A large number of companies throughout different sectors of the transport industry have all been working towards FORS accreditation over the last few years. However, there are a considerable number of these companies that fall at the first hurdle and initially fail their FORS Bronze audit. Therefore, we thought it would be appropriate to look at some of the most common reasons for companies failing their Bronze audit in order to help you prepare for yours.
Whether you are a company that is newly going through the audit process or you are being re-audited for approval it is always worth having a few tips to help you pass. Please note that these reasons are not in any particular order, we just want to provide you with information to help you pass your audit!
The first reason for companies not passing their audit was failure to provide one or more of the FORS documentation policies and procedures that are required, you would think that this would be a fairly straightforward step. However, when you are working through and completing 17 different documents this can become a bit confusing and often sections are missed. You can use the FORS M1 checklist to ensure that you have covered all of the required policies and procedures before your audit.
The second reason; failure to provide evidence of all eight mandatory health and safety assessment checks, all workplaces should have health and safety guides in places for staff to readily access and abide by. Likewise, the FORS documentation, you can also use the FORS M8 checklist to ensure that you have covered everything that is required for this section. Similarly, companies must adhere to the health and eyesight requirements outlined by FORS. A recognised policy must be put into place that meets the FORS criteria, recording the testing date and test results at a maximum of six-month intervals.
Professional development is also a key element of FORS accreditation, this comes in two stages which are initial required training as well as failure to produce a professional development plan for the staff. It is not as simple as just meeting with people to discuss what they would like to improve on, all progression completed will need to be recorded on the FORS training dashboard ensuring all employee names are uploaded. The most important thing to ensure when completing this step is to provide accurate up-to date training records and ensuring all staff have completed the mandatory requirements prior to upload.
You would like to think that this final point companies fail on would not happen; however, serviceability and roadworthiness can be a common reason for failure. So, what exactly does this mean? Well in short it means that vehicles and trailers are not being maintained in a serviceable and roadworthy condition in accordance with their O license or manufacturers guidelines. There are other reasons that companies can fail for this category though which include failure to provide inspection and maintenance plans that include the previous 15 months as well as a next 6 month forecast.
Comply with these steps and follow the guidelines thoroughly and you should have no problems passing your FORS Bronze audit, where possible use their guides and information that are provided to ensure that nothing is missed when you proceed to be audited. If you are missing any information or don’t have enough history to provide the required documents then we would recommend that you wait before having your audit.