Examiners attack VI take-over plan
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• Traffic examiners are up in arms over Vehicle Inspectorate plans to make them report to VI district managers instead of traffic area enforcement managers from this summer.
The National Union of Civil and Public Servants claims that VI managers do not know enough about enforcement, and stresses that the inspectorate's role is to provide a service to the industry — not to police it.
The move is a further step towards full integration with the VI, which took over responsibility for the traffic examiners last year. The process will take place in two stages. The first, from 1 May, will require enforcement managers, who are responsible for roadside checks of tachographs, 0-licences and tax discs, to come under the control of VI group managers: they answer directly to VI operations director Julian David.
Then a "more radical change" takes place. Local VI district officers, who are under the remit of group managers, will begin to take day-to-day charge of traffic enforcement.
The NUCPS plans to complain about the changes to Department of Transport civil servants at a meeting in Marsham Street this Monday (23 March).
One senior traffic examiner, who did not want to be named, told CM that the announcement had come as a shock: "We're reporting to someone who knows nothing about enforcement," he says. "The VI works on money terms. They have an incentive to put on as many prohibitions as possible — as an executive agency, they've got to bring in money or they go bust."
However, the VI's Julian David says the move is simply part of a "continuous integration' process which has only been made after consultation with the unions. "Any change produces worries," he says. "The integration will benefit enforcement."
He dismisses claims that the VI has a profit incentive: "We're not here to make a profit — simply to meet clearly defined targets,"