Fleet Live: New tax rules will impact your temporary drivers

Commercial vehicle driver sitting in his cab

Fleets will face increased temporary driver recruitment costs of up to 30% when new HMRC IR35 tax rules come into force for the private sector in April 2020.

Companies with more than 50 employees and an annual turnover in excess of £10.2 million will be required by HMRC to assess the employment status of any contractor they use.

This bring such matters in line with the public sector, which has been operating under the same rules since 2017.

IR35 has been designed by HMRC to make sure companies are paying employee taxes and not avoiding doing so by using self-employed contractors.

Kieran Smith, Driver Require chief executive, will be speaking at Fleet Live 2019 on the impact of IR35 and other challenges facing driver recruitment at one of our fleet operations seminars (more details on the seminars below).

His company predicts that maintaining driver pay, including agency margins, tax and National Insurance contributions will raise the cost of temporary drivers to businesses by around 20% and up to 30% for large volume contracts.

Smith’s session will set the scene to discuss driver shortages in the UK, how the industry can resolve the issue and how Brexit could exacerbate shortages and bring things to a crisis point.

Martin Colloff, Hermes UK head of client and network distribution, will also discuss driver recruitment with an in-depth session on the challenges facing recruiting and retaining drivers in the commercial fleet sector.

This will include an overview of Hermes’ heavy goods vehicle recruitment initiative and how the industry can attract more women to consider a career as a driver. Smith said IR35 will force agency drivers currently operating as Ltd company contractors to move to PAYE (Pay As You Earn).

“The increase in margins and shift from large volume, lower-variable contracts to lower volume, high-variability contracts means most agency contract charge rates will rise.

“It’s not going to be easy for either fleet operators or agencies to absorb these extra costs,” he said.

Smith is concerned hauliers will be tempted to unlawfully continue using limited company contractors, supplied by disreputable agencies who are willing to take the risk to avoid the new tax rules.

He said: “This will undermine ethical operators and agencies.”

Fleet operations seminars at Fleet Live 2019: sessions and speakers overview

When: Tuesday October 8

11.00 Great ideas for a safer fleet

Caroline Sandall, ACFO national chair

Dr Jim Golby, ADT (Applied Driving Techniques) director of research and customer experience

John Newman, Jacobs head of health and safety

This session will give a case study from a fleet safety pioneer on the steps it took to improve safety and reduce risk.

Those attending will come away with practical solutions they can implement in their own businesses.

11.00 Driver recruitment and retention in commercial fleets

Martin Colloff, Hermes UK head of client and network distribution

Kieran Smith, Driver Require chief executive

Kieran Smith will discuss driver shortages in the industry, how the industry can resolve the issue and how Brexit could exacerbate shortages and bring the UK to a crisis point.

Martin Colloff, of Hermes UK, will talk about the challenges facing recruiting and retaining drivers in the commercial fleet industry.

This will include an overview of Hermes’ heavy goods vehicle recruitment initiative.

This session will also explore how fleet can persuade more women to consider professional driving as a career.

14.00 How to use your data to improve your fleet efficiency

Rory Morgan, Iron Mountain head of fleet

Caroline Sandall, ACFO national chair Make big data work for your fleet

The industry must change from a rear-view mirror perspective to using data to predict the future and be more pre-emptive.

This session will explore how to bring together multiple sources of fleet data from telematics, fuel cards, connected cars and licence checks to help reduce costs and improve efficiency.

It will also explore how fleets can use e-learning to store driver data and create safety profiles, as well as how fleets can use technology to manage fuel and reassess vehicle utilisation and productivity.

14.00 Driver wellbeing: identify the signs of stress and fatigue and create a culture of support

Andrew Brown, CALM corporate partnerships director

Andy Neale, director of driver risk management company NFE Group

Andrew Brown from CALM (the Campaign Against Living Miserably) will put into perspective the scale of the problem of suicide in the UK, why fleets should take this issue seriously and what they can do to address it.

There will also be a case study from Andy Neale, of the NFE Group, on how to implement a supportive culture at work.

When: Wednesday October 9

11.00 Collaborative supplier partnerships that add value

James Davis, Cox Automotive UK customer strategy and insight director (Commercial Vehicles)

Steve Duffy, Network Rail senior delivery manager

Matt Cranny, ARI Fleet UK operations director

Phil Corbett, Travis Perkins procurement manager

This session will offer best practice on the tender process and how to remain collaborative with suppliers when there is pressure on the business to change suppliers to maintain the best value for money.

It will also explore how you can look for continuous improvement over a long-term supplier relationship.

11.00 Fleet utilisation and minimising vehicle downtime

Mark Woodworth, Speedy Hire head of transport

Pressure on fleet budgets and a desire to optimise vehicle utilisation has led to an increasing focus on making vehicles work longer, harder and smarter.

This session will focus on an expert case study from an award-winning fleet that has tackled fleet utilisation and vehicle downtime to deliver tangible improvements for the company.

14.00 Telematics: How to convince the board to invest

Michal Szuminski, The First Mile transport manager

Peter Kelly, Elis Group compliance and fleet manager

Telematics is an established technology that can offer improvements for efficiency and safety and can save fleets money in fuel and insurance payments.

The stumbling block in introducing the technology, which is now available at a variety of price points, is getting buy-in from the board.

This session will cover how a fleet manager can put the case together that shows the benefits of telematics are worth the investment and management focus.

What are the biggest obstacles and what are the benefits? How should you present your case and get a telematics initiative through from concept to delivery?

14.00 Protecting vulnerable road users

Ross Moorlock, Brake business development director

Protecting vulnerable road users and minimising the chance that their drivers will be involved in a crash are two of the most important steps fleet managers can take towards raising road safety standards.

Just 52% of organisations currently have driver handbooks that include guidance on vulnerable road users.

Brake’s Ross Moorlock will present a session on the responsibilities fleet managers should be aware of and what they can do in their business to raise awareness of the issues among their staff.