UK Driver Licence Checks by Third Party Providers

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. 

Driving Licence Checks - Comprehensive Driver Checks

If you are a fleet management company or have employees driving their own or your company’s vehicles, then you need to make sure that they all hold a valid UK driving licence so they are able to drive for your organisation.   

It is not uncommon for drivers to provide incomplete or incorrect details to their employers, so they need to make sure they hold the correct entitlements and licence, and this can be achieved by signing up to a service that provides driving licence checks for employers.

A third-party service that links to the DVLA allows this to occur, either by signing a D796 mandate form or completing the online e-consent process. As soon as the document have been sent in to be checked or the online process has been completed, the driving licence record will be viewable in your own secure account to access and view.

As soon as the initial consent process has been completed, employers won’t have to worry about any manual and admin work in the future, as drivers will go into an automatic recheck schedule based on the risk of the driver (low, medium or high depending on how many points they’ve got). Every time a check is performed in your account, users of the company account will receive email notifications so they can view and access detailed licence reports, such as expiry dates, entitlements, licence status etc.

This is all secure and in one place, to save you time and money.