Your Transport Manager and/or Company Directors have certain responsibilities relating to the Operator Licence.

Your Directors should match the list registered with Companies House.

Your Transport Manager(s) and Director(s) must be credible businesspeople that have oversight of the whole business operation including finance, HR, and health & safety.  They will be asked to make various declarations relating to their personal history, including financial circumstances, any previous operator licences held and previous convictions or penalties.

 If there is anything to declare, a text box will be made available for further details to be provided. You need to tell a story in this box explaining the full circumstances surrounding the incident.  For example, if declaring a previous conviction, you need to detail what the conviction was, when it happened, what the circumstances were that led to the conviction and, in most cases, it is appropriate to outline what you have put in place to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.  If a previous operator’s licence was involved, you will need to provide details of the licence affected.  Please note that if you apply for a new licence today and then submit a variation in a years’ time, you will need to make the declaration again (if it is still within the timeframe for declaring).  You cannot assume that the Department already has the information.

There is further information about convictions and penalties here.

 Your Transport Manager

As outlined in a previous post it is not mandatory for restricted licence holders to have a dedicated Transport Manager; a “responsible person” will suffice.  Any standard licence holder (national or international) must have a Transport Manager.  You can start by reading a previous post about the required ‘professional competence’ here.  One of the most important elements of the Transport Manager’s duty is to hold and maintain the Transport Manager CPC qualification.

As part of the application, your Transport Manager will have to advise how many hours they will spend on Transport Manager duties per day.  The Department for Infrastructure has a guideline in a published Guidance Note, which suggests the number of hours, broken down by the number of vehicles.  This guide should help you to ascertain the appropriate number of hours.  By way of example, at the time of publication (November 2022), a company with 2 vehicles or fewer has 8 guideline hours per week and a company with 30 or more vehicles has a guidance to allocate full time hours (plus additional assistance).  These guidance hours do not take trailers into account.

It is essential that your Director(s) and Transport Manager(s) prove and maintain their integrity, and that the named personnel on your licence are kept up-to-date, otherwise your Operator Licence could be put at risk.

If you need expert help with any vehicle operator licence application or variation, please contact John on +44 7894 140796 or info@ajttc.co.uk.