Decision

Decision for Coopers Recycling Ltd OD2026229

Published 28 May 2021

1. DECISION OF THE TRAFFIC COMMISSIONER

1.1 Operator: Coopers Recycling Ltd OD2026229

2. Decision

Standard national goods vehicle operator’s licence OD2026229, held by Coopers Recycling Ltd, is revoked with effect from 0001 hours on 1 June 2021, pursuant to Section 26(1)(a), (e), (f) and (h) and Section 27(1)(a) and (b) of the Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995.

Coopers Recycling Ltd and company director Ronan Keown are disqualified for 12 months, from 1 June 2021 until 1 June 2022, from holding or obtaining any type of operator’s licence in any traffic area and (in Mr Keown’s case) from being the director of any company holding or obtaining such a licence, pursuant to Section 28 (1), (4) and (5) of the 1995 Act.

Richard Doughty has lost his good repute as a transport manager, pursuant to Schedule 3 paragraph 1 of the 1995 Act. Under paragraph 16(2) of that Schedule, he is disqualified, with immediate effect and for a period of 12 months until 1 May 2022, from acting as a transport manager on any operator’s licence.

3. Background

Coopers Recycling Ltd holds a standard national goods vehicles operator’s licence for ten vehicles and four trailers, granted in October 2019. The authorised operating centre is at Mansty Farm, Stafford. The sole director of the company is Ronan Keown and the nominated transport manager until his resignation with effect from 31 January 2021 was Richard Doughty.

In early 2021 I received a report from DVSA who had stopped one of the operator’s vehicles on 29 April 2020 and had found that the driver lacked the required CPC and was in possession of (and had been using) more than one tachograph card.

A subsequent investigation into the company’s compliance reported in addition that:

i) the company’s vehicles were frequently parked overnight near the drivers’ homes in Doncaster, away from the authorised operating centre in Mansty Farm, Stafford;

ii) the transport manager Richard Doughty believed that the maintenance contractor was downloading vehicle tachograph units at their maintenance inspections, but this was not the case;

iii) the stated six weekly frequency for preventative maintenance inspections was not being respected;

iv) several vehicles were missing driver defect reporting sheets, despite the fact that tachograph evidence showed that they were in operation;

v) one driver admitted to the vehicle examiner that he had not filled in any driver defect reports for two weeks;

vi) the operator’s vehicles had been given four roadworthiness prohibitions from 13 encounters;

vii) the director Ronan Keown seemed to have little idea of his responsibilities and the transport manager was not exercising the required continuous and effective management of the transport side of the business.

4. Public inquiry

Concerned by the DVSA’s report, I called the company and former transport manager Richard Doughty to a public inquiry, which was held in Birmingham on 28 April 2021. Present were Ronan Keown, director; former transport manager Richard Doughty; prospective transport manager Susan Baker; DVSA vehicle examiner Wayne Goodhead and traffic examiner Katherine Cox. The operator was represented by transport consultant Charlie Ahmed of Invergold Associates

4.1 Evidence of Richard Doughty

Former transport manager Richard Doughty accepted that he had not exercised the required level of continuous and effective management. He had failed to spot that a driver lacked the necessary CPC qualification. He had taken it for granted that others were fulfilling their roles (eg a driver who had been charged with downloading from the vehicle unit). He had drawn up compliance procedures but had not done enough to ensure their implementation.

Asked why he had not ensured that the vehicles were given their six-weekly safety inspections, Mr Doughty stated that Brian Keown (Ronan Keown’s father) would tell him when the inspections were due; he (Mr Doughty) would book them in at the maintainers subsequently to be told by Brian Keown that the vehicles were required for operational service that day and would have to booked in for later. Mr Doughty had found that he was not really in control of matters which as a transport manager he should be: that was partly why he had eventually resigned. Brian Keown was the effective manager of the company, although Mr Doughty believed that he had been disqualified from holding a licence and being the director of a company holding a licence [a check of the licensing database showed that Brian Keown had indeed had been the director of WD Cooper Transport Ltd which had had its licence revoked in 2012, with Brian Keown being disqualified indefinitely].

