Link Group, one of Scotland’s largest housing and support service organisations, is using DriverCheck to ensure employees driving personal and corporate vehicles are legally compliant.

Link Group said the scale of the grey fleet meant it had become too large to manage effectively internally

Edinburgh-based Link Group is one of the largest social landlords in Scotland and now has a total of 584 drivers across its various activities. Of this, 393 use their own vehicles on company business, the so-called ‘grey fleet,’ with the remainder driving some 165 company-owned vans.

Sharon Taylor, HR shared services team leader at Link Group, said the scale of the grey fleet meant that it had become too large to manage effectively internally.

“We wanted a specialist provider of managed services to take over this issue for us and to ensure we were legally compliant in terms of our occupational road risk policy.”

It’s now using DriverCheck to ensure its drivers are legally compliant in accordance with its occupational road risk policy and that the risk to the business is minimised.

DriverCheck checks and verifies the eligibility of all Link Group grey fleet vehicles, including MOT, road tax and insurance details, and confirms that all driving licences are up to date and relevant.

Its managed service also includes a fortnightly client report highlighting those drivers whose details have expired, along with those who have not responded to emails asking them to update their details. Those who still fail to respond are then pursued internally, with a lack of responses escalated up to line managers for further action.

DriverCheck also carries out licence checks on the company-owned van fleet, with frequency based on the perceived risk of the drivers. Those who have 0-5 points on their licences have them checked annually, those with 6-8 points are checked every six months and those at most risk with 9-12 points are checked every three months.

Sharon Taylor said: “DriverCheck has brought us peace of mind and effectively taken away the admin and logistical burden of managing the grey fleet for us, ensuring our drivers are operating within the teams of our road risk policy and allowing us to concentrate on more mainstream activities.”

Yvette Giannini, DriverCheck’s recently appointed managing director, commented: “Grey fleet continues to be a major issue for many businesses. Estimates suggest that a third of employers do not check that grey fleet insurance adequately covers drivers for work use, 63% do not check the roadworthiness of employee-owned vehicles and 43% don’t check that the vehicle has a current MOT.

“By providing a detailed and thorough managed service for Link Group, we ensure that all of these areas are checked and updated thoroughly to guarantee legal compliance within occupational road risk requirements.”