Driver training should be carried out to a national accredited standard, understood by all employers.

Graham Hurdle, managing director of E-Training World said the move could save fleet operators significant amounts of money.

He said that, without an accredited scheme, fleets are wasting thousands of pounds on duplicated risk assessments and training, because they have no ‘official’ evidence under their duty of care obligations that a driver has been assessed and trained to the correct standard.

“If a company vehicle driver is risk assessed and requires driver training the risk assessment data is recorded by his current employer and the driver will receive relevant training.

"With this usually comes some form of certificate of completion,” said Mr Hurdle.

“If they then move jobs to another company, we’re finding that their new employer is following the same process – even though that individual has already been risk assessed and trained.”

Currently, there is no process where previous risk assessment or driver training can be carried forward to a new employer.

“If the Driving Standards Agency set up a process to accredit the training provided by each driver training company, which meant all driver training companies had to have their courses assessed and accredited, this would result in the training investment being genuinely transferable from employer to employer."