FORS practitioner standard in the new Trailblazer degree apprenticeship.
Fleet operator recognition scheme, FORS was built and designed for trucks, tachographs and trailers at its heart. Bronze, silver and gold FORS accreditation stickers are on the back of almost five thousand trucks today.
FORS is almost ten years old and is set to launch version five of the standard at this year’s national conference in Middle England on October 16th.
FORS looks set to re-focus on vans and even include powered two-wheelers for this decade’s showcase of road safety standards.
Heathrow, who asks suppliers to be FORS-accredited, is likely to ask retailers at Heathrow to request FORS accreditation for their supply chains.
In the Midlands, Northamptonshire Council is moving its requirement to request Gold accreditation for suppliers within the next year.
With the launch of version five of the standard, a new model looks likely to review van and powered two-wheelers. Express final mile drivers have long posed a problem in the mixed employment of national courier fleets. The new model will focus on cost and targeting smaller operators and even owner-drivers.
Numbers reported for the May meeting, just over a thousand at silver and just under five thousand in total with almost a hundred audits a week nationally. FORS regional meetings going well, next one's June 4th Manchester, then June 6th London.
Word of the new version five - it's more closely aligned to the community partnership, CLOCS, LoCITY and recent security and terrorism incidents.
The meeting had consensus on unification of audit dates for the different grades of bronze, silver and gold. FORS governance issues closed with a report that the new trailblazer apprenticeship for Express manager at degree level had submitted to DfE for end-point assessment with FORS practitioner qualification embedded in the degree alongside Manager CPC as requested by employers across the sector.
