Managers
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CURIOUSLY worded like much EEC near-English, the phrase "admission to the occupation of road haulage operator" does nevertheless provide briefly an insight into the mind of the Community. It indicates that a ticket is required before one can get in, and that, once inside, nothing will be found quite as grand as a profession or even a vocation, so that the successful haulier need not put on airs.
Nuances of this kind are evidently wasted on the National Guild of Transport Managers. Having looked at the bill of fare prepared by the Department of the Environment on the basis of the EEC directive, the guild has no hesitation. It wants to go through the card.
Unlike both the .FTA and the RHA, and whose agreement on the issue is in some ways surprising, the Guild wants the proposed qualifications—good repute, adequate financial standing and proof of professional competence—to apply to ownaccount operators as well as to hauliers. The argument is that, because of operators' licensing, the sectors cannot be separated, although in practice the two associations do not seem to find much difficulty.
The guild would like the scheme to apply in respect of all vehicles for which an operator's licence is required. There ought to be a licensed manager at each operating centre, and the examination should be obligatory for all persons entering the "profession"—as the guild obstinately calls it—since the end of 1974. On the other hand, the guild does not want admission granted to persons who hold a title in a firm but 'have no direct responsibility or control over the running of vehicles.
Nobody can blame the guild for following in the main the very strong 'lead from the Department, which, true to 'its bureaucratic self, would no doubt like the chance of 'introducing almost unchanged the 1968 legislation on the licensing of transport managers. This •is not what the EEC 'has in mind.
The directive is principally aimed at the haulier himself. He is the one whose financial standing must be at least .satisfactory, and it is only if 'he is lacking in professional competence that he is given the opportunity of nominating a better qualified manager. Both of them have to be of good repute.
As with so much EEC documentation, the directive harks back to the Treaty of Rome and the common transport policy