jessejazza:
I have read that it’s a “grey area”. When I did CPC it was not made clear. My understanding was that it was only used when a period of waiting was known about in advance. e.g. One is required to take a truck to the workshop to have work done and wait there. POA does not contribute to working time.I’d be grateful for comments on the following uses.
a) vehicle checks. DVSA expect to see 10-15 mins on working time for vehicle checks before driving off. I’ve had a couple of interviews now and they expect to see the vehicle checks as POA which I don’t agree with. Presumably just to make difference from working time. Of course POA can be ‘working time’ (as one is paid) although not contributing to WTD.
Vehicle Checks as POA, no chance vehicle checks are work therefore should be done as Other Work, I also doubt DVSA would be too impressed if they saw 15 minutes of POA each morning.
Many people have never needed to use a POA’s because they’ll put it on break instead, but if you work for one of those tight arsed companies who don’t pay breaks then POA’s are useful as like break they don’t count towards WTD hours, they also don’t count as break.
jessejazza:
b) Over the last month I have been visiting loading bays. When one goes there one cannot be sure how long they will take e.g for me it’s been 30 mins to 3.5 hours. One can also have a 10-30 min wait in a parking area before being directed to a loading bay. Again a pallet freight hub one can be unloaded in one place and then loaded in another. Certainly neither place can be considered for a break whilst loading as waiting time is so variable. I get a 45 min break in before arriving. But then can be waiting almost four hours and needing a break fairly soon into the return journey. So it would seem an appropriate time to take POA.I would be grateful for some examples of when you use POA? So far b) is the only sort of use for POA in my experience.
This is from Croners.
Although the law states that the driver is not required to remain at his workstation, there are three accepted occasions when a driver can take a PoA, within the cab of the vehicle, providing one of the following criteria can be met.
- It is the choice of the driver to remain within the vehicle.
- The length of the waiting time is known in advance but the driver considers, in the interests of personal safety, that he or she should stay within the cab.
- The length of the waiting time is known in advance but it is considered, for the security of the load, either due to value or load type, that the driver should stay with the vehicle.
As previously stated, for the PoA to be valid, the driver must know of the waiting time before the period of time commences starts, but the driver does not need to be notified specifically. It is enough to know about the waiting time, and its duration, in advance, and therefore the knowledge could be by:
• being told
• arriving early for a timed delivery
• always experiencing a wait at a specific location.
Example 1
A driver arrives at a site where a delay of one hour is normal. However, on this occasion, the delay totals two hours.
The first hour is available as PoA as there is always a delay, and is therefore known. However, as the driver was not notified of the second-hour delay, this one-hour period is classed as “other work” and the crossed hammers mode should be used. Therefore, the first hour is PoA and the second is “other work”.
Example 2
A driver arrives at a site where a delay of one hour is normal. However, on this occasion, either part way through the first hour or at the end of the first hour, the driver is notified of a further delay of one hour.
As both one-hour periods are known and/or notified in advance, the driver can consider both one-hour periods as PoA.
Example 3
The driver arrives at work, but his vehicle is not ready. He is told that he cannot undertake his regular duties for two hours while he waits for the vehicle to become ready. However, after half an hour, the driver is asked to do yard duties for one hour, before waiting again for the final half-hour period.
The driver knows of the delay so the first half an hour is PoA but, when he begins the work in the yard, this is “other work”, which is recorded by the driver as such before returning to PoA for the final half an hour