It is important for employers in the UK to check that their
employees who drive company vehicles or their own vehicles on the companies behalf have a valid UK driving licence.
UK driver licence checks
can be carried out in several ways. A driver can check his own licence details at the DVLA website by keying in their 16
digit driving licence
number, national insurance number and postcode to create a one-time check code that is valid for 21 days. The code can be shared with
an employer in order for them to
check the validity, entitlements, penalty points, disqualifications
and other details. They cannot directly access any driver’s records due to data protection rules. If
a company employs a lot
of drivers, this can be a very time consuming process. For example, if
a driver doesn’t provide the code to the employer within the 21 day period,
this will expire and the process would have to be started again.
An easier way is to assign the task to a DVLA third party
driving licence checking service to carry out a UK driver licence checks .
As soon as employees grant consent through the online e-consent process or sign
a D796 mandate document, employers can access their driver’s details in their
secure account. The result will reveal information such as licence and
photocard expiry dates, any current or previous endorsements within the past 5
years and what entitlements the driver holds.
Both consent types are valid for 3 years and employers can
check their drivers as many times as they wish, as long as the consent is still
valid.