents and compliance records are kept
5. Systems in place for maintenance, tachographs, drivers hours, preventing overloading, legal compliance and safe operating
6. Personal history – certain conduct and certain serious convictions can disqualify you from holding an operator’s licence.

Good repute and fitness is a very wide concept. All sorts of varied things can come into this including your previous conduct as a vehicle operator, links to other businesses, insolvency issues, convictions and even financial issues can be taken into account (to name but a few).

Because we have covered points 2, 3, 4 and 5, within this section separately, the following offers information on convictions and penalties and personal history only.

Convictions and Penalties

You must declare all relevant convictions and penalties at the time you make your application and any additional convictions after the licence has been granted. You must also inform a traffic commissioner immediately of any convictions that occur between the date of you applying for a licence and a decision being made on your application.

A traffic commissioner will decide whether the convictions are relevant. It is a criminal offence to make a false declaration. Failure to provide all information could subsequently lead to regulatory action.

You must notify a traffic commissioner if any person named on your application, or on your licence (including partners, directors or transport managers), any company of which a person named on the application/licence is a director, or any parent company if you are a limited company, has been convicted of any of the following:

• an offence under the Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995
• an offence under the Transport Act 1968 or the Road Traffic Act 1960 which relates to licences or means of identification
• an offence relating to section 13 of the Hydrocarbon Oil Duties Act 1979 (unlawful use of rebated fuel oil in relation to goods vehicles)
• an offence under Section 74 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (duty to keep inspection records in relation to goods vehicles)

You must also notify a traffic commissioner if any person named on your application/licence, (including partners, directors or transport managers), any company of which a person named on your application/licence is a director, or any parent company if you are a limited company, or any of your employees or agents, has been convicted of any of the following:

• an offence under section 53 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (plating certificates and goods vehicle test certificates)
• an offence in relation to a goods vehicle relating to the maintenance of vehicles in a fit and serviceable condition
• an offence in relation to a goods vehicle relating to speed limits or overloading
• an offence in relation to a goods vehicle relating to the licensing of drivers
• a drivers hours offence relating to a goods vehicle
• an offence under sections 173 or 174 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (forgery, false statements or the withholding of information) in relation to an international road haulage permit
• an offence under section 2 of the International Road Haulage Permits Act 1975 (removing, causing, or permitting the removal of a goods vehicle or trailer from the UK in contravention of a prohibition)
• an offence under section 3 of the Control of Pollution Act 1974
• an offence under section 2 of the Refuse Disposal (Amenity) Act 1978
• an offence under section 1 of the Control of Pollution (Amendment) Act 1989
• an offence under section 33 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990
• an offence in relation to a goods vehicle in contravention of a provision prohibiting or restricting waiting vehicles made under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 or a relevant traffic regulation order

In addition to the above convictions, you must notify a traffic commissioner if any person named on your application/licence, (including partners, directors or transport managers), any company of which a person named on your application/licence is a director, or any of your employees or agents, has any of the following:

Any conviction under the law of Northern Ireland or any country outside the United Kingdom, which relates to the offences, noted above for all applicants/licence holders.

Any conviction where one or more of the following punishments was imposed:

• imprisonment exceeding 3 months
• a fine exceeding level 4 on the standard scale
• a community service order (or equivalent) requiring unpaid work for more than 60 hours
• any punishment outside the UK corresponding to any of the above
• any conviction or penalty for an offence under UK law relating to road transport, or any corresponding offence outside the UK. In particular, but not limited to offences relating to
• drivers’ hours of work and rest periods
• the weights and dimensions of commercial vehicles Road and vehicle safety

Any conviction or penalty for an offence under UK law relating to road transport, or any corresponding offence outside the UK. In particular:

• exceeding the maximum 6-day or fortnightly driving time limits by margins of 25 % or more
• exceeding, during a daily working period, the maximum daily driving time limit by a margin of 50 % or more without taking a break or without an uninterrupted rest period of at least 4.5 hours
• not having a tachograph and/or speed limiter, or using a fraudulent device able to modify the records of the recording equipment and/or the speed limiter or falsifying record sheets or data downloaded from the tachograph and/or the driver card
• driving without a valid roadworthiness certificate if such a document is required under Community law and/or driving with a very serious deficiency of, inter alia, the braking system, the steering linkages, the wheels/tyres, the suspension or chassis that would create such an immediate risk to road safety that it leads to a decision to immobilise the vehicle
• transporting dangerous goods that are prohibited for transport or transporting such goods in a prohibited or nonapproved means of containment or without identifying them on the vehicle as dangerous goods, thus endangering lives or the environment to such extent that it leads to a decision to immobilise the vehicle
• carrying passengers or goods without holding a valid driving licence or carrying by an undertaking not holding a valid Community licence
• driving with a driver card that has been falsified, or with a card of which the driver is not the holder, or which has been obtained on the basis of false declarations and/or forged documents
• carrying goods exceeding the maximum permissible laden mass by 20 % or more for vehicles the permissible laden weight of which exceeds 12 tonnes, and by 25 % or more for vehicles the permissible laden weight of which does not exceed 12 tonnes

Spent convictions

You do not have to declare convictions, which are “spent” under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. The following link shows the rehabilitation period, at the end of which convictions will become spent. The rehabilitation period depends on the sentence for the original offence and runs from the date of conviction.

See Guidance on the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the Exceptions Order 1975.

The convictions of corporate bodies are not subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.

Section 4 of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 states that a person who has become a rehabilitated person shall be treated for all purposes in law as though there has been no conviction against that person, no evidence is admissible in any proceedings to prove that conviction where it is “spent” and an individual cannot be questioned in any proceedings if the questions cannot be answered without referring to a “spent” conviction.

This provision relates to proceedings before any judicial authority including a Tribunal, and as a result, includes proceedings before traffic commissioners. Commissioners and their staff should therefore satisfy themselves as to whether:

• the sentence imposed is not/excluded from rehabilitation under the Act
• since the conviction and during the relevant rehabilitation period, there has not been a subsequent conviction and sentence which is excluded from rehabilitation
• the sentence was served in full. (A sentence of imprisonment is deemed to have been served as at the time that the Order requires the offender to be released from prison)

A later conviction may affect the rehabilitation period for an earlier conviction if it happens before the first period has run out.

If you are not sure whether your convictions are “spent”, you should declare it and a traffic commissioner would then consider each case on its merits.

Source – Traffic Commissioners