The Vehicle Drivers (Certificates of Professional Competence) (Amendment) Regulations 2014

Prospective

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the Vehicle Drivers (Certificates of Professional Competence) Regulations 2007 (the “2007 Regulations”) to implement the amendments made to Council Directive 2003/59/EC on the initial qualification and periodic training of drivers of certain road vehicles for the carriage of goods or passengers by Council Directive 2013/22/EU adapting certain directives in the field of transport policy by reason of the accession of the Republic of Croatia. There are also amendments made to the 2007 Regulations to amend the identity document requirements for persons attending an initial certificate of professional competence (CPC) test or a periodic training course, and introducing a review and appeals process for Northern Ireland.

Regulation 3(a) replaces the definition of the Directive in order to incorporate the amendments made to the Council Directive 2003/59/EC by Council Directive 2013/22/EU on the accession of Croatia which are inserting Croatia into the list of distinguishing signs of Member States which are printed on the driver qualification card, inserting the Croatian translation of ‘driver qualification card’ printed in blue on the background of the driver qualification card and inserting Croatian into the list of national languages in which a bilingual version of a driver qualification card can be issued.

Regulation 4 amends regulation 5A of the 2007 Regulations to permit a person attending an initial CPC test to use a valid driver card as proof of the person’s identity.

Regulation 5 amends regulation 6 of the 2007 Regulations to change the documents which can be used by a person conducting a periodic training course to satisfy themselves of the identity of a person attending the periodic training course. A person can now produce any one of an appropriate licence, a valid passport, a valid driver card or a valid driver qualification card.

Regulation 6 amends regulation 6A of the 2007 Regulations to clarify that regulation 6A only applies to appeals of decisions made by the competent authority for Great Britain.

Regulation 7 introduces a review and appeal process for persons who are aggrieved by decisions made by the competent authority in relation to Northern Ireland not to approve a person to provide a periodic training course, not to approve a periodic training course, to withdraw or suspect an approval or not to approve a training course. The competent authority may grant, refuse, withdraw, suspend or continue an approval and must give notice in writing of the review decision and the particulars for its decision within 56 days from the date of application. If a person is aggrieved by the review decision they can appeal to a court of summary jurisdiction.

An Impact Assessment has not been produced for this instrument as no impact on the private or voluntary sectors is foreseen. An Explanatory Memorandum is published alongside the instrument on www.legislation.gov.uk.

It is normal practice to make available to Parliament, alongside primary or secondary legislation giving effect to European Directives, a Transposition Note that sets out how the Government will transpose the main elements of those Directives into UK law. However, in the present case a Transposition Note has not been made available. This is because, in the Government’s view, the resources required to produce a Transposition Note are significantly greater than can be justified by the resulting added benefit to the reader.

Copies of the Council Directives referred to above can be found at http://eur-lex.europa.eu .