Associations merger likely...
Page 11
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
by Karen Miles • "The Road Haulage and Freight Transport Associations will merge in time for the new millennium," according to a senior staff member of one of the associations.
He expects a unified association for freight transport to be launched on 1 January 2000, replacing both existing organisations.
A unified body would save "hundreds of thousands of pounds" in running costs each year as well as bringing a one-off cash bonanza from the sale of at least four duplicate offices.
The RHA currently employs some 90 people and the FTA has about three times this number, but many of these belong to service departments such as vehicle and tachograph inspection. The RHA and FTA have around 12,000 and 10,000 members respectively.
"The savings would allow us to put a rocket into the PR campaign for road transport," says the source, who suggests a management line-up might be FTA directorgeneral David Green as the new organisation's head with support from RHA director-general Steven Norris, who could become a consultant lobbying and PR figure.
There are still some policy differences between the FTA and RHA, but our source claims that these differences are often mag nified to sell their separate messages to the media.
"We spend a lot of time competing with each other," he adds, while negotiations with Brussels and the Government over the Working Time Directive, fuel prices and general transport policy are producing "no differ ence in substance" between the two.
Before Christmas the two associations announced that they were going to meet to see if they could work more closely together; a working party has been set up for these discussions (CM 3-9 Dec 1998).