Help with LGV training???

Hammyman

Of course you are dear. Nowt to do with the fact your company exists solely to extract money from the govt for "training schemes" with little real prospect of a job.

There IS an apprenticeship for lorry drivers, it is called Driving Goods Vehicles and as newly qualified they dont need the extra CPC which time served will do

ALL NEW DRIVERS NEED A DRIVERS CPC and all drivers currently working under grandfather rights need one by 2014. Your mickey mouse NVT course merely allows them to defer the requirement for 12 months or the duration of the course, which ever is the shorter time. It does not remove the requirement.

I love this excerpt from your website:

While this Apprenticeship is open to people aged 16, most employers prefer you to be 18 or older.

Try 25. And with 2 years experience.

saintjammyswine

My Company? I work for a FE College!

passatrider

@ Hammyman

Perhaps you might like to enlighten us as to how long it has been since you left the trucking industry?

Just curious..;)

Hammyman

I've not driven for 3 years but I've kept up with things including the Driver CPC through a person who is a founder of a lorry drivers association and DCPC trainer.

Hammyman

saintjammyswine wrote: »

My Company? I work for a FE College!

So in fact, you know not of what you speak other than there happens to be a "NVQ" in HGV driving as you amply demonstrated in your cluelessness about the Driver CPC still being required even though you have done NVT..

What is your vast first hand experience in the haulage industry?

passatrider

Hammyman wrote: »

So in fact, you know not of what you speak other than there happens to be a "NVQ" in HGV driving as you amply demonstrated in your cluelessness about the Driver CPC still being required even though you have done NVT..

What is your vast first hand experience in the haulage industry?

You might get more sense if you toned down your confrontational attitude towards him?

saintjammyswine

Right, here we go again. We run training across about 25 different vocational areas. We run training for employers (not just the kids whose futures you think I am single handedly destroying) across many of these. One of these areas is logistics which includes: Driver CPC, Driving Goods Vehicles, Warehousing & Storage, Logistics Management as well as related areas such as H&S etc. As you can tell I work in education, not in the haulage industry which may be the reason for the difference in tone between our replies
You are right, I have no experience in the industry. Wow big shock. The 2500 employers I work with do however in their various industries that guide what we do and sit on the employer forums we host to ensure the training they, & the Skills Funding Agency pay for is relevant to what they do. As do the awarding bodies that set the standards for the training. As do the industry bodies. As do the Sector Subject Areas (google it if you dont know what they are). Ofsted like to make sure we know what we are doing as well. The 15,000 students like to know that the courses they do will have strong progression outcomes too. I will NOT give out information on ANY of the people I work with without THEIR consent, no matter how much you bait me. One of the reasons Ofsted gave us such a good score in our latest inspection & why those very employers work with me & my organisation. To answer your latest ridiculous post, there is not an NVQ in "HGV Driving". There is, however an NVQ (do you actually know what one is?) in Driving Goods Vehicles which is the main element of a DGV Apprenticeship. I am all for a difference of opinion, reasoned debate and even a straight argument. But do not, ever question either my ethics or the reasons I do this job.

saintjammyswine

Hammyman wrote: »

ALL NEW DRIVERS NEED A DRIVERS CPC and all drivers currently working under grandfather rights need one by 2014. Your mickey mouse NVT course merely allows them to defer the requirement for 12 months or the duration of the course, which ever is the shorter time. It does not remove the requirement.

I love this excerpt from your website:

Try 25. And with 2 years experience.

My website?
NVT course?

dickydonkin

BWAHAHA. S4L is known as a joke in the haulage industry. And they cover warehousing etc, not just lorry driving and this thread is about lorry driving.

I would suggest both are relevant as Warehousing & Distribution are inextricably linked in many cases.

Many of the larger logistics companies (Stobarts, Wincanton etc.) incorporate warehousing into their core business to enable them to provide a total logistic solution for the many companies who outsourced their logistics facilities or indeed the companies who never had their own in the first place.

It is a harsh fact (but understandable) that insurers won't even contemplate someone under 25 and without a minimum of two years experience, however, it can only be beneficial for any young person to get an insight into the logistics sector by using the courses described earlier. Gaining driving experience is of course a chicken and egg situation.

Certainly when I started driving trucks at 17 (Under 3 tons unladen weight), I gained invaluable experience such as correct loading, roping and sheeting etc which stood me in good stead for when I took my class 1 test 4 years later.

A friend worked for a local haulage company who were members of the RHA and I cannot remember how the scheme worked, but they were able to gain free funding for HGV training - and even though I did not work for this company - with a little help from my friend - they put me through my course with the proviso that I would not be given a job for them - which was obviously fine for me!

Two weeks after passing, they rang me up and offered me a job at 21 years of age.

My point is that due to the experience gained in the previous 4 years on smaller vehicles, getting to know routes, correct loading and knowledge of legislation, made the transition to large artics very much easier - and having the aforementioned skills already in the bank, allowed me to concentrate on the elements of driving articulated trucks.

Calling the courses 'Mickey Mouse' is unfair - although I appreciate that nothing can substitute hands on experience, but that applies to any training course/scheme - arguably including the HGV Training Course itself - but in my opinion, such courses will undoubtedly help as it allows the student to gain the theory element of driving trucks and associated skills.

The problem we have today however, is foreign drivers now taking up the slack - and I have my own opinions on that but perhaps for another day. Only on Saturday, a queue of vehicles were waiting at a junction to exit onto another road. A Romanian register truck decided to come past all of us on the wrong side of the road and nearly caused mayhem - but that's another issue.

As for the OP, I suspect by now she appreciates the hurdles that her partner can expect and it is for him to decide if he wishes to pursue Road Haulage as a career.

I made a good living out of it spanning over 25 years, however, it is now a different beast - certainly not one I would consider now even though my licence is still valid.

saintjammyswine

Agreed, nothing can beat experience and that is where an apprenticeship is better than someone who takes their test & tries to get a job.

A major employer told me on friday that they are crying out for drivers at the moment, they need reliable direct employed drivers instead of the agency ones they usually have to use. They also put people through the warehouses, then loading, then d/mates then drivers as their training progression. This is to be done through the apprenticeship routes, I hope this demonstrates to the other poster how the areas are inextricably linked.