Hauliers miss out on cash grants
Page 28
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
WHEN the Transport Bill was discussed by members of the Transport Association at a meeting in London on Tuesday, it was sug gested that a change should be made in the method of issuing licences based on the unladen weight of vehicles. Consideration should be given to licences based on plated gross weights. The unladen weight can vary during the life of a vehicle and this, and other factors, make the present method unrealistic. The Association chairman, Mr. F. L. Jolly, said that in his view the RTITB was a development which, with others, gave the impression that we were becoming a "monopolistic state". He added that if the Government was saying to the small man "get out of business" it was a sorry state of affairs as we would be in danger of losing the impetus of private enterprise in haulage.
Mr. A. E. Reffold, London and South East Region manager, RTITB, said the Board was largely working in the dark with regard to the setting of the levy and grants. But the Minister of Labour had insisted that a start to the work be made and detailed know ledge required to develop future policy was now being obtained. He emphasized that the first year's levy and grants must be taken as interim figures which would not necessarily be adhered to in future years.
Firms in transport do not appear to be applying for grants for all the training they did, said Mr. Reffold, and his own policy was to tell his staff to let firms know if it was felt that they had not claimed enough.
In a busy question time following the address it was obvious that Transport Association members were far from happy with the Training Board, mainly from the point of the extra work and cost it entailed and the difficulty of claiming for types of staff training which did not fall exactly into a "training-scheme" category. Mr. Reffold said that claims can be made for training of any sort even if it involved a man being taken on as a mate to learn to be a driver. Training Board staff will call on operators to help ensure they make proper claims.