Marston Holdings has slashed its fleet risks and ensured legislation compliance with the help of licence checking services from DriverCheck.

Lee Jackson, head of fleet and transport, brought in automated licence checking to meet legal and compliance obligations

The company, which provides technology-enabled solutions to government, utilities and private sector clients, runs a substantial fleet of 1,200 vehicles. This comprises some 550 LCVs, 350 cars, around 125 HGVs and 260 scooters, driven by 2,000 designated drivers. It also has 120 grey fleet drivers.

It previously used a largely manual but fragmented licence checking service, but when Lee Jackson, head of fleet and transport, joined Marston in 2019, he quickly realised it was deficient in a number of key compliance areas. This included a lack of central visibility of the status of its drivers and only a patchy picture of the risk profile of the business.

Having worked with DriverCheck as a third-party supplier at two previous companies, he brought in its automated licence checking service to ensure the company would meet its legal and compliance obligations.

Jackson explained: “We needed to ensure that our drivers – right from the recruitment process and throughout their careers as drivers with us, to when they left the company – were fully compliant with the law, and that they had a valid driving licence for the class of the vehicles they were driving.”

His plans for checks to ensure drivers were fully licensed for the class of vehicle driven were fully backed by the board – and drivers now have their licences checked four times a year.

The checks have already revealed that some 98% of Marston’s drivers have 0-3 points on their licences.

“Anyone with six points gets a call from a director and a re-assessment of their duties is carried out,” Jackson stated.

Furthermore, an e-mandate system for grey fleet drivers ensures they have valid and up-to-date licences, appropriate business needs insurance and that vehicles re fit for purpose.

And Jackson added that DriverCheck has been very pro-active in coming up with ideas to improve compliance and reduce risk, “as well as streamlining our reporting, so that we now have greater confidence and transparency around our risk management processes”.

Allan Gibbons at DriverCheck said that the Marston Holdings fleet was a multi-faceted operation with a high degree of complexity and a heightened need for transparent legal compliance.

“With so many company and grey fleet drivers and such a diverse range of transport and mobility needs, the only really reliable risk management route for Marston was via a professional, automated system of licence and compliance checking, which we were delighted to provide,” he affirmed.