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.