OCRS mis-used by buyers of haulage services, warns RHA

Buyers of transport sectors are mis-using an internal VOSA system for scoring truck operators, the Road Haulage Association warns.

VOSA devised its Operator Compliance Risk Score (OCRS) system as a tool to help target its enforcement efforts. It is as yet a basic, rough-and-ready tool; nonetheless the RHA supports its use as an internal VOSA information aid and is engaging with VOSA over its development.

However, buyers of transport are requiring that their hauliers disclose their OCRS as part of tendering processes, a use for which it was never designed and for which it is unsuitable. There is evidence that customers who demand OCRS scores have little or no idea of what lies behind the scoring system.

VOSA is happy to reveal to truck operators their individual OCRS and is in any case obliged to do so when asked, under the Freedom of Information Act. Transport firms feel obliged to request and to pass on the information when pressured to do so by customers and potential customers. (VOSA will not reveal OCRS information to anyone other than the truck operator to which the OCRS applies.)

“The OCRS is a valuable internal tool for VOSA to assess risk of non-compliance and to aid targeting and it will continue to develop,” said RHA head of technical services Steve Biddle.

“We are working with VOSA to explain that it has not been designed as a process for grading hauliers’ quality and that the scoring system is inappropriate for the commercial arena. We have a robust and coherent O-licensing system that ensures operator quality and compliance and publicises action taken against non-complaint operators,” he concluded.