Recruitment agencies providing professional drivers need to be more heavily regulated, according to the managing director of Oxfordshire-based G-Force Employment.

Stephen Gee, whose firm specialises in providing HGV drivers and warehouse staff, believes at least one recruiter in each agency should be a Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC) holder, which all logistics and haulage companies are required to have by law. Driver agencies should be audited, in Gee's view, and should have to apply for an operator's licence from the traffic commissioners — to get a licence similar to the one hauliers need to operate their trucks — and should be made to have the relevant procedures in place.

"Haulage companies can be prosecuted, lose their licence and be put out of business if they do not keep detailed records. However, a lot of agencies don't realise that they can get punished, too, and don't adhere to the regulations," said Gee.

Gee, whose background is in logistics, cites the example of nursing recruiters. Nursing agencies have to have a registered nurse on their staff and their consultants have to do training on the sector.

"There are a lot of cowboys out there who aren't keeping records and can undercut us because we have to pay for an administrator to deal with the paperwork. It's annoying that we do everything that we do and there are agencies that don't."

All of G-Force's consultants have to pass an internal exam on the sector legislation including the Working Time Directive, regulations on drivers' hours' and digital tachographs. "It has been designed by a CPC holder to be a mini CPC exam," said Gee.