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DVSA urges operators to deliver training remotely
Ensuring that HGV drivers continue to receive their periodic training has become more of a challenge recently, with operators needing to balance the need for their drivers to socially distance with their need to stay up to date.
Last week, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) revised its guidance concerning face-to-face Driver Certificate of Professional Competence (DCPC) periodic training and ADR training during the lockdown.
The guidance for England, Wales and Scotland states that employers providing DCPC periodic training should deliver this training remotely wherever possible. The only exception to this is where essential DCPC periodic training can be delivered to employees using the company’s own trainers on their own site. However, employers should not use third-party trainers at their own site or arrange for their employees to be trained at a third-party site.
In terms of ADR training, the guidance is broadly similar. It states that the current qualification extensions to 28 February 2021 will not be extended further, and that while face-to-face training can be delivered by a business’s own employees, it should not be delivered by third-party training providers.
Logistics UK has offered face-to-face classroom training to transport managers and HGV drivers for more than 40 years. However, when the COVID-19 virus started to sweep across the UK last March, classroom training courses were quickly cancelled. Logistics UK’s training division responded by swiftly adapting its Transport Manager CPC, Driver CPC (multiple 7-hr online courses) and CPC refresher course content to be delivered remotely, as well as online dangerous goods training.
Logistics UK’s flagship training course is its Transport Manager CPC. Far from being a standalone e-learning package, it adopts a ‘blended’ approach. Candidates can be self-directed, but there is also an instructor marking the case study responses and providing coaching throughout the course.
In the meantime, Logistics UK will be pressing for a business-led risk-based approach to be adopted by DVSA, as it understands that the guidance in respect of DCPC and ADR are due to be reviewed next week.
*www.logistics.org.uk/training
Published On: 04/02/2021 17:00:58
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