Alcohol & Substance Misuse Testing

The service involves taking tests from employees, who may be based anywhere in Leicestershire however the agency must be able to provide a nationwide service. The employees are based over numerous sites which are currently all within Leicestershire but, testing agencies must be able to travel nationwide at any time (24-hour service) to respond to a need for with-cause testing whilst outside of Leicestershire.

Testing is carried out at the roadside or on site depending on circumstances. Random testing is saliva testing but, with-cause / assurance testing is a urine test. Alcohol testing involves the use of an electronic breath-testing device.

Leicestershire County Council Testing Policies and Procedures shall be provided within the tender documents.

Service Volumes:

We need in excess of 550 tests per year made up of random and with-cause testing.

It is difficult to predict the number of tests required, historically during December 2023 to March 2024 in a four month period, 198 tests were carried out broken down as follows:

25% with cause

66% Random basis

9% Other

Testing is carried out at the roadside or on site depending on circumstances. Random testing is saliva testing but, with-cause / assurance testing is a urine test.

The testing policy applies to all employees of Leicestershire County Council and Eastern Shires Purchasing Association (ESPO),except school staff. The principles of the policy, and therefore the categories of staff that require testing are wide ranging, such agency workers, self-employed workers, casual workers, contractors and unpaid individuals (e.g. those on work experience, volunteers, etc.).

Our 'with cause' testing policy (which applies to all staff regardless of their role) worked positively since 2018. ‘With cause’ testing applies to all employees, not just those in safety critical roles. The Council will undertake ‘with cause’ alcohol and/or drug testing in situations where there is a serious risk to health and safety. Scenarios where testing is required includes but is not limited to:

• An employee is involved in an incident (e.g. an accident in a work vehicle or whilst using their own vehicle for business purposes, any accident resulting in injury requiring medical attention).
• An employee is involved in a near-miss traffic incident.
• An employee’s behaviour or evidence suggests that the individual has consumed alcohol and/or drugs.
• We also carry out assurance testing following a positive test.
• The test is a control measure within a Support Plan for someone who has had a positive test result and / or disclosed issues of substance misuse. It may be referred to as Assurance Testing in these circumstances.

-To support employee wellbeing and to try and avoid substance-related incidents at work, we added random testing to our policy and this began in August 2021 but, only for staff in Safety Critical Roles.

Safety critical roles are defined below:

Individuals who are employed as drivers or who drive council vehicles e.g. taxi drivers, bus drivers, chauffeurs, winter gritter drivers, HGV drivers.

Individuals who operate or work in very close proximity to safety critical machinery.

Supervisors/managers who direct (not merely supervise or manage) the way that safety critical tasks are performed by employees.