Throughout the United Kingdom thousands of companies submit their applications for FORS accreditation every year.
Recently FORS release a statement with facts and figures relating to Bronze audit failures by companies in the first half of 2018. As well as this they have also gone into significant detail about why operators do not pass their audits first time, outlining the five major contributors to failure that companies fail to meet regularly.
In the first 6 months of 2018 it has been revealed that 632 new companies submitted their first ever application for FORS Bronze accreditation, out of these new companies seeking accreditation 210 of them failed to meet the standards and as a result were rejected in their first application. There were also a significant number of companies submitting their re-approval audits (1218 companies), most people would consider a re-approval to be straight forward as they would understand the requirements from their initial application. However, 461 companies failed in their initial re-application for FORS Bronze.
So, what happens when a company fails their audit? A procedural follow up audit is conducted, from the subsequent follow up audits for FORS Bronze and re-approval existing members achieved 597 passes.
The top 5 reasons why companies fail their Bronze audit application:
D4 – Professional Development. Failure to provide the required mandatory training courses, or to produce a professional development plan for all transport-related staff.
V9 – Vehicle Manoeuvring. Failure to have policy and appropriate risk assessments in place. Failure to communicate these to relevant staff. Failure to get the transport related workforce to acknowledge receipt of these.
M6 – Document Review. Failure to conduct annual (or sooner if circumstances dictate) review of company policies and procedures and failure to ensure senior management has acknowledged the review and that reviews are cascaded to transport related workforce.
M11 – Tyre & Fuel Management. Failure to have a fuel and tyre management policy in place to manage tyre wear, condition and disposal. Failure to be demonstrate monitoring and fuel consumption management.
V8 – Personal Safety in or Around Vehicles. Failure to have policy and appropriate risk assessments in place. Failure to communicate these to relevant staff. Failure to get the transport related workforce to acknowledge receipt of these.
FORS states that if a company does fail their initial Bronze audit, a follow-up audit will need to be carried out and passed within 30 days. If your company needs help completing their FORS accreditation application we can help you through the process.
We can offer the training required to complete your FORS accreditation as well as providing our valuable experience and advice to guide you through the process from start to finish.