Mr Doughty stated that, after he had resigned, he had returned a significant number of folders containing compliance procedures and documents to Brian Keown.

4.2 Evidence of Susan Baker

Prospective transport manager Susan Baker stated that when she had started at the company on 24 February 2021 there had been no compliance systems in place. She had previously taken a below-standard operator from red to green and believed she could do the same with Coopers Recycling Ltd if the licence survived.

4.3 Evidence of Ronan Keown

Ronan Keown stated that he was very young at 21 years old with a lot to learn. He had been naïve, relying on an office manager (since deceased) and on Mr Doughty to do things properly without checking their performance. Asked why vehicles still had gaps in the safety inspection schedule six months on from DVSA’s visit, he said that things had been very hectic, with the office manager dying from Covid, the move to a new operating centre and the resignation of the transport manager. He was seeking to reduce the vehicles on the licence from 10 to a more manageable five and was currently only operating two. He accepted that he had attended a DVSA-run new operator seminar in February 2020 and could not explain why he did not appear to have absorbed any of its lessons on operator licence management.

4.4 Closing remarks

Summing up, Charlie Ahmed accepted that the operator’s transport manager Mr Doughty had been ineffective. The office manager had been more in charge than the transport manager. There was no excuse for the failure to carry out safety inspections at the promised intervals. Ronan Keown was young and keen and determined to ensure compliance in the future; he was about to spend £200,000 on new vehicles. The company could cope with a two week suspension or a curtailment to three vehicles for several months until a satisfactory audit. Anything beyond that would mean loss of contracts and the company going under.

Findings

After considering the evidence, I make the following findings:

• the operator has used unauthorised operating centres. Vehicles have been parked in Yorkshire when not in use and also in the West Midlands at a place other than Mansty Farm (Section 26(1)(a) of the 1995 Act refers;

• the operator has not fulfilled the promise given on application that vehicles would be inspected every six weeks (Section 26(1)(e) of the 1995 Act refers). DVSA found significant gaps in the maintenance records, and I have found a similar picture six months later at the public inquiry;

• the operator has failed to fulfil its undertaking to ensure the lawful driving of vehicles (Section 26(1)(f) refers). A driver was engaged and allowed to drive on a regular basis over a significant period of time without the required CPC;

• the operator has failed to fulfil its undertaking to ensure that rules relating to tachographs and drivers’ hours would be observed. Tachograph units were not downloaded on a systematic basis and no missing mileage reports appear to have been produced (none was available at the inquiry);

• the operator has failed to fulfil its undertaking that drivers would report defects in writing. Although a defect reporting system did exist, some drivers had got out of the habit of doing walk-round checks and this was not identified or tackled by the company;

• there has been a material change in the licence in that Brian Keown has clearly been exercising a directing role, in contravention of his disqualification (Section 26(1)(h) refers).

5. Consideration

5.1 Transport manager – good repute

I considered the good repute of former transport manager Richard Doughty. On the negative side was the fact that he had clearly failed to check driving entitlement properly, failed to ensure that drivers were conducting effective walk-round checks, failed to ensure that vehicles were given the promised six-weekly inspections and failed to ensure that vehicle tachograph unit downloads were performed to time and analysed. He also failed to identify the fact that the company was using an unauthorised operating centre, which if he had been correctly exercising the required continuous and effective management he could not have missed. On the positive side, I accept that he did draw up compliance procedures (although he largely left it to the company to implement these procedures), attended a two day transport manager CPC refresher course in late 2020 and resigned as transport manager as a result of knowledge gained on that course (although he failed to notify me of his resignation as he was required to do). He has also not sought to hide his failings from me at the inquiry.

