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Training complaints sent to Mrs Castle

10th April 1970, Page 26
10th April 1970
Page 26
Page 27
Page 26, 10th April 1970 — Training complaints sent to Mrs Castle
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

RHA presents five-point plan: RTITB shortcomings

listed: new thoughts on block grants

• Widespread complaints by hauliers about the structure of the Road Transport Industry Training Board and the way in which it is functioning have culminated in a memorandum from the Road Haulage Association to Mrs Barbara Castle, Secretary of State, Department of Employment and Productivity. The RHA has put forward a five-point plan "to assist the Board in its efforts to achieve its aims and to help improve its relationship with the road haulage industry".

1. A separate and internal division of the Board for the road haulage sector and perhaps all other sectors of the road transport industry and a differential levy are essential to ensure that levies paid by the road haulage sector are used to finance training in that sector only in accordance with its needs.

2. The Industrial Training Act should be amended to allow only employer representatives on the Board to vote on matters relating to the imposition of levy.

3. The Industrial Training Act should be amended to give the Board borrowing powers so as to spread over a reasonable period capital expenditure on such items as multi-occupational training and education centres (MOTECs).

4. There should be increased consultation and co-operation between the Board and representatives of organizations in the industry.

5. The present grant system should be changed to a system of assessing the value of real training within a company and agreeing an overall grant accordingly in order to introduce greater flexibility to training and to eliminate bureaucracy.

Training Act amendment Noting that the Board is concerned with passenger transport, vehicle repairs and a number of other interests as well as road haulage, the RHA says: "In attempting to deal with the requirements of such diverse elements the Board is seriously handicapped in discharging its responsibilities towards the road haulage industry."

Road haulage employers have only three representatives on the Board and only one representative on each of the important committees dealing with the levy and grants, with establishments and finance and with training policy.

"There should be a separate internal division of the Board for the road haulage sector", says the RHA "and probably for each other sector of the road transport industry. While subject to the supervision of the main board a road haulage division should be autonomous in assessing its own training needs, levies and grants."

The memorandum proposes an amendment to the Industrial Training Act to allow only employer representatives to vote on matters relating to the imposition of levy. . "Furthermore this should be extended to voting on such matters as the introduction of MOTECs and similar expensive projects."

Differential levy The current levy is 2.2 per cent on firms with a payroll of over £15,000; 1.5 per cent where the payroll is below this figure but above £5,000 and 0.75 per cent for the remaining firms. Instead of, or in addition to, this "three-tier levy system", says the RHA, "the Board should introduce a differential levy which recognizes the advantages and disadvantages that will accrue to the different elements composing the road transport industry."

The following table, which the Association has taken from the Board's annual report for the year ended March 31 1969, shows that hauliers paid more than twice as much in levy as they received in grants, whereas motor vehicle distributors and repairers and driving schools received £1,4m more than they paid.

The RHA memorandum gives three main advantages for a differential levy for the road haulage sector.

1. Approximately 60 per cent of the levies paid by road hauliers is in respect of drivers and the cost of training drivers is low in comparison with that of other trades. Drivers commence work in the industry with some experience and ability in driving which can merely be improved to some extent. The small cost of this type of training cannot be compared, for instance, with the case of the apprentices with no skill who have to be trained intensively over a long period to become car mechanics.

1 A large proportion of the levies paid by road hauliers is devoted to the more expensive training of fitters in vehicle repair establishments who use their skills in the work of repairing private cars and require frequent re-training as changes in the design and manufacture of vehicles occur.

3. The majority of hauliers are small operators who do not have the same opportunities to train as large companies and have less demand on the supply of trained drivers.

Causes of complaint

Dilatoriness in grant payments and in other matters is one of a wide range of criticisms summarized in the memorandum to Mrs Castle, which gives the following long list of examples: 1. Grant claims are paid very much in arrears.

2. The Board retains large sums of the industry's money.

3. Grant claims are amended without any explanation.

4. Claims are reduced in spite of the fact that training was carried out in accordance with earlier approvals by the Board.

5. Continual changes in the type and standards of training qualifying for grant makes it virtually impossible to plan training budgets or training schemes.

6. Very few of the Board's training officers appear to have any worthwhile knowledge of road haulage.

7. Training times laid down by the Board are often inadequate.

8. Too much time is taken up by companies' executives in handling an increasing volume of paper work and in negotiations and consultations with the Board's officials.

9. The Board is slow to reply to correspondence.

10. Communications between the Board's hq, regional officers and field officers is poor.

11. The Board is extravagant.

12. Motecs should be self-supporting and should not be a charge on the levy.

13. It is less time-consuming and more productive in the long run to treat the levy as a tax to pass on to customers rather than become involved with the bureaucracy of a training board which is lacking in understanding of the problems and character of the industry.

14. The grant scheme is becoming a financial exercise rather than a contribution to training.

15. There is little flexibility under the grant scheme, particularly so far as "on-the-job" 16. There is an uncontrollable increase in the number of officials needed, both by the Board and by the employers, to administer the levy and grant scheme.

17. The Board sets standards of training which are often considerably higher than those which are necessary for individual companies.

18. Oral assurances given, or programmes drawn up, by the Board's field officers are subsequently changed or ignored by officials at regional offices or at the Board's headquarters.

A memorandum to the Board, dealing with these and other criticisms in detail, indicates that they have arisen "mainly from total frustration as a result of late payment of continued on page 26


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