Financial standing requirement for hire-and-reward 0-licences increases
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By Christopher Walton '1 ill' MINIMUM financial standing to become a hire-andreward 0-licence holder rose on 1 January by £1,900, with the financial requirement for each additional vehicle rising by £900.
Now, any applicant for, or holder of, an 0-licence operating for hire and reward will have to prove a minimum financial level requirement of £8,100 for the first vehicle on a standard national and standard international licence. Previously, that figure was £6,200, The minimum financial requirement for each additional vehicle has risen to £4,500, from its previous level of £3,400.
However, the financial standing for restricted 0-licences is frozen at £3,100 for the first vehicle and £1,700 for each additional vehicle because the Traffic Commissioners retain the discretion to set the financial levels for restricted g licence holders.
These figures will remain in place until 31 December 2011.
i; Operators will have to prove the new financial levels when making changes on an existing licence or when they appear before the TCs Jack Semple, Road Haulage Association head of policy. says: "We heard
last month from the Chancellor [in his pre
Budget Report] about the cash crisis for SMEs. so this could not have come at a worse time.
"We have expressed our concerns to the Department for Transport (DM. but it has gone ahead because it is an EU requirement," he adds. "We're concerned what this revaluation could do to the industry.
Financial limits for 0-licence holders are set out in EU Directive 96/26/EC at €9,000 (£8,031) for the first vehicle and €5,000 (£4,461) for each subsequent vehicle. For countries not part of the Eurozone.
the Directive requires the limits to be revised every five years using the exchange rate on the first working day of October.
Joan Williams, Freight "Iransport Association (ETA) head of road freight and enforcement policy
says this is "extremely unfortunate that the five-yearly adjustment falls at a time when Sterling is weak-.
She continues: 'This will have an unwelcome impact on not just new applicants, but on all standard and international licence holders.
"They can be called upon by the TCs to provide proof of this financial standing, and operators will be asked to provide this evidence when making a change to an existing licence."
Williams reveals that the Directive will be replaced by a new EU regulation that will become law in 2011. She says it will remove the provision for five-yearly adjustments, replacing it with an annual adjustment based on the exchange rate in October. This means the financial standing rate will be re-set after two years based on the exchange rate 0113 October 2011.
She adds that the ETA has recently urged the DET to review its interpretation of proof of financial standing.