7. Monitoring and maintaining standards
What your health and safety policy needs to cover, how often DVSA will inspect your site, and what happens if you fail an inspection.
You need a health and safety policy in place. It should explain:
- how you will manage health and safety at your site
- who does what, when and how
It should cover:
- risk assessments
- staff training
- emergency procedures – for example, how to deal with fires, accidents, and equipment failures
- accident reporting
The Health and Safety Executive has more guidance on managing health and safety.
DVSA can arrange a visit to inspect your site at any time. DVSA will give you a reasonable amount of time before arranging a site visit so you can make arrangements for this.
DVSA will inspect your site at least once a year to check you are maintaining safety standards and meeting site requirements.
You’ll be told what needs to be done if your site fails the inspection, and you’ll be given a deadline of when to do it by.
If you do not book any testing sessions for 6 months, DVSA will class your site as dormant. You can no longer book testing sessions.
DVSA will contact your site manager to let you know that your site is now dormant.
If your site remains dormant for 12 months, DVSA will remove your approval as a test centre and you will not be able to reopen your site without going through the full application process again.
If you want to reopen your site
Contact DVSA to reopen your site if it has been dormant for less than 12 months.
You’ll need to have a full site inspection before you can open and take bookings for tests.
If your site was dormant for more than 12 months and DVSA removed your approval, you will need to reapply to set up your vehicle approval centre.