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ED chaos as deadline nears
Page 7
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• Confusion surrounded the publication of legislation on the horizontal Working Time Directive—which comes into force next month—as CM went to press on Tuesday.
Although the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) published details on its website on Friday (4 July), these were incorrect and were subsequently removed, says Ruth Pott, head of employment at the Road Haulage Association.
The horizontal directive was agreed three years ago, but with lithe more than three weeks until its introduction, no detailed regulations have been published. Poll regards this as "wholly unacceptable", but adds that while there are no published regulations, they were laid down before Parliament last week.
The DTI says it is waiting for the Stationary Office to put the regulations on its website. The directive covers all workers in the transport industry except for drivers covered by the EU drivers' hours rules, who will be governed by separate regulations in 2005.
However, it has become clear that VOSA is to police all mobile workers for WTO compliance, a fact which angers Freight Transport Association chief Richard Turner. "No other industry has its own specifc enforcement agency; the HSE enforces the regulations elsewhere and it is funded by taxpayers. Does this mean operators will have to pay extra for VOSNs additional manpower?"
Turner says the decision to use VOSA to enforce the legislation is totally at odds with previous government promises.