My company has now decieded to use an outside company to check our driving licences, chalcheck ltd.
We have to sign a form giving chalcheck permission to access our DVLA records, except medical stuff.
Must admit, i’m a bit worried about an outside company having access to my driver records at the DVLA, just in case the details get sold of to some african fraudster!
Ive done a quick search on chalcheck, and must admit, I can’t find anything bad.
What do you reckon?
The company will have had to pass stringent data protection requirements and also handed over a nice sum of money to get setup to obtain data from DVLA. I looked into doing it and it aint cheap. The IT that is needed isn’t insignificant.
If by some chance they don’t abide by the data protection rules they will end up in some kind of hot water. I doubt they will be cowboys. Apart from which - the data isn’t all that sensitive is it?
However - your company can probably save money by doing this directly with DVLA. I have set this up for a haulage company before. They have an account with DVLA. All they do is get the driver to sign the mandate (same one as you will have signed). They then post this to DVLA who by return send the drivers record including DCPC records. the company can then do this as often as they like within the 3 year authorisation period of the mandate.
Each check only costs £5. I would imagine this Calcheck people are charging more than that.
Seems ok to me , better than taking all your stuff in the office to be photocopied every now and again. Our firm have just gone over to using chalcheck.(go ahead group). Are you on the buses as well?
dilbert:
Seems ok to me , better than taking all your stuff in the office to be photocopied every now and again. Our firm have just gone over to using chalcheck.(go ahead group). Are you on the buses as well?
Yep, bus driver for go ahead.
I know of a company, who shall remain nameless, for obvious reasons, who were all set to use this Chalcheck outfit.
Rapid u-turn when they realised how much they would have to shell out per annum. 
I thought it was very easy for companies to get info from the DVLA anyway. The last couple of times I signed up with a new agency they were able to get my details checked over the phone - I just had to tell the person on the other end that it was ok to do so, but I could have been anybody - think they only ask postcode & d.o.b. which is easy enough to get.
Same here Tallyman. Agency woman talks to person at DVLA, passes phone over to you, person at DVLA asks you a couple of security questions and your permission to tell agency woman, pass phone back and DVLA give agency woman the info.
If you set it up with DVLA for direct checks via mandates there’s no need for waiting on the phone or to have the driver present. Plus the details arrive in printed format - therefore no missunderstandings etc
Even with a missing licence the written details can be filed. Much better.
You wouldn’t believe the lengths some drivers go to to keep driving even when they’ve been disqualified. Can’t beat having a regular copy of the DVLA records.