I organise transport for our HGV we operate on a restricted license as we only haul our own goods. Recently my MD (also O-license holder) has asked me to look at costs to haul crates of bricks for our parent company which we will be storing in our yard. My understanding is as the O-license is in our company name and not the company groups name i see this as a breach of license as technically this is not our material if its owned by our parent company. Could you fine folks please clarify this prior to me approaching the MD.
If it would be a breach would it be an option to have the O-license changed over into the groups name their by allowing us to haul all goods from all our companies whilst maintaining a restricted license or would we need to be looking at changing over to a standard license.
There is some amount of grey area around restricted O licencing and you may receive differing views, but I would say that you are correct in that this would be a breach of your licence. We probably need a bit more info but I don’t think you could get your O licence changed into a different company’s name, it’s either a fresh application from scratch or an upgrade of your licence to Standard National.
Pages 7 and 8 refer to restricted O licences. You are probably going to have to contact the TC. Your own assessment of the ownership of the goods seems correct, but there is a mention of carrying 'Holding Company’s goods. If the accounts can be shown to prove that there is any movement of ‘wooden dollars’ between the holding company and the subsidiary then that could be construed as hire and reward. If the accounts merely show costs attributable to holding company deliveries then you may be OK. Charges for the storage and handling of the bricks could be interpreted that the goods are not ‘yours’. You will need to clarify the position of this with the TC.
You will not be able to transfer the licence to the parent company, that will be a new application for each traffic area in their name.
If both companies hold restricted licences it is technically fine, although they may officially advise otherwise.
This is the case because whichever goods are loaded an operator’s licence is in force. You could go through the charade of putting vehicles on and off the respective licences with self-service and there would be nothing they could do to prevent it but in reality it’s probably not worth it and as long as there is a disk in the windscreen, of some sort, with restricted licences I very much doubt they’d be bothered, in any case you definitely don’t need a standard licence. In theory if one of your wagons exclusively hauled bricks for more than month you should transfer it over with online self service.
Also in theory it ought to be accounted for as ‘cost centres’ but again I very much doubt they’d ever give a crap. You may need to increase the margin on the holding company’s licence is the only thing. Payment could always just be made as a one off annual generic ‘investment’ from the parent company.
Thanks for the replies, apologies for late reply i’m just getting back on to this one. I did come across this extract in Vosa’s ‘Goods Vehicle Operator Licensing Guide for Operators’ which kinds of leans me towards it being ok in part. What would your opinions be on this? The way i understand the extract we would be ok to pick the goods up from the docks and bring back to our yard for storage but may have issues in actually delivering the goods to a customer for our parent company as that could be considered as hire and reward.
‘Take note: The carriage of goods for a subsidiary, sistersubsidiary or a holding company is also permitted under a restricted licence, but you must not carry goods for any other organisations for hire or reward. If you do, you could be fined or even lose your licence.’
junkie_ball:
Thanks for the replies, apologies for late reply i’m just getting back on to this one. I did come across this extract in Vosa’s ‘Goods Vehicle Operator Licensing Guide for Operators’ which kinds of leans me towards it being ok in part. What would your opinions be on this? The way i understand the extract we would be ok to pick the goods up from the docks and bring back to our yard for storage but may have issues in actually delivering the goods to a customer for our parent company as that could be considered as hire and reward.
‘Take note: The carriage of goods for a subsidiary, sistersubsidiary or a holding company is also permitted under a restricted licence, but you must not carry goods for any other organisations for hire or reward. If you do, you could be fined or even lose your licence.’
That will be referring to only one of the sister companies having a restricted. In your case, as I understand it, both hold their own restricted licences so it is totally fine the goods are always covered by a licence.
It’s going to be fairly clear to VOSA what is and isn’t a hire and reward operation they are even ok with doing one off favours for a mates business. If though you were getting the odd random return load, or something like that, off a freight exchange website then that would be a totally different kettle of fish.
Own Account Driver:
That will be referring to only one of the sister companies having a restricted. In your case, as I understand it, both hold their own restricted licences so it is totally fine the goods are always covered by a licence.
It’s going to be fairly clear to VOSA what is and isn’t a hire and reward operation they are even ok with doing one off favours for a mates business. If though you were getting the odd random return load, or something like that, off a freight exchange website then that would be a totally different kettle of fish.
Not sure I clarified this but our sister companies and holding group do not have a operators license only the company i work for. The other companies within our group are basically call centres that just buy other companies goods and then sale for a small mark up and then they normally get the goods delivered from the originator to the end customer direct on the originators haulage or an external haulier. Our company is the only manufacturing company within the group so the only one that operates a HGV.
Along side this post i have also contacted the TC directly to try and clarify what will and won’t be covered under our restricted o-license in this scenario. Once they get back to me i will post the reply here just in case it’s useful for anyone else.
It is perfectly legal on a restriceted O Licence to carry a sibling companys goods, there is a clause in the rules that allows it.
We regularly carry our sister companys products on our vehicles as we have customers in common that take products from both companys.
The term “own account” is essentially
described in European legislation as where:
the goods carried are the property of
the undertaking or have been sold,
bought, let out on hire or hired, produced,
extracted, processed or repaired by it;
the purpose of the journey is to carry the
goods to or from the undertaking or to
move them for its own requirements;
vehicles are driven by personnel
employed by, or put at the disposal of, the
undertaking under a contractual obligation;
the vehicles carrying the goods are
owned by the undertaking, have been
bought by it on deferred terms or have been
hired in line with European legislation; and
the carriage is no more than ancillary to
the overall activities of the undertaking.
Take note:
The carriage of
goods for a subsidiary, sister-
subsidiary or a holding company
is also permitted under a
restricted licence, but you must not carry
goods for any other organisations for hire or
reward. If you do, you could be fined or even
lose your licence.