In the last year, DrivenByQ has been through some fairly big
technical changes which have mostly occurred in the background. If you were to
go back and read through my Chauffeur Blog you would see that acquiring a new
account customer lead to a domino-effect. Simply increasing the turnover past a
certain point meant changing our VAT arrangement. This lead to the purchase of
new company owned Mercedes vehicles and that in turn lead to the hiring of our first ‘employed’
driver.
Not many people know it but the private hire industry works quite
differently to most business models. The majority of the time, the cars and
drivers are not owned or employed by the company. Instead, they work on a self-employed,
sub-contract basis. Historically, DrivenByQ has been the same. Using self-employed
drivers who own their own vehicles. The advantage of this is that it keeps costs
fixed and it provides a flexible workforce. Additionally (and it may be brutal
but) anyone underperforming is quickly replaced.
Minicab offices use the same model and always have done with
drivers paying a rental fee (or settle) for their radio equipment. At DrivenByQ
we use a commission rate which is proportional to what a driver earns. The
difference however between a minicab (or taxi) office and the executive work
which DrivenByQ carries out is that a minicab driver will work a shift pattern
of up to twelve hours and wait to see what they earn - which is sometimes very
little. An executive driver will know in advance what they are working and will
only work when required.
The real separation between the two models is that a minicab
(taxi) office will have drivers ready to go ‘on demand’ whereas the executive
company will struggle to cover jobs at short notice. This was the industry
standard until a few years ago when digital disruptors (like Uber and Deliveroo)
arrived in the market. They attracted a new kind of person to the industry who
demanded conditions more akin to a traditional type job. Comparing earnings to
hourly rates of pay resulted in legal claims being made and over time, the
government’s response was to publish the Taylor Review.
The outcome of this report was to recommend more people be
employed on an hourly rate where they could also receive worker’s rights. I am
proud of the fact that DrivenByQ has always paid some of the best rates to
self-employed drivers and they have in turn been able to invest in nice
vehicles. This summer however, with the purchase of company owned vehicles and
a change in the way we reclaim VAT, we spent time constructing a bespoke ‘contract
of employment’. We then took on our first ‘employed’ driver who has sick pay, a
set hourly rate and a holiday entitlement.
