Whither the GTAs?
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The RTITB's ready agreement to the sensible proposal of the Department of Employment that companies already engaged on a satisfactory training scheme should be exempted from the levy grant scheme, will cause a few eyebrows to be raised. Those employers who have for years been training their personnel to a very high standard might be more than a little surprised to learn that the RTITB is now ready to agree with them that the payment of levy and the claiming of grant is an unnecessary administrative burden.
These companies have been declaring long and loud that they did not need the force of law to encourage them to train. In fact, many company training schemes were operating before the RTITB was established. Their exemption will remove not only an administrative but also a financial burden. Although they were in a position to claim grants against levy in relation to the degree of training they were involved in, one did not always cancel out the other. The levy in most cases was paid well in advance of the grant becoming available. Operators have complained that they have been laying out vast sums of money for periods of six months or more while grant payments were delayed.
Between the exempted extremes there lie the Group Training Associations whose position is not at all clear. Obviously, their training meets requirements of the RTITB since the programmes are approved by the Board—in many cases the training officers are appointed by the Board. However, the GTAs are sustained by grant, so presumably those who are members will continue to pay levy despite meeting the Board's training criteria.
Surely this is the opportunity to abolish the levy grant system for them and ask the GTA member companies to finance their Assocations directly, basing their contributions on the number of vehicles each member has authorized on his licence. An initial grant could be made available by the Government to establish new associations.