The Freight Transport Association (FTA) has welcomed the Department for Transport’s (DfT) consultation response on changes to the operator licensing regulations, which aim to avoid imposing unnecessary burdens on industry.

Following consultation with FTA, most operators in the UK will not notice a difference to their O-licence obligations. However, ’hire and reward’ operators of certain small vehicle and trailer combinations will notice the changes, along with operators using non-employed consultant transport managers and individuals in the process of obtaining transport manager CPCs or alternative qualifications or those with grandfather rights.

James Firth, FTA’s Head of Road Freight and Enforcement Policy said, “Broadly speaking these changes export UK best practice to the rest of Europe, which is good news for most of our operators who won’t see any real changes and which will hopefully up the standards in the rest of Europe. The DfT deserves credit for listening to industry and being pragmatic enough to minimise the potential burden of wholesale changes to our industry."  He concluded, “FTA will work closely with the Office of the Traffic Commissioners to ensure the practicalities of the changes are as straightforward as possible.”

Harmonised licensing rules for international operators and transport managers will be introduced on 4 December, 2011. Key changes are the introduction of a pan-European database, merging of National and International Transport Manager CPCs, and restrictions on part-time transport managers.