Vito make savings
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• The privatisation of vehicle testing was ruled out last week but transport secretary John MacGregor wants to see "substantial future savings" in the Vehicle Inspectorate and more on-site testing at operator premises.
MacGregor has said he wants to see savings of 25-30%. VI chief executive Ron Oliver says such a saving is possible by "improving efficiency by improving total quality initiatives". He says staff will be trained to do their jobs more effectively and that ''as we become more efficient, we'll need fewer staff'.
This will be done by natural wastage and "if it can't we'll look at other ways from voluntary retirement through to redundancy", says Oliver. Nearly 800 staff work in testing and 700 work in enforcement: 226 are at VI head office. He is meeting VI management tomorrow (25 March) to discuss how efficiency savings can be made.
MacGregor ruled out privatisation of VI testing because "the development of significant competition in the provision of testing services and the transfer of the freeholds of the testing sites to purchasers would not be possible if a successful sale was to be achieved".