The Standard of Excellence Driver CPC has been introduced by Skills for Logistics in response to a need voiced by employers and providers to showcase excellent training provision.
The Standard’s aim is to recognise and celebrate providers who consistently deliver high quality training and provide a mechanism to help employers locate and access this excellent training provision. It has been developed by Skills for Logistics following extensive consultation with key logistics employers. They identified five key metrics based on high quality training and business benefit: trainer quality; course preparation and delivery; learning resources and environment; pre-and post-training delivery and a commitment to excellence.
Norbert Dentressangle was among the first companies to be endorsed. The supply chain management specialist employs 14,700 staff, has 195 sites covering 3,500,000 square metres and operates 1700 vehicles In the UK.
In addition to a complete range of bespoke logistics and freight forwarding solutions, Norbert Dentressangle operates the UK’s largest owned, fully ADR (International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road) network and offers a comprehensive range of transport services, including UK next-day pallet distribution, dedicated distribution, international full load and palletised deliveries, bulk (powder and liquid), intermodal, 4PL transport organisation and specialist 2-man delivery.
This major logistics operator employs about 2500 drivers within the area of responsibility of Eddie Simcox, National Operations Training Manager at Norbert Dentressangle Logistics, who is tasked with delivering Driver CPC to all his drivers.
Norbert Dentressangle’s training operation has been JAUPT accredited since 2010. All of its training programmes are delivered in house and, with drivers across the length and breadth of the UK, it uses facilities at the company’s different sites. We asked Eddie:
What makes Norbert Dentressangle’s training excellent?
“We have more stringent criteria than the standard. We bespoke our training to the needs of our business, so rather than take an ‘off-the-shelf’ training package, we engage with our transport managers across the business and with our compliance managers to understand the root of any issues that we may have. We then provide the training to ensure that we can tackle those areas.”
What made you apply for the Standard of Excellence?
“It is important to us to get external recognistion of the quality of our training. Any feedback that we get from our drivers will not be independent. We want external verification of what we do for feedback on whether our training is good, bad, indifferent or excellent. We are, of course, audited by JAUPT to ensure that we meet the Driver CPC standards set out by the EU. The focus of the JAUPT audit, however, is on compliance with requirements rather than whether or not our training is delivered to an excellent quality.”
How did you find the process?
“It was a straight forward process. The Standard of Excellence auditors simply arrived at one of our courses to carry out the audit.”
How do you think you’ll use the Standard of Excellence?
“We will use the endorsement to differentiate ourselves from other third party logistics providers. We provide in-house training so we do not require the endorsement to generate more revenue from a training perspective. However, we often get asked: ‘what differentiates Norbert Dentressangle from others?’ in tenders from customers. The Standard of Excellence will show that it is not just us who thinks that we are excellent, it is an external independent body, ie Skills for Logistics, which is recognised by the industry. The Standard’s auditors have looked at what we do and awarded us the accreditation.”
Will the Standard of Excellence make a difference to DCPC training in general?
“The scheme is still in its infancy but if it’s embraced by the industry it will drive up standards. Ultimately the EU’s aim with Driver CPC was to change the culture and the external view of the sector. Whether this has been achieved is open to debate but I think the Standard of Excellence will go a long way to driving that change.”