I conclude that, while Mr Doughty had no malign intent, the positives above are outweighed by the negatives and his failures are such as to cause him to lose his good repute as a transport manager (paragraph 1 of Schedule 3 to the 1995 Act refers). It is not sufficient simply to design procedures. A transport manager should be at the forefront of implementing those procedures on a daily basis, and it was this which Mr Doughty failed to do. He left it to others (notably the unqualified office manager) to ensure implementation and did not check whether this was actually being done. The result was a seriously non-compliant operation.

Having removed Mr Doughty’s good repute I am obliged to disqualify him under paragraph 16 of Schedule 3 from acting as a transport manager on any licence. I do so for the relatively short period of 12 months, to reflect the fact that there were some positive factors in his favour to weigh in the balance and that his was not a uniformly awful record. There should be no doubt, however, that the record fell far short of that expected of a reputable and competent transport manager.

5.2 Operator

In considering regulatory action against the licence, I have reminded myself of the then traffic commissioner’s decision of 24 January 2012 revoking the licence of WD Cooper Transport Ltd (OD1062920). In disqualifying its director Brian Keown, traffic commissioner Nick Jones wrote that “Brian Keown needs to be kept out of the operator licensing system indefinitely. He is a dishonest, manipulative individual who has sought to deceive and the road haulage industry will be better off without him.” These are exceptionally strong words. It goes strongly against Coopers Recycling Ltd that, according to the credible evidence of Richard Doughty, Brian Keown has exercised a directing role in it, directly contrary to the decision of the traffic commissioner. Ronan Keown was presented to me at the inquiry as being the controlling mind, but I found this to be extremely unlikely: interviewed by DVSA in October 2020, Ronan Keown was unsure of almost all the details of the operation, and I find that his knowledge had hardly improved by the day of the inquiry, when he was unable to explain why vehicles were still – after six months - missing their safety inspection deadlines, other than to say that things had been “hectic”.

5.3 Priority Freight and Bryan Haulage questions

I considered the Priority Freight question of how likely it is that the operator will comply in future. With the continuing involvement of Brian Keown exercising a strong influence over his young, inexperienced son who has shown himself not to be up to responsibility of managing a road transport business, I conclude that the answer is “highly unlikely”, notwithstanding the engagement of Susan Baker who came across as a capable transport manager.

Given this answer to the Priority Freight question, and owing to the involvement in the business (and in a directing role) of a disqualified person, I conclude that the company is not of good repute (Section 27(1)(a) of the 1995 Act refers) and deserves to go out of business (the Bryan Haulage question). If a company is not of good repute, revocation of the licence is in any case mandatory. I am also revoking the licence under Section 26(1)(a), (e), (f) and (h): I was particularly disappointed that the company had made so little improvement to compliance between October 2020 (the month of the DVSA visit) and the inquiry in late April 2021. An audit carried out by Invergold Associates in early April 2021 has also reported a very poor picture on compliance. Revocation of the licence will take effect at 0001 hours on 1 June 2021.

5.4 Disqualification – operator and director

I have also considered whether to disqualify the company and Ronan Keown from holding a licence in the future. I have concluded that, owing to the wide range of non-compliance, its seriousness and the fact that the company has been non-compliant for a substantial period of time, the company and its director Ronan Keown should be so disqualified. Time is required before any application involving them could be considered at all favourably in the future. In deciding upon the length of the disqualification, I have taken account of paragraph 100 of the senior traffic commissioner’s Statutory Guidance Document 10. This posits a starting point of between one and three years for a first public inquiry (which this is). I do have some sympathy with Ronan Keown’s situation, being pushed at a very young age (he is still only 21) by his father Brian Keown into acting as a figurehead for a company which would not have been granted a licence had Brian Keown’s involvement been known at the time. But before seeking to apply for a licence again, he needs to acquire more knowledge of the industry and of the rules and regulations governing it. This will involve formal training and also perhaps experience of working for another, reputable, operator (and not with his father). Taking all this into account, I have determined upon a disqualification period of 12 months, at the lighter end of the scale set out by the senior traffic commissioner. It will take effect on 1 June, the date of revocation of the licence.

Nicholas Denton

Traffic Commissioner

30 April 2021