Guide
FORS Bronze cost: the fee, the audit and the work behind it
Updated
Bronze is where almost everyone starts, usually because a customer contract asks for it. The scheme fee is published and modest. The work required to pass is the part worth budgeting for.
The published fee, for a real example
Take an operator running 15 vehicles from one operating centre. The FORS annual subscription for a fleet of 11 to 25 vehicles is £750 excluding VAT, and the standard Bronze audit fee is £468 excluding VAT per operating centre, or £519 with audit protection. That is the scheme cost, published on the FORS fees page. A single-vehicle operator pays £40 subscription; an Owner Van Driver audit is £208.
Audit protection is FORS's own term: it says it includes one free follow-up audit if your audit is unsuccessful. At £51 more than the standard Bronze rate, against £245 for an on-site or remote follow-up, it is cheap insurance for a first audit.
What Bronze actually asks for
The FORS Standard groups Bronze requirements into four areas: Management, Vehicles, Drivers and Operations. Within each, requirements are stated as an outcome to be achieved, a purpose, and the outputs that demonstrate it. The Standard uses shall for mandatory elements, should for recommended good practice and may for optional or emerging practice, which is the vocabulary an auditor will use back at you.
- Management: documentation, records, a responsible person, communication, regulatory licensing, health and safety, complaints, transport infringements and transport updates.
- Vehicles: serviceability and roadworthiness, daily walkaround checks, insurance, vehicle tax, load safety, vehicle safety equipment and tyre management.
- Drivers: licensing, driving standards, professional development, in-vehicle communication, health and eyesight, and working time and drivers' hours.
- Operations: routing, emissions and air quality, passenger safety, specialist operations, and security and counter-terrorism.
- FORS documentation must be reviewed at least every 12 months, and more frequently where legislation, incidents or working practices change.
The costs FORS does not publish
- Vehicle safety equipment. Requirement V6 is the reason operators buy camera systems, sensors and warning equipment. FORS publishes a Vehicle Safety Equipment Guide to be read alongside the Standard, but no equipment price.
- Driver training. Bronze requirement D4 requires work-related road risk training completed within the past 12 months, from a defined list of FORS Professional or FORS Approved options.
- Manager training. The Standard sets mandatory manager development requirements in its annexes.
- Documentation and management time. Policies, procedures, risk assessments, records and their annual review. For a small operator this is the single largest hidden cost of Bronze.
- Small operator relief. The Standard allows small operators to demonstrate some policy requirements verbally rather than in writing, which reduces but does not remove the documentation burden.
Multiple sites change the maths
The audit fee is per operating centre. Under Multi Operating Centre Accreditation, FORS requires 2 audits a year for 2 to 4 centres, 3 audits a year for 5 to 15, and audits covering 20 per cent of operating centres at 16 or more. Model that before assuming a national operation costs the same as a depot.