A Bradford based bakery firm has lost its licence to run vehicles after drivers were allowed to fraudulently obtain a mandatory qualification without having undertaken the required training.
Industry regulator, Kevin Rooney, said the actions of local managers at Coultons Bread Limited, which trades as Happy Bread, were inexcusable.
The business, which was created when Happy Bread merged with Liverpool based Coultons Bread in 2007, failed to ensure that drivers were able, legally, to meet a deadline to be CPC qualified by 10 September 2014.
“Having effectively run ‘out of time’, the local management team took the decision to put in place arrangements such that driver qualification cards were issued to the drivers fraudulently, that is to say without the drivers having undertaken the relevant training,” Mr Rooney remarked following a public inquiry in Leeds last month.
This meant drivers for the firm were carrying qualification cards that had been falsely obtained.
The Traffic Commissioner added that the directors of the company had allowed this to happen by having insufficient control over the transport operation at Bradford.
Investigations by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) revealed that a number of drivers working for the company had been issued with driver CPC qualification cards when they had not completed the mandatory 35 hours of training.
DVSA examiners found that three CPC trainers working for another operator, A B F Grain Products Ltd trading as Allied Bakeries, had made false statements in order to obtain driver CPC qualifications for the drivers employed by Coultons Bread. One of the CPC trainers admitted that he had signed 12 certificates to say drivers had undertaken the relevant training, even though he knew they had not done so.
Happy Bread had arranged for their drivers to be trained by A B F Grain Products Ltd.
Subsequent investigations revealed that Coultons Bread were aware that the qualifications had been fraudulently obtained. The drivers also admitted to knowing that they had not completed the required training.
The firm had run out of time for drivers to be qualified by the September 2014 deadline and faced the prospect of not having staff to drive vehicles and make deliveries.
But Mr Rooney said it was unacceptable for a company to put profit before legal requirements.
“Operator licensing concerns itself with fair competition as much as road safety. Compliant operators expect the Traffic Commissioner to take action against an operator who has fraudulently achieved driver qualification cards for the drivers. There has to be a measure of deterrence in my decision.”
The regulator’s order to revoke the licence held by Coultons Bread Ltd, trading as Happy Bread, will take effect on 23:59 on 08 July 2016.
On the operator’s licence held by A B F Grain Products Ltd, trading as Allied Bakeries, the Traffic Commissioner said he was satisfied senior management did not cause the driver assessors to commit the fraud and did not encourage it in anyway. He added that the company was otherwise highly compliant and therefore a formal warning would be recorded on its licence as a result of the actions of the driver assessors, who were convicted for the falsifications.
Why did ABF grains only get a warning when they uploaded and fraudulently authorised the licences. Smacks of one law for the big guys and an example being made for the small firms.