With gaps starting to appear on supermarket shelves and warnings of supply issues this Christmas, the UK’s businesses and consumers are feeling the effects of the driver shortage. DigiHaul’s Head of Sales, Matt Garland, looks at how the crisis came about and what can be done to fix it.
The estimated shortage of 100,000 HGV drivers in the UK has been widely reported over recent weeks. Unfortunately there isn’t a quick fix and the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better.
This current crisis highlights Digihaul’s mission to significantly reduce the huge and inefficient gaps in the way the haulage industry operates: consistent empty running (stuck at 20% for many years), large amounts of time-consuming manual tasks and lots of paper! All these factors clearly demonstrate why we are on a mission to digitalise the UK haulage market.
What’s caused the driver crisis?
In previous years we’ve had a shortage of 30,000–40,000 and have always managed to get by, but a perfect storm of multiple issues has compounded the problem and brings us to where we are today.
The long-term causes are those same ones that come up year on year and we have to look at ourselves as an industry as to why we haven’t managed to solve these:
- An inability to attract young drivers into the industry
The average age of an HGV driver in the UK is 55 - Poor working conditions and facilities
There aren’t enough truck stops in the UK and the facilities are generally rated poorly by drivers - The time and cost of the Driver CPC
In result this is putting off a semi-retired workforce from coming back during peak periods. - The cost of training
A HGV training and test costs around £5,000; add in living costs whilst doing the training and it’s hardly an attractive or affordable career option for many people.
Added to these issues are more recent circumstances:
- There is no doubt we have lost many thousands of EU drivers due to Brexit. It’s difficult to put a number on how many returned home as a direct result of Brexit as many also returned due to the pandemic. However, the fact it is now harder for them to work here is clearly a barrier to them returning
- DVSA HGV test backlog – 40,000 tests were cancelled due to the pandemic
- IR35 has made it financially unviable for agencies to place drivers, significantly reducing the pool of numbers they are able to supply the industry.
What can be done?
Firstly I have to say I have been bitterly disappointed in the government’s slowness to act on industry advice and allowing politics to get in the way of taking effective action.
The one simple quick and easy thing I believe they could – and should – do to support the industry is to place HGV drivers on the Shortage Occupation List.
What they did do was put a temporary increase on driving hours, which in my view is just plain dangerous. Thankfully most companies I know are not placing that burden on their drivers, precisely because it is dangerous.
So what are the options on solving the long and short term issues?
An inability to attract young drivers into the industry
The problem
With annual salaries for HGV drivers now standing at between £35,000 and £50,000 the money should be attractive to young people. But both the industry and the government need to help further to remove the barriers of high insurance costs for under 25s and be more flexible with the ‘2 years’ experience required’ that is commonly seen on job adverts.
The solution
I’d like to see the government and Department for Transport revisit the Young Driver Scheme that was superseded by the driver CPC. The government-funded scheme allowed companies to employ and train drivers from the age of 18 to achieve their category C and E licence before their 21st birthdays. In turn, companies would be entitled to insurance premium reductions, removing another hurdle and obstacle to bringing on young drivers.
Poor working conditions and facilities
The problem
Since 2017 any driver taking their regular weekly rest break in their cab must do so in a designated rest area, i.e. at a services or a truck stop. We don’t have enough of these in the UK and many of them do not offer 24/7 security, which means they present a risk to the driver.
Drivers also need clean washing, shower and toilet facilities, which again are often lacking or in poor condition at many locations. There is also a lack of parking spaces for trucks at most services. Unlike in Europe where overnight stays are free, the UK charges up to £30 per night.
The solution
I think the answer to this problem needs to come from the private sector investment. The government can help here by looking at ways to incentivise private investment in improved facilities, increased parking and encouraging services to invest in 24/7 security to protect drivers.
The government have recently committed in an open letter to the industry to support more parking spaces for trucks, which is welcome, and I look forward to hearing more details on this.
Driver CPC (Certificate of Professional Competence)
The problem
I’m fully supportive of focusing on health and safety, especially in an industry involving 44-tonne vehicles. However, the introduction of the Driver CPC has in my view not been an overwhelming success, and has ended up adding another barrier in time and costs for drivers looking to return to the industry. The primary goal of its introduction was to improve road safety across Europe by making it a requirement for drivers to do 35 hours of training every five years.
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency produced a report to see how effective its introduction had been and to whether it was achieving its goals. The results were underwhelming: only 9.5% of industry experts believed it had significantly improved safety on European roads, whilst 43.9% felt it had marginally improved it and 46.7% felt it had made no difference at all.
It was also possible to take the same module multiple times and the quality of courses has been criticised. I personally attended a classroom session following feedback from my drivers and was shocked to find a large part of the lesson was on getting in and out the cab. I’m not marginalising the importance of basic health and safety, but if semi-retired drivers with many years’ experience looking to come back into the industry have to pay to update their CPC to find themselves being told how to get in the cab, it should come as little surprise many of them have been put off.
On the other hand I did also witness an outstanding module for my drivers in London on cycle safety, which saw 20 of them set off round London on bicycles. The feedback was excellent and I had no doubt it had been a useful exercise.
Ultimately the evidence for CPC benefits is sketchy and inconclusive, the 35 hours of training can be done all in the first or last of the five years and it presents a real barrier that has cut off semi-retired drivers from returning to the industry.
The solution
I am in full agreement on the value of relevant and regular training as opposed to scrapping it altogether, however it needs to be more structured and at regular intervals. There also needs to be more government support for drivers wishing to return, and more trust in companies’ assessment procedures when employing a new driver.
