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TAN ceases to exist in sprini but DoT publishes 2003 plan

12th September 2002
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Page 6, 12th September 2002 — TAN ceases to exist in sprini but DoT publishes 2003 plan
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

• by Miles Brignall

The Department of Transport has gone to the time and expense of publishing a business plan for the Traffic Area Network—despite the fact that TAN will cease to exist as an organisation next spring.

Back in July the DoT announced that the body which oversees operator licensing is to be merged with the Vehicle Inspectorate. However, no one appears to have told those responsible for producing TAN's glossy brochures.

Last week it sent out its business plan for the year 2002/3 which bizarrely makes no mention of the forthcoming merger. Instead the plan is full of details on how the organisation will be operating in the forthcoming year and how it plans to restructure its finances.., information that is rendered entirely meaningless by the merger.

It seems the job of producing the business plan was started before the merger of the two organisations was announced. However, it's unclear why the expensive project was not halted once the decision was made public.

DoT spokeswoman says the TAN Business Plan was produced a long time before ministers announced that the merger would take place. She denied it was a pointless exercise and said that much of the detail in the plan is still valid.

One of the things the plan does achieve is to indicate the DoT's thinking on certain issues—including reducing the number of traffic areas to six. It says it is still looking at alternatives to the licence discs which hauliers are currently required to display in vehicle windscreens, and might abolish the 'margin' concession which allows operators to use vehicles for up to 28 days without notifying the TAN.

It also says that truck hire firms will soon be able to search TAN's website In7‘,,er:o., that a

vehicle hirer holds an Operator's Licence. Lastly it confirms that 60 posts have disappeared as a result of the introduction of the TAN 21 computer system.

• The Department of Transport appears to have back-tracked on its plan to increase operator licence fees from this November. Hauliers were out

raged when CM revealed in 1 spring that It had agreed increase fees by 16.1%.

However, following a vigi ous campaign—orchestral most notably by the Freii Transport Association, the I has backed down and podia the fee rise to 5%.


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