Driver CPC Deadline Update!
Friday August 2024
September 2024 is fast approaching for those drivers whose Driver Qualification Card (DQC) expire. This relates to those drivers who gained grandfather rights when the qualification was first introduced in September 2009, and then updating this on 5-yearly intervals!
Since September 2019, when the current cycle commenced, the uptake of Driver CPC has been more sluggish than the previous 5-year cycles. There are various reasons why, a significant one being COVID, however other significant factors also include the driver shortage during this period as well as the noises heard about changing the Driver CPC qualification, leading to a disengaged sector when it comes to completing their DQC.
As a DCPC training provider, I’m obviously interested to learn whether the ‘sluggish’ approach is unique to ourselves, so after a little number-crunching, it would appear we are not alone in thinking this!
Firstly, it is disappointing to note that the Driver CPC monthly statistics 2023-2024, published by GOV.UK are merely 7 months behind publishing the data, despite stating a quarterly update, as the figures are only available until December 2023!
Have even the government bodies also lost interest?
Crunching the numbers however can get a little complicated as the deadline period of September is mid-way through their published data as this is produced as a fiscal year!
So, when comparing the cycle Sept 2014 – Aug 2019 and Sept 2019 – August 2024 the number of hours uploaded is drastically different.
Based on the assumption, of an average number of hours uploaded each month, in the current year (the figures reported between April 23 and December 23 were used to create the average number of hours uploaded) a total of 20,834,614 hours will have been uploaded between Sept 2023 to August 2024, compared to 26,390,802 hours during the same period in 2019. This would then indicate a shortfall of 5,556,188 in the current 5-year cycle!
Is this a real shortfall or has the size of the market shrunk? Read the next blog to find out more! If you are interested in viewing the raw data, this can be downloaded using the link driver-cpc-qualification-and-training-data.ods (live.com)