Good morning, and welcome to TEG Transport Insights.
Even on good days, road transport planners have lots to worry about. Trucks break down, drivers fall ill, and customers have a pesky habit of demanding their freight arrives on time. And now there’s another headache in the mix: as of 1st October, 3PLs may need to check their subcontractors have the legal right to work in the UK.
The right to work has, of course, long been a requirement for anyone working in Britain. From this month, though, right-to-work checks are no longer the responsibility of employers only. In some cases, responsibilities can lie with partners, too. Penalties can reach £45,000 per worker, rising to £60,000 for repeat offences. That’s a lot to pay for one load.
Fortunately, there are ways to protect your business. The new rules provide for a “statutory excuse”. In plain speak, that’s possible protection if sufficient safeguards are in place. For businesses that subcontract, safeguards might include contractual terms, controls over further subcontracting, and processes to verify that the person doing the work is the person whose right to work was checked in the first place.
Businesses scurrying to update contracts, however, should take care: fancy contractual clauses may be of little protection should they be no more than lip service.
Setting aside the new bureaucratic burden, the change also raises questions about transport capacity. Will the rules reduce the volume of capacity available? Will they make 3PLs hesitant to use external carriers, promoting even more dead mileage?
Digital technologies seem like the ready-made solution. TEG’s Trustd partnership ensures TEG drivers have passed right-to-work checks, for example, and you can use the tech to complete right-to-work checks on your existing subbies, too. So now, as well as helping you source carriers, TEG can remove the headache that comes with RTW verification. It really is built for enterprise 3PLs.
Will the new rules change your approach to sourcing capacity? Let us know in the poll below.
Last month’s poll asked how you prepare for demand surges. Some said they have spare trucks, while some said they’ve cross-trained staff. And of course, some said they source capacity using platforms like TEG. There were no right answers. But if you ask me, that last one was best.
