We use a driver on a part time basis who claims to be self employed. Because of this he wont hand his tachos over cause he claims he has the right to keep them cause he’s self employed. However,I always thought the tachos must be returned to his employer(which in this case is us)or the vehicles operating centre. Can anyone shed any light on this cause our boss believes him over us.
He has to hand them over same as the employed drivers. Being self employed is nothing to do with it unless he has his own O Licence and is operating the vehicles under that, which doesn’t seem to be the case in this instance.
Humbug Im afraid.
Who’s got the operators licence? 
The cards have to be returned to the truck operator and kept for examination by police or ministry. Its the same for him as it is for you and me. The driver must carry the cards for the current week and the last day of the previous week as a minimum and no more than 21 days
Self employed, agency or whatever. If the nob needs a record he can photocopy them 
Also if he worked for someone on a monday then someone else on a tuesday an so on,
All his tacho’s should be handed into the person he worked for first that week! not each and every employer, of course each employer must get a copy of the tacho but the drivers responsibiliy is to the 1st employer he worked for on each Week!
not always possible but that is the rules 
This is exactly as I thought. Been trying to tell my employer this but they choose to believe him rather than us.
Forgot to mention,the O-licence is held by our company and the truck is ours.
Yep, I was right on this one. Firms contacted ministry and the tachos have to be handed in to us. We are obliged to give the driver a copy if he so requires for his records.
i would like to clarify something…or to get it clarified…although it does not affect me personally…some time ago i worked for a company who i thought was legit…it was a very large company…but when it came to the tax year and he had to pay…he told the inland revenue that the drivers were self employed…thought he could get away with that one…but although we told him we were employees it was also confirmed by the inland revenue that no driver could be self employed unless the o licence was in his name…so as it stands (i may be corrected) unless you have an operators licence in your name then you cannot be self employed…simple innit…that same fact has also been recently announced within talks for the W.T.D.because a lot of employers thought they could make drivers self employed and extend the w.t.d. to suit themselves…tough luck matey cos it didnt work…so there you have it…
You can still be self employed and not have an O Licence in your name. I did it years ago before I got my O Licence although it’s not so easy now and it is harder to get past the National Insurance people than the tax man. The tax man still gets tax from you either way but the NI misses out on the employer’s contribution. I know of two people who are self employed drivers but don’t have their own O Licence. In effect they have set up their own, one driver, driving agency and they had meetings with both the tax and NI people and were given the OK but this won’t necessarily exempt them from the WTD as it looks like you will need an O Licence for that, among other things.
Coffeeholic:
In effect they have set up their own, one driver, driving agency
That’s interesting, how do you do that then? Any info.