H&S - Ensuring your staffs cars are insured and safe?
Discussion
My wife is the head at a primary School. Health and Safety have been in and told her that as staff use their cars for going on courses, she must inspect the insurance document, MoT, make sure their cars are taxed, and inspect their licences. they said she must see the documents and keep a record of the document numbers.
As you can imagine this is a big piece of work, and will also be ongoing as people renew insurance, change cars, get MoTs ECT...
Does she have to do this?
As you can imagine this is a big piece of work, and will also be ongoing as people renew insurance, change cars, get MoTs ECT...
Does she have to do this?
Sounds a step too far for me. How staff get to their place of work is entirely up to them. If one day they go on a course, that's their place of work for that day. Your Mrs could gather up all the documents on Mrs Whatsherface's Honda Jazz but if she turns up on a rocket powered sled for her training course, what can your Mrs do?
RicksAlfas said:
Sounds a step too far for me. How staff get to their place of work is entirely up to them. If one day they go on a course, that's their place of work for that day. Your Mrs could gather up all the documents on Mrs Whatsherface's Honda Jazz but if she turns up on a rocket powered sled for her training course, what can your Mrs do?
It may be a step too far, but unfortunately, this comes under corporate responsibility and it is quite correct.The simplest way to do this is to get copies of the relevant documents as well as asking the member of staff to sign a disclaimer stating that everything is in order (tax, MOT, insurance, DL etc etc etc).
I strongly suspect that this is all about the employer checking out, quite rightly, that their employees are appropriately insured when they use their own car on work related business such as attending courses etc. There must be loads of people out there who do not have business insurance and forget this when they use their car for the odd business insurance purpose.
The cost of the extra insurance should be covered by an expense claim, for using the car on company business, at 40p per mile as allowed by HMRC (this may have gone up recently).
The alternative is to use public transport and claim back the expense. I can see whay this is likely to be less attractive.
R
The cost of the extra insurance should be covered by an expense claim, for using the car on company business, at 40p per mile as allowed by HMRC (this may have gone up recently).
The alternative is to use public transport and claim back the expense. I can see whay this is likely to be less attractive.
R
The Leaper said:
I strongly suspect that this is all about the employer checking out, quite rightly, that their employees are appropriately insured when they use their own car on work related business such as attending courses etc. There must be loads of people out there who do not have business insurance and forget this when they use their car for the odd business insurance purpose.
The cost of the extra insurance should be covered by an expense claim, for using the car on company business, at 40p per mile as allowed by HMRC (this may have gone up recently).
The alternative is to use public transport and claim back the expense. I can see whay this is likely to be less attractive.
R
Isnt the HMRC rate now 45p per mile. The cost of the extra insurance should be covered by an expense claim, for using the car on company business, at 40p per mile as allowed by HMRC (this may have gone up recently).
The alternative is to use public transport and claim back the expense. I can see whay this is likely to be less attractive.
R
Our company went even further to log everything electronically and for you to take a online assesment. If you failed the assesment then you cant drive on company business.
buzzer said:
My wife is the head at a primary School. Health and Safety have been in and told her that as staff use their cars for going on courses, she must inspect the insurance document, MoT, make sure their cars are taxed, and inspect their licences. they said she must see the documents and keep a record of the document numbers.
As you can imagine this is a big piece of work, and will also be ongoing as people renew insurance, change cars, get MoTs ECT...
Does she have to do this?
What is normally required is that a risk assessment is conducted for staff on duty who drive to places that are not their usual places of work (i.e. commuting does not fall under this HSE guidance).As you can imagine this is a big piece of work, and will also be ongoing as people renew insurance, change cars, get MoTs ECT...
Does she have to do this?
The risk assessment would normally guide the employer on what actions to take. If checking the MOT certificates of employees fell out of that risk assessment, then of course that would form part of your action plan.
Usually, these sorts of risk assessments would require you to confirm the employee had business travel insurance, that they do not talk on the telephone and you may offer them annual road safety briefings, particularly on the risks of driving in hazardous conditions. It could be that there are particular hazards related to your specific location, or where you send your staff (steep hills, crossing Fords, publicised blackspots etc), so you may have to give specific guidance.
If the guidance she has received was from the HSE then there would usually be a justification provided for such recommendations. If it was from another organisation, such as the LA, then it may be a local requirement.
Guidance here: http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg382.pdf
ks,This simple check has thrown up some people driving every day to work who did not have a licence, we also discovered an employee with company car who had been disqualified ( drink driving) but not informed the HR Dept, he was the HR manager! Main problem is with the employees insurance not covered for business use, that's OK unless it's your car they hit and their insurance is invalid.
H& S gone mad is often down to insurance companies looking for loopholes and reasons not to pay out, an employer has to take " reasonable steps" to ensure that their employees are safe.
Usually check docs when starting or just once then put the onus onto employee to advise of changes in writing.
H& S gone mad is often down to insurance companies looking for loopholes and reasons not to pay out, an employer has to take " reasonable steps" to ensure that their employees are safe.
Usually check docs when starting or just once then put the onus onto employee to advise of changes in writing.
As above - when faced with something similar I told them to "F-R-O". A car should be illegal to use without licence, MOT, (business-valid) insurance, etc. Ergo, they either take that as read that it is done and absolve further responsibility, or hire a car for her every time she needs to go somewhere other than normal place of work.
Buffalo said:
they either take that as read that it is done and absolve further responsibility,
It's not the employers choice to decide if it's their responsibility. As above they could be looking at corporate manslaughter if an employee is killed driving a car on company time. So making sure the paperwork is in order and that their drivers are "legal" doesn't seem silly. Just good practice.Munter said:
Buffalo said:
they either take that as read that it is done and absolve further responsibility,
It's not the employers choice to decide if it's their responsibility. As above they could be looking at corporate manslaughter if an employee is killed driving a car on company time. So making sure the paperwork is in order and that their drivers are "legal" doesn't seem silly. Just good practice.It's amazing what some people get so upset about.
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