A message from FORS Concession Director in honour of Road Safety Week 2022

Today marks the beginning of Brake’s annual Road Safety Week. The theme is 'Safe roads for all', bringing together communities and professionals to spread awareness for everyone's right to make safe and healthy journeys on safe roads.

To help operators get involved, FORS has prepared a Road Safety Week Toolkit which offers examples of ways you can show your support, increase awareness for the campaign and showcase to your local community what you've put in place to ensure your organisation is operating safely.

In honor of Road Safety Week 2022, FORS Concession Director Ian Henderson discusses road safety and the future of FORS. Throughout the blog post, Henderson outlines his goals and aspirations for FORS and explains why he’s such an advocate for road safety.

What is your position and responsibility within FORS? 

As FORS’ Concession Director, I’m accountable for all aspects of FORS, including supply-chain and stakeholder management, client relationships, core service delivery of accreditation and, ultimately, driving the development and transformation of FORS.  

What motivates you to drive up safety standards in the transport sector? 

Road safety is a topic close to my heart. Having lost a dear friend to a work-related road incident, I’ve seen at close quarters the pain and uncertainty caused by road deaths, both in the immediate aftermath of tragic incidents and for years to come.

It’s therefore a real motivation to play a part in helping to raise standards in the transport industry. I’ve worked in transport for my entire career and I’m immensely proud of how the different sectors of this industry continue to innovate and find new ways of connecting people safely. FORS will play its part by ensuring we offer a credible, wide-ranging scheme that improves road safety across the country and internationally.  

What are your goals and aspirations for FORS?  

Our vision for this year underpins everything we do: being a ‘business enabler’ to FORS-accredited operators. This means we’re always thinking of the operator first and what we can do to better the scheme for them. We want to make things as easy as possible for our operators to drive safer, smarter and greener, and we want to be a trusted partner of their organisation. 

We set out our journey in the first 12 months of looking after FORS. Our initial objective was to safely transition FORS from the previous administrator and embed the service within our business. The second part is our transformation, where we will evolve the scheme into a customer-centric service that fosters loyalty, recognition and growth. Though we’ll continue to make improvements, we’ll move from our transformation phase into delivering a best-in-class service to the FORS community.  

Throughout all of this, we’ll be looking at how we can grow both geographically and into new sectors, collaborate with the industry and keep the service running smoothly for the FORS community.  

How can FORS be a force for change in the transport sector? 

Road safety is of course top of the industry’s agenda this week, and I see FORS as a powerful force for change in this area. Safety is one of the core tenets of the FORS Standard and it underpins so much of what we offer.  

Another challenge close to my heart is tackling climate change and driving the industry towards decarbonisation. FORS has been empowering operators to evaluate their environmental impact and find ways to reduce it for years, but the need for quicker action is evident. We’ll continue to be a force for change in this area and we’re currently exploring how we can further support our operators, at all levels of accreditation, to hit the fast-approaching targets set by Government.  

What’s your elevator pitch to potential FORS-accredited operators? 

Becoming FORS accredited demonstrates that you’re committed to achieving best practice in fleet operations. Our focus on reducing work-related road risk, improving ‘green’ credentials and driving up operational efficiency enables successful business and demonstrates true investment in staff, processes and the wider industry. All FORS stakeholders are welcomed into the FORS community and get the opportunity to attend FORS events, connect with peers and stay updated on the latest news.