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YOUR ARTICLE on - Skills for Logistics" did nothing to abate
Page 28
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my fear that the UK haulage industry is heading for a meltdown.
SfL was apparently launched last year with its "key aim" being to "solve the driver shortage". And now Mr Hetherington is able to tell us: "We are beginning to unravel the problem and !don't think we are at the bottom of that yet."
We all know what the problem is there are not enough drivers coming into the industry and there is a driver shortage!
The article tells us that the Sit has a budget of 4.9m this year, but what on earth is that money being used for? If there are millions of pounds available to help the industry we could all think of better ways to put them to use.
Training is the all-important issue at the moment. I said SO in a letter to Commercial Motor two years ago and nothing has changed.
We are all running short of drivers and are constantly having to increase wages to retain those we have got.When the Working Time Directive comes in next March the shortage will get much worse.There are no signs whatsoever of any help from the government. We all need to contribute towards training new drivers. If every company does its bit we will all see an improvement.
We are a relatively small company (40 vehicles) but have helped three or four drivers per year to upgrade their licences and we are intending to increase this help significantly.
Training is an expensive business. If there is some funding available it should be made available in a simple, easy-to-access way to help companies train drivers for the HGV tests. Or, even simpler, why not use some of this funding to subsidise the cost of the actual test anything would help.
And it needs to be made available now. Next year will be too late. By this time next year several more hauliers will have given up.
Profit margins are slim enough in the transport industry and there is a very fine line between paying drivers enough to keep them and ending up in a loss situation.
The only winners will be the drivers who will be working a much shorter week and will be able to name their own price for doing so. Robert Foley Mobile Freight Services (Midlands)