Alcohol & Substance Misuse Testing

We require 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

General Requirements:

A testing agency is required to provide drug and alcohol testing on the grounds of health and safety and compliance with the Traffic Commissioner’s recommendations. t.

Service Providers must be able to work as closely as possible to the LCC Testing policy, procedure and toolkit.

In future, LCC may also wish to buy some test kits directly without the services of a testing agent as supply only, it is preferred if the supplier could offer this sale of kits only although not essential.

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

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 (e.g. an accident or near-miss for a driver who can be located outside of the county) within two hours of the callout request. Drivers who are tested are required to make deliveries nationwide with the majority being Leicestershire.

The policy applies to all employees of Leicestershire County Council and Eastern Shires Purchasing Association (ESPO), except school staff.

Types of testing required are:

With Cause Testing

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.

Assurance Testing

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 avoid substance-related incidents at work, we added random testing to our policy for staff in Safety Critical Roles since 2021.

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. Safety critical machinery usually requires the user to undergo training in the form of obtaining specific license/additional safety qualification e.g. road workers, forestry workers, ESPO warehouse staff, waste operatives, forklift truck drivers and escorts operating tail lifts etc.
• Supervisors/managers who direct (not merely supervise or manage) the way that safety critical tasks are performed by employees.

Alcohol Testing

Alcohol testing involves the use of an electronic breath-testing device. A ‘positive’ result indicates that more than 35 micrograms of alcohol per 100ml of breath was present in the sample. This figure is the England and Wales drink-driving limit.

Drugs Testing

Where the results are analysed in a laboratory the Laboratory must be ISO 17025 and ISO 15189 compliant.

All Service Providers are asked to read the LCC Substance Misuse Policy and Procedure thoroughly and would be expected to work in alignment with the policy.

Service Levels and Contract Management are stated in the specification.