What happens at a public inquiry

Roadside prohibitions and a poor maintenance record. Missed inspections, or inspection sheets that do not match the vehicles. Drivers’ hours offences and tachograph problems. Financial standing that can no longer be evidenced. A transport manager who turns out not to have been managing anything. Operating from a centre that is not on the licence, or with more vehicles than it authorises. Convictions, or a director connected to a licence that ended badly.

Applications are called in too — a new application with a difficult history behind it is decided at inquiry rather than on paper.

Good repute for a standard licence, fitness for a restricted one. Both come down to the same question: can the authorities trust this operator to run vehicles safely and lawfully without being watched?

The Senior Traffic Commissioner’s guidance frames it as whether the operator has been, and can be, trusted. What went wrong matters; what matters at least as much is whether it was found and fixed by the operator or by an examiner, and whether the systems that missed it have changed.

• No action, or a warning that stays on the record.
• Undertakings accepted onto the licence — an audit by a set date, a tighter inspection interval, training — which are then enforceable.
• Curtailment: the number of vehicles authorised is cut, sometimes for a fixed period.
• Suspension: the licence stands but nothing may run for a stated time.
• Revocation: the licence ends.
• Disqualification: a person or a company is barred from holding a licence for a period, which can be indefinite.

A transport manager can lose repute separately from the operator, and a driver can be dealt with in a separate conduct hearing.

Bring the evidence rather than the explanation. Maintenance records and inspection sheets for the whole period, tachograph analysis and what was done about the infringements it found, the financial evidence, the transport manager’s contract and time sheets, and a clear account of what has changed since the events in the call-in letter. An independent audit obtained before the hearing carries far more weight than one promised at it.

You may represent yourself and many operators do. Where the licence itself is at risk, most take a transport solicitor or a consultant who appears at these regularly — the procedure is unfamiliar and the stakes are the business.

Decisions are published, so both the call-in and its outcome are a matter of public record. There is a right of appeal to the Upper Tribunal, on a limited basis and to a deadline, and appealing does not by itself suspend the decision.

You can see what is listed and what has been decided: public inquiries coming up, and every published application, decision and regulatory action. The statutory documents set out how each test is applied.