AIMS MISS THE TARGETS
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ccording to legend, whenever the late, unlamented Hermann Goering heard the word "culture", he reached for his gun. Whenever CM hears the words "cost effectiveness" in the same breath as enforcement we're tempted to do the same thing. The Vehicle Inspectorate has a difficult job in tackling errant operators—a job CM heartily endorses. But in the rush to deliver "visible" enforcement within a tight budget has the VI lost its way? In its first business plan since it became an executive agency in 1988 the VI stated its aims unequivocally: "The objective of the VIEA is to promote road safety through the enforcement of prescribed safety standards for vehicles in use on the road, by exercise of powers vested in the Secretary of State for Transport, within the unit cost and other performance and service targets agreed with ministers, the Treasury and the Department of Transport." Given that task, is it any wonder that the VI is having difficulty satisfying everybody? At one end of the rope the DOT (pushed no doubt by the Treasury) is demanding tough efficiency gains (staff cuts?). At the other end there are Government ministers wanting to cut a dash at the dispatch box with official figures on how much bet ter the VI is since it became an executive agency. We've got news for both ends—efficiency gains and tough enforcement aren't necessarily compatible. Tales of mass weighings in East Anglia don't flatter the VI. But if numbers are what's needed then putting 7,063 wagons over a weighbridge will clearly help the VI hit its own HGV enforcement weighing targets—set at 130,000 in the 1993/94 business plan. But if all that activity results in mini mal prosecutions then the targeting is off line. Shouldn't prosecutions, rather than just productivity, be the real measure of the VI's success? As one former Senior Traffic Enforcement officer recently wrote, with uncanny accuracy: "Over emphasis on figures, targets, budgets and other con straints could conceivably lead to a narrow convenient field of enforcement activity. How easy it is to mount mammoth exercises in weighing..." If the VI finds it doesn't know which way to turn over enforcement targeting then per haps it should tell the minister that there is a price for tougher enforcement. Right now the DOT and the Treasury aren't paying it.