Though revoking the two-vehicle national O-Licence held by Rhos on Sea-based David McAulay, trading as Teithio Seren, Traffic Commissioner (TC) Victoria Davies has granted a new international O-Licence to GM Buses Ltd, of which Mr McAulay is the sole director, subject to a number of undertakings.
In her decision, the TC said that the nominated maintenance contractor was not being used. Mr McAulay had failed to observe the rules on drivers’ hours and tachographs and keeping proper records and the undertaking to keep records for 15 months of driver defect reports, safety inspections and routine maintenance, and make them available on request.
Although the O-Licence was granted in June 2023, Mr McAulay did not start operating until the end of August 2023. The majority of work conducted was rail replacement and he had also taken on some school contracts at the time of the DVSA assessment in March.
Although former Transport Manager (TM) Kevin Bryant had sought to introduce systems for recording all work done and had advocated that drivers should use their driver cards for all driving whether that driving was done in reliance on the exemption from EU and AETR drivers’ hours legislation or not, Mr McAulay did not accept that advice.
There were ineffective analysis and record keeping procedures in place to detect drivers’ hours and working time infringements and insufficient procedures in place to ensure appropriate use of tachograph or manual records by drivers.
The loose arrangements involving other operators’ vehicles and control of drivers — with drivers allowed to use vehicles for personal use and a lack of any formal arrangement — contributed to the ineffective management control which resulted in the compliance failings.
On the positive side, there have been no S-marked prohibitions, and no road safety critical defects found. There have been no previous unsatisfactory DVSA reports, although the licence has only been in force for a year, and not in fact operated for a significant proportion of that time.
Mr McAulay had now stopped operating and sought to surrender his existing licence. However, in view of the adverse findings, that surrender request was refused. TC Davies did not make a finding that David McAulay had lost his good repute, although she found it tarnished.
In granting the subsequent O-Licence application, the TC accepted undertakings in relation to record keeping, that driving would always be done using a driver card, and that a future independent audit of the company’s systems would be conducted.
She took into account that Mr McAulay was booked to attend an O-Licence awareness training course and was satisfied on the evidence from Colin Criddle, the proposed TM, that he would be able to continuously and effectively carry out the responsibilities of TM on the company licence.
