Know Your Candidate's Driving Licence Check enables employers to validate the details of their candidate's / employee's driving licence directly with the DVLA. The check confirms whether the individual is licensed to drive and provides details regarding the number of penalty points and endorsements present on their licence. Validating these details directly with the DVLA avoids the issues with paper-based methods such as fake / duplicate licences and makes administration much easier and monitoring at-risk drivers much more robust. The process is initiated by the driver signing an official 3-year DVLA mandate which provides their consent for checks to be made. Once submitted to Know Your Candidate, driving licence checks can be made at any time within the 3-year period without the need to re-approach the driver therefore making the process easier for your drivers too.

Driving Licence Check — Key Information

Know Your Candidate offers single Driving Licence Checks or the ability to make on-going checks via our monitoring service.

	Driving Licence Check	Driving Licence Check - Monitoring Service
When should I use this check?	Any employee that may drive a vehicle on company business during the course of their employment	Retrospective or periodic checks on groups of employees that drive on company business
Coverage	UK	UK
Data source	DVLA	DVLA
Price	£12.50	£12.50
Typical completion time	1 to 2 working days	5 to 10 working days
Information returned	Details of the individual's driving licence including: Confirmation of the licence type, number and expiry date The total number of penalty points Dates of convictions List of endorsements and the expiry date	Details of the individual's driving licence including: Confirmation of the licence type, number and expiry date The total number of penalty points Dates of convictions List of endorsements and the expiry date
Information required to make the check	Full name Date of birth Current address Plus a completed and signed official DVLA mandate	Full name Date of birth Current address Plus a completed and signed official DVLA mandate — only needs to be submitted once every 3 years
Sample Report	Download a sample report	Download a sample report

Driving Licence Check — Other Useful Information

Organisations must make driving licence checks periodically to demonstrate that they are meeting their Duty of Care responsibility and obligations under the HSE Health and Safety at Work and Duty of Care Act. All new employees should be checked upon joining your organisation and periodically thereafter. It is sensible to vary the frequency of checks of checks made based on the number of penalty points present on the licence e.g.

Number of Points	Suggested Frequency of Licence Check
None	Annually
Less than 6	Every 6 months
More than 6	Every 3 months

The frequency at which the checks are completed is entirely flexible and driven by you

You can learn more about how long penalty points and endorsements remain on a driving licence on this page in the motoring section of the Direct Gov website

It's estimated that around 200 road deaths and serious injuries each week involve someone at work. Making driving licence checks is the first step to ensuring your company drivers are safe while driving. The Department of Transport Think Road Safety campaign website provides lots of information and links to other resources on driver safety.