Mr. Tindall's progress report
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FROM time to time senior officials of the Road Transport Industry Training Board find—or seek!—an opportunity to meet representatives of the transport industries they serve. Such an occasion happened last week at Bournetnouth when Mr. T. E. Tindall, the Board's director-general, gave a progress report to the National Association of Warehouse Keepers.
With the clamour of sectional protests about the unfair incidence of levy payments still reverberating, Mr. Tindall's constructive account of his stewardship was politely received; he made no attempt to duck the subsequent questions and the confrontation was, I believe, most useful to both parties. However, after Mr. Tindall's departure the grumbling about the Board and many of its activities continued.
Mr. Tindall stressed initially that any training activity tended to take place over a considerable time span so that however interesting or impressive were the results now becoming available, these reflected only part of the story. the recent booklet on the deployment of manpower in the road transport industry would have been very useful three years ago when the Board began but the figures were simply not available. It was now possible to put into perspective the different sectors of the industry and the different occupations within those sectors. It was important, Mr. Tindall continued, to look ahead to the likely shape of the industry for all training was related to future manpower needs—if these were not known operations were very much in the dark.
After touching on the development of the Board's training advisory service and of the TASC (Training Assistance in Small Companies) consultancy unit Mr. Tindall noted that some 50 group training associations had been registered. The "heavy weight" of these were in road haulage, and they predominated in the North-West of England. (Is this because people there are more "clubbable" or because economic factors in the North West conduce to "grouping"?) Whatever the reason this development has provided training for 23,000 employees in companies who previously were not part of the training scene.
Cost of Motecs So much hostility has been aroused in sections of the industry about the High Ercall Motec that it would have been a singular omission if Mr. Tindall had not referred to it. The basic concept partly assisted small companies, he stressed, "because a Motec makes available a method of first-class training to establishments who could not economically provide this facility for themselves. We know that training in our industry involves expensive capital equipment and demands a high instructor /pupil ratio. This kind of expenditure makes a concept such as a Motec very attractive as a money-saving exercise. There have, in fact, been criticisms of the cost of such training centres, but I think these are the products of ignorance.
"After all," said Mr. Tindall, "the practical kind of training we carry on at a Motec has to be done but previously the enormous cost of doing it has been hidden among other cost elements. Expensive as a Motec may appear both in capital and in running costs, when it is spread over the whole industry, anyone with a realistic knowledge of training costs must agree that it makes good economic sense."
Mr. Tindall did not say that the High Ercall Motec cost rather more than Lim to establish and that its running cost is Elm a year, though these figures have been previously published. What he did say, was that he regretted that in the terms of the Training Act there is no clear distinction between capital and revenue expenditure, so that capital items such as Motecs have to be paid from revenue.
"In fact", said Mr. Tindall, "because to establish such a training centre takes about three years the cost tends to be spread over three years. I would have preferred that we could have followed normal commercial practice and spread the cost over a much longer period than this, say 10 or 20 years. However, the Board attempts to achieve the same result •by phasing the investments which we make on behalf of the industry with these training facilities."
Speculation When the technical Press visited Motec I in February (CM February 28) there was some speculation as to the ultimate number of Motecs. One spokesman suggested that there might be 10 or 12, ultimately. Mr. Tindall's confirmation that Motec 2 (in Scotland) is being commissioned and should become operational from 1971 and that the Board has decided there is a need for Motec 3 will still speculation for the moment. For he went on to say that a review of the need for further Motecs will be deferred until these two have been commissioned.
So much emotion has been generated by some industry spokesmen about the alleged vast cost of Motecs that it was useful to see things through Mr. Tindall's eyes. The decision to build the first and subsequent Motecs was surely a highly professional judgment by the Board's senior executives, fully endorsed by the Board as a whole. If, as some people seem to imply, the Motecs should never have been launched, the Board—representative of the whole spectrum of the industry—must take the blame. But if, as I hope and believe, the Motecs become generally accepted throughout the road transport industry as—at the very least—a praiseworthy experiment of which Britain and its transport men may be justly proud, then the Board and its staff will deserve the industry's thanks.
Dare I suggest that some of the criticisms of the High Ercall Motec stem from its "one-class" standard of accommodation? Would those who are so articulate in its condemnation have been less ready to sound off if the designers had specified lino-covered floors in big dormitories for the "troops" and reserved a small carpeted wing for the "orficers"?
As one who thoroughly endorsed the Board's "one-class" concept of amenity at High Ercall I sincerely trust that the present criticisms of Motec 1 are not designed to lower amenity standards on a differential basis at subsequent Motecs.
It is entirely understandable that some industry critics who are not averse to training in principle fear the effect on their own businesses when employees return from a Motec course. Drivers, warehousemen, even traffic managers in many cases, would be less than human if they did not contrast the decent amenities at High Ercall with the primitive and dingy environment of so many premises in road transport. That is not an argument against the fine Motec I concept; it is simply a reflection of the understandable philosophy of employers in what is still, for the most part, . a "cottage"-type transport industry.
The sensible reaction of employers, trade unions and workers who have enjoyed and benefited from training, whether at High Ercall or anywhere else—remember that in scores of technical colleges amenity standards are high—is to resolve to accept the necessary changes in the organization of the transport industry which will yield high profits, and thus enable reasonable amenities and working conditions to be provided for all staff.
Mr. Tindall's reminder that in his earlie career he had worked for enlightened companies who had made every necessary provision for their future in terms of trained manpower "only to find that they have then lost their trained staff to other companies who preferred to spend a little extra in wages rather than be involved in the greater expense of training" should discourage any road transport employers from crazy dreams that politicians can be persuaded to sweep away the Industrial Training Act and the 30 or so Boards that have stemmed from it.
Timetable
I understand that it is likely to be two or three years before the Parliamentary timetable can digest even a few minor changes in the main Act governing industrial training! Any practicable campaign—if one is desired—to put the clock back a generation as regards training will need to mobilize some big political guns. I suspect few politicians of any note will rush to join this lobby.
As can be readily surmised, training executives have not enjoyed—to quote Mr. Tindall—"the unfortunate connotation of the sticks and carrots of the Levy and Grant. The cost of administering such schemes is virtually dead money as in itself it adds nothing to either the quantity or quality of training." He assured the conference that it was his constant endeavour to keep down the cost of administering these schemes and he declared: "If this has resulted in delays in assessment or payment, I regret it, but still feel that this is justified". The documentation tended to flow in peaks and troughs and to recruit extra staff to deal with the peaks would be an unjustified extravagance.
'Speaking very personally, