Groundwork Business Briefing

Date published: 09/03/2006

How will a smoke-free UK affect employers?
Last month, MPs voted to ban smoking in all enclosed public spaces, including pubs, clubs, restaurants and private members clubs, in England. The new laws will come into effect in summer 2007.

One of the perceived problems with the law will be deciding what constitutes a "substantially enclosed" public space and what is a workplace? Will there be any exceptions? For example will the law apply to company vehicles? Under the English proposals a company vehicle would be covered if it were used for work. However it is more complicated than that. A delivery van will be covered by the ban if the driver does not own it, but not if he does.

Employers should start thinking about how they can change their policies and procedures within their workplace. For example providing ‘smoking shelters’ for your employees. Is there a smoking break policy? And how will this affect nonsmoking employees?

Greener Van Man
Van drivers will soon be able to benefit from a new driving scheme launched by Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling. The £1.3m Safe & Efficient Drivers (SaFED) Scheme aims to encourage safer, cleaner and cheaper driving, funding 200 instructors to offer training initially to 3,500 van drivers across the country. The new scheme follows a successful pilot project that found significant financial and environmental gains could be made by using advanced driving techniques without any noticeable impact on delivery times.

The optional one day course involves a mix of classroom and on-the-road tuition and teaches the use of driving techniques such as better use of gears (avoiding over-revving and missing out unnecessary gear changes), keeping correct braking distances (not breaking hard), fuel economy and better road awareness (seeing junctions in good time).

Drivers in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) using their own van, qualify for free training. A small contribution applies to others. The contributions will be reinvested into additional activity for the project.