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RTITB block grant upsets RHA
Page 29
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• The Road Haulage Association is upset about the way that the Road Transport industry Training Board proposes to mplement its proposals to the Secretary of ;tate for Employment on block grants. The R.HA's road haulage sub-committee says la it was not consulted officially about the :ondition that hauliers will have to train 10 )er cent of new drivers, that is drivers who lo not hold a heavy goods vehicle driving icence, before qualifying for block grant.
In an article in the June issue of Roadway, it is pointed out that companies vith 10 or more hgv drivers on the strength mist train one or more novices before ivalifying. In addition, where the annual urnover of drivers exceeds 10 per cent there vill have to be suitable conversion training or skilled hgv driver recruits.
There will be two exceptions, says the rticle; where the annual turnover is less han 10 per cent, the number of novices to e trained need equal only the annual rastage; and where the Department of .rriployment verifies that there is a ubstantial local unemployment among rivers, the number of men trained by ompanies with an annual turnover of less Ian 10 per cent may be experienced drivers ndergoing conversion courses.
For firms with fewer than 10 hgv drivers, a estimate of the quantity of relevant aining will be made from figures for the ast two years.
The RHA says that it would be unfair for a company which is undertaking a great deal of other than hgv driver training to be excluded from block grant if it fails to reach the quantity of driver training demanded.
Mr J. M. Carling, director of administration for the RTITB, told CM this week that the proposals which were submitted to the Department of Employment in April contained suggestions for certain quantitive requirements for block grants. This was to meet the situation in which the Board found itself as the result of the move away from grants for training specific grades of workers to overall block grants. This had meant that the Board was not in a position to influence the training of, for instance, heavy goods vehicle drivers of which there was a national shortage.
In order to safeguard the training of key grades, the Board felt that it ought to provide a means of ensuring that adequate training was provided for such staff.
Mr Carling said that estimates had shown that merely to cater for replacement of hgv drivers who left the industry altogether, it would be necessary to train new entrants up to 10 per cent of the present labour force. This took no account of the possible future increased demands.
The Board had not made specific proposals of 10 per cent new driver training as a requirement for block grant to the Secretary for Employment but it felt that this was the extent to which driver training should be encouraged.
The qualifying percentage of driver training would be subject to review at the end of the training year.