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Travel plan: in a series of new articles, fleet experts sounds of about the latest issues to hit the industry …

Neil McCrossan

The Corporate Manslaughter Bill is expected to become law in the next 18 months, which means businesses need to ensure they are meeting their obligations and providing safe and reliable business transport solutions for their staff.

The new Bill will mean employers are directly responsible for ensuring that any vehicle used for business purposes is roadworthy. However, in a recent survey conducted by National Car Rental among SMEs, over 50% of the companies said they do not have a travel policy in place With an estimated third of all road accidents per year involving someone driving for work SMEs need to take a serious look at their business travel policy.

Current legislation is placing more and more focus on health and safety, requiring companies to consider the human cost as well as looking after their budgets.

Our survey reinforces the issue that businesses could be in serious jeopardy if the government's new Corporate Manslaughter Bill is passed. Over half of the 400 companies who took part in our survey rely on staff using their own vehicles for business travel, with 32% of companies providing 'cash for car' schemes.

On the face of it offering cash for cars may appear a simple and cost-effective transport solution for companies, but it could prove to be more costly than they may realise.

When the Bill is passed as law, senior staff members within a company could be held liable for an employee's death if it is proved that they have grossly failed to take reasonable care of that employee. This means employers will be directly responsible for ensuring private and pool car vehicles are roadworthy and covered by the right insurance all this will take time to implement and monitor.

Add to this the fact that staff may not be the most diligent car owners when it comes to getting their vehicle serviced or ensuring regular maintained checks are conducted. In fact, worryingly, our survey revealed 62% of employers that offer cash for car' schemes are not ensuring that regular maintenance checks are carried out on employees' vehicles Of these. 33% confirmed the company did not check insurance documentation and 21% didn't even check the employee's driving licence.

In addition, when staff use their own vehicle or a pool car for business it is hard to monitor mileage and ensure they don't embark on too many long journeys in a short period of time. Nearly all the companies we surveyed confirmed that they do not limit the amount of miles driven by staff in a working week, raising concerns that the further staff drive, the greater the impact on their health and their potential to have an accident.

So how can companies with little time to spend on managing transport for staff keep costs down and still meet their 'Duty of Care' responsibilities?

One solution is vehicle rental This gives staff access to quality vehicles that are usually less than 6 months old with 24-hour roadside assistance and coverage under their company's own insurance. Whether it's short-term daily rental for one day, up to a month or longer-term for as long as six months, rental offers an immediate and highly flexible solution to businesses that can either work alongside longer-term leasing and contract hire or as the sole transport solution for a business.

But it's not just the provision of vehicles that support duty of care. From the start of the reservation with automated mandating of reservations in line with company transport policies, through to online MI which records mileage incurred, businesses can ensure they are in control of the vehicles being booked and used by employees.

Of course, using rental vehicles also gets over the problem of the company and its employee having differing perceptions about the safety of a private vehicle.

For those businesses that want the 'comfort factor' of knowing that there is a car in the car park ready and waiting to go, 'ready to go' pool cars can be provided by rental provider, should the need arise. We carry out all the maintenance work, including servicing and valeting, checking the cars on a weekly basis to ensure they are in good order.

This means that rather than a fixed fleet of pool cars, the company can chop and change the size of the fleet and the vehicle groups according to the demands of the business, making it much more flexible than a traditional pool fleet.

Taking this a step further, telematics, operated in conjunction with a car rental company, can provide a highly cost-effective and tightly managed real alternative to the old-fashioned pool fleet.

The sheer fact that daily rental is so flexible makes it a very viable and necessary solution for businesses that need to get their staff out on the road in the knowledge that they are in safe, reliable vehicles. This solution in combination with the provision of safe driving skills will ensure a business is supporting its duty of care responsibilities.

Neil McCrossan, vice president--commercial development for National Car Rental, highlights worrying findings from the company's latest survey and urges SMEs to review their business travel policies

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