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C of %.7 change
Changes—and they could be big—are on the way for the staff that process the granting of operator licences for hauliers. Even the future for the seven Licensing Authorities looks less than secure. Does anyone care? Should anyone care?
Some would say an "axe man" has just descended on the 420 Traffic Area Office employees with the sole aim of saving money by cutting hundreds of jobs. Others believe that Stephen Curtis, the man given the job of reviewing the operation of the TAOs, will bring efficiency gains and improvements in service.
At the minimum, the review's conclusions will affect the cost and level of service operators receive from their TAOs. And according to TAO staff, there could be inconvenient as well as serious implications if—as seems likely—local offices are closed as the system is partly or wholly centralised.
Opinions
If operators care to air their opinions on the subject then Curtis has been told to listen. When the Department of Transport announced the review just before Christmas it said Curtis's "scrutiny team" would be contacting industry representative bodies as well as small operators for their views. His Cardiff-based team will also commission a market research study asking operators for their opinions on the fees they are asked to pay and their suggestions for improvements to the way TAO work is done.
From his record, Curtis looks like he is open to suggestions of radical change. And he is said by a TAO insider to have "a blank piece of paper and no preconceptions".
He comes from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, where in 1990 he became the executive agency's first chief executive. He will probably be remembered most as the man who decided to cut all 51 of the body's regional offices while centralising work at the Swansea headquarters. Over the next two years those changes threaten to cut up to 1,300 staff—or nearly a third of the workforce—from the DVLA's wage roll.
Sources suggest that the appointment of the 46 year-old statistician to head the TAO review has "put the windup" TAO senior staff and associated employees based at the DOT in Marsham Street.
Curtis will certainly be looking at staff numbers in the light of the TAO's much. reduced workload. Over recent years the staff have lost the responsibility of dealing with car and commercial driving tests and the issuing of commercial vehicle vocational driver licences. They have also had to relinquish their hold over the traffic examiners (the DOT's tachograph and licence inspectors) who have moved to the Vehicle Inspectorate to join their mechanic counterparts, the vehicle examiners.
And their workload will further reduce. By the end of this year continuous operator licensing should be introduced, removing the work associated with frequent licence renewals.
Stacking the odds against the TAO staff is the Government order that all DOT departments should introduce 20°0 "efficiency gains" (or cuts as the unions say) in less than 18 months.
The DOT has set the parameters of the review, saying that Curtis will study "the organisation and work of the TAOs and the scope for improving efficiency and effectiveness". It adds that the review will look at "options for centralising work, for contracting out tasks and for rationalising functions between TAOs and other agencies such as the VI. It will also examine the numbers and boundaries of the existing Traffic Areas."
With language like that many will wonder how many of the eight TAOs in Britain will be left this time next year, and what could be the effect on service.
First, it looks likely that, with at least two of the LAs set to retire soon, British operators will be served by fewer LAs servicing larger geographical areas. Unless the LAs are ordered to become more mobile, operators could be forced to travel further for public inquiries.
And if any of the TAO offices at Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Bristol, Cambridge and Eastbourne are closed, local links between TAO staff and operators look set to break.
This would be inconvenient for the small number of operators who value visiting their local offices.
Sources
TAO sources say that closures would also stamp out the crucial local knowledge that is used to pin-point and stop those individuals who have run haulage companies into the ground and then applied to start others.
As one senior TAO source says: "It's surprising how many people come up with a new firm after running one which went bump... we're in the road safety business and if we lose local knowledge then it all starts to slide."
Other senior sources say a move towards centralisation would deal a lethal blow to LA liaison with local traffic and vehicle examiners. One says the 1968 Transport Act "requires" a regional licensing system and that it is incompatible with centralisation.
Curtis will also study whether the TAOs should be letting the VI take over any of the operator licensing work along with local bus service registration commitments. And he will be studying whether the DVLA should control the driver conduct regime.
If operators believe TAOs should be a thing of the past or they think they should be preserved whole, or in part, now is the time to speak out.
For the next few weeks only, and by order of the Government, Curtis and his team in Room 410A, Caradog House, 1-6 St Andrews Place, Cardiff. CF1 3PW, should listen.
El by Karen Miles