Are you checking your Operator’s Licence?
10 October 2024
You may have seen that the Office of the Traffic Commissioner periodically issue bulletins about ensuring that the Operator’s Licence and the contact details are kept up to date using the online system; Vehicle Operator Licensing (also known as “VOL”).
As a holder of an Operator’s Licence, you are responsible for ensuring that the details are periodically reviewed and are correct at all times. This could be, for example, checking that you have sufficient authorisation of vehicles/trailers on your Licence in comparison to the number of vehicles/trailers that you are actually operating or even ensuring that the operating centre that is listed on your Licence is still the same site that you are operating from.
Whilst in theory this seems a simple enough task to complete, we are seeing a large number of cases where Licences have not been kept up to date. In fact, such discrepancies (and the failure to keep a check on the Licence) is often brought up in Public Inquiries and Preliminary Hearings before the Traffic Commissioner. The Operator Licensing regime is based on trust, which means that the Traffic Commissioner has to trust the Operator to be compliant which covers the periodic checking of the Licence and ensuring that all details are up to date.
To provide context to this issue, we often see cases come through for Public Inquiry where it is clear that individuals are listed on the Licence as Directors though this record does not match that on Companies House. It is important that Operators are aware that just because Companies House is updated with changes made to Directors, this does not automatically follow through to the Licence – both have to be changed!
In short, Operators should ensure that the Operator’s Licence is reviewed on a periodic basis and that the details are correct.
If you have any queries or concerns over your Operator’s Licence or feel as though something needs to be updated/changed, then please contact the Regulatory team on 01254 828300 or regulatory@backhouses.co.uk.
This article was written by Amy Smith.
