Morning all, We have been requested permission, by one of our customers, to allow our delivery drivers to be included in their drink / drugs testing scheme. Has anyone come accross this before? IS this something we can permit? If anyones got a HR hat on are there any (trust / contract etc.) implications of this? Regards, Ian

Quite common in the nuclear industry too. In some cases, for staff about to start work on a customer site, we have to provide a recent drug test "all clear certificate" from one of their approved testers. In other cases, contractors' people working routinely on the customer site are added to the customer's list from which the random test names are drawn each week. We handle this meeting this customer requirement through T&Cs of our staff.

This is quite a tricky position to find oneself, is the customer using the delivery driver to do something that is directly involved in his business or undertaking. EG do you have the right to test someone deliverying a parcel or some such acitivity. I would say no, but you could report any concerns to the individuals employer. As far as testing is concerned the activity of the delivery contractor would not be under your direct control so how can you insist upon being able to test such people and what if they refused to be tested, what action can you take other than report it.