Education

The advertisement stated:

“CPC1 (for Transport Managers) in Road Haulage (lorries) and Passenger Transport (buses) starting Mon 13th April 2015 (Full Time 2 Week Course) in Letterkenny (Exams June 2015)
Exam Success Guaranteed!
Tel: …”

The advertisement was accompanied by the Irish Road Haulage Association (IRHA) logo.

1 Driver CPC is a Certificate in Professional Competence for professional bus and truck drivers.

The complainant queried how the advertisers could guarantee 100% success to their students when the success rate depended on an individual’s ability to pass the exams. The complainant considered the advertising to be misleading.

The advertisers said that they prided themselves on the professionalism and quality of the service they offered to their customers and they held accreditations ISO 9001(2) and ISO 14001(3) for their quality and environmental management systems. They said they had also been approved by numerous certifying bodies and would never intentionally mislead their existing or potential customers.

They said they have been one of the most successful providers of the Transport Managers CPCs in Ireland and had won the Irish Logistics and Transport Award (ILTA) for highest marks in Ireland in the years 2012-2014 and on more than one occasion all of their students sitting their CPC exams passed on their first attempt. They said while there was a legal requirement to provide 110 hours of tuition to every student, they provided well in excess of the required number of hours at no extra cost. They said they had never guaranteed 100% success to their students either through their advertising, verbally or in writing.

The advertisers said they had requested a report from the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT), the body appointed by the Department of Transport to facilitate, organise, supervise and police the delivery of Transport Manager CPC training. They said this report would show the performance at each exam sitting by their students over the last 5 years and they would forward this report to the Authority once they had received it.

In a further email to the Authority the advertisers said that while they had their own figures to hand they were for credibility reasons still waiting on the official figures from the CILT.

2 The ISO 9001 is the international best practice standard for Quality Management.
3 The ISO 14001 Environment Management System (EMS) standard is an internationally recognised environmental management standard which was first published in 1996.

Further Information:
As the advertisers did not forward statistics from the CILT, the Secretariat asked them to forward the figures which they said they had to hand. To date no figures have been received from the advertisers.

Complaint upheld.

The Complaints Committee considered the detail of the complaint and noted that the advertisers had not substantiated the claim made in their advertising i.e. “Exam Success Guaranteed”. In the circumstances the Committee upheld the complaint under Sections 2.9, 2.22 and 2.24 of the Code.

Action Required:
The advertising should not be used in its current format again.