TAKING DRIVER CPC TRAINING OFF REPEAT

Driver CPC, or Certificate of Professional Competence, training was introduced in 2007 around EU. This requires all professional drivers of lorries, buses and coaches to complete a minimum amount of initial training and regular refresher training. Relevant drivers must do 35 hours of periodic training every 5 years to keep their Driver CPC.

Where any regular training is required there can be a temptation to just repeat the same course or small batch of courses every year. However while this practice may meet the letter of the law, this may not be in line with the aims of the law to increase driver knowledge and safety.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) recently announced that unnecessarily repeated training will no longer be accepted and that they will be working with training bodies and monitoring driver records to identify periodic training that doesn’t support their professional driver development because of unnecessary repetition.

The DVSA do accept that sometimes repeated training is necessary for example to maintain a qualification such as driving dangerous goods and this will be allowed. However they state that if they identify unnecessary repetition we may take action which could include revoking a driver’s Driver Qualification Card (DQC).

Full details of the DVSA’s announcement can be found on the Gov.UK website at: https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/UKDVSA/bulletins/2b3ecb5