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HAULIER'S BURDEN
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We're paginf twice our fair sitar for driver training..
HAULIERS are pouring money into a bottomless pit in financing the training of drivers and mechanics for the benefit of operators of commercial vehicles at large. Such training is paid for, in the main, by haulage companies who employ only 30 per cent of heavy goods vehicle drivers, nationally.
With few exceptions, the remaining 70 per cent of road freight vehicle operators recruit hgv drivers from those already qualified and contribute nothing to their training. This must stop and all operators must bear their fair share of the expense.
This is not an argument against training, not only road safety but the operator's own interests are involved in the proper training of drivers. Rather is it a plea for the training of staff for all aspects of the carriage of freight by road to be put on a just and equitable footing — driver training is the example which illustrates the point.
Nor is it necessarily a suggestion in support of the Road Transport Industry Training Board though, after 10 years, this organisation now has the facilities and know-how on which a comprehensive national system of road transport training can be built.
As far as heavy goo vehicle drivers are concernE these number nearly half million throughout the count' Only 130,000 of these z employed by companies witF the scope of the RTITB who paying practically the whole the training costs to sustai and provide replacements ft the total.
To provide for natural WE
e and to retrain existing ters on other vehicle classes, RTITB in other words, hire and reward haulage lustry — has furnished 150 training places annually. t-of-scope organisations re paid for only 500 and iut half of these are at nmercial driving schools.
At first sight, the actual -nbers of trained drivers ed out each year — 12,000 in-scope facilities and 8,000 out-of-scope — looks quite sonable. However, 20 per it of the 8,000 are trained at ablishments set up under the ;pices of the RTITB, mainly lup training associations.
Thus, it might be argued that ough the RTITB, the haulage lustry obtains some measure revenue from these. That 'enue, however, is derived inly from individuals rather in the companies which ;ntually employ them. In ler words, individuals paying their own training, possibly th redundancy payments :eived, are also subsidising t-of-scope operators.
The system is manifestly fair now at a time when ver training has declined cause of the present econoc situation. It will become an more so in the future pecially as the demand for vers increases as the econly recovers.
The Board has projected ure requirements in its manwer forecasts and has pre:ted that the present 1,750 lining places will become ossly inadequate by the 180s when some 3,000 ices will be required. Who II pay for the extra 1,250?
To find out if other industrial lining were providing driver ining facilities, we wrote to a 28 Boards (other than the -ITB) which have been set up the Government. Of the 20 -iich replied, it was obvious an only about four were aking any provision for train) drivers employed by their .scope companies.
The Printing and Publishing B with 1,800 hgv drivers -scope claimed a driver trainprogramme which is operad with the co-operation of
e RTITB and it pays grant for I-1TB approved courses.
The Ceramics, Glass and ineral Products board has no :tual training programme but iys grant and uses RTITB faciies. One of its own training ;sociations, the Eastern Home )unties, is amalgamated with 1 RTITB group, Training Deilopment (Transport) Ltd. In addition, English China Clay has its own driver training school. The Air Transport and Travel board relies mainly on RTITB facilities, but British Airways has a school, too, Perhaps the only industrial training board which has made a serious attempt to provide trained drivers for in-scope companies is the Food, Drink and Tobacco Board with over 40,000 drivers employed by those companies, This Board has set up 171 training centres with 275 instructors for which grant payment for courses is available. It includes participation in the Young Driver Training Scheme.
The RTITB, of course, has been pressing for all transport training to be included in its own remit for some years and its recent publication on training in the transport and distribution field has highlighted once again the anomolies.
Emphasising that the haulage industry is undertaking twice its fair share of the training commitment, the report, points out that this has caused resentment and demands by the principal trade unions and the Road Haulage Association for greater equity.
This reaction is now reaching a stage where hauliers feel betrayed into a position where they have taken good advice on training and because of this they are suffering a financial penalty.
The Board also speculates on what bad driving habits are being instilled into trainee drivers by indifferent training methods outside its own ambit; a matter which should cause apprehension to those concerned with road safety.
Though the Young Driver Training Scheme is administered by the Board on behalf of a joint Policy Committee, involving hauliers and ownaccount operators, less than 10 per cent of trainees have come from companies outside the Board's scope.
Taking into account the inevitable slow start to the scheme in these difficult times, it is obvious that this is even more of an unbalanced situation than that which applies to adult drivers.
All the arguments about the way driver training is paid for by companies who might not be able to retain their services when they are attracted to firms who have made no financial contribution to their acquired skill, applies to a lesser degree to fitters and mechanics.
This arrangement too is unfair in the same way and deters companies from taking on apprentices.
The problem could be solved to some extent by other industrial training boards including an allocation within their levy for driver training in proportion to the number of drivers employed by in-scope companies. The sum realised might be transferred to the Training Services Agency or even directly to the RTITB. But even this does not fully meet the situation.
There are still organisations employing drivers which are outside the scope of any industrial training board. These, too, should be asked to pay their fair share of training costs.
It should not be impossible for an assessment to be made of the annual cost of training drivers now and for the future. By relating this to the number of holders of hgv licences and demands of industry. When those demands begin to increase as the economy recovers, hgv drivers will, once again, be in short supply. relating the individual cost to driving strength of a particular company, a fair charge against each could be established. Transport is a barometer of the country's business and expands quickly to meet the One thing is plain, the resistance to driver training — and the training of other transport operatives — now becoming apparent from road hauliers will harden. When this happens, the transport of goo( both for home consumption ar export will become that muc more difficult.
• Johnny Johnsc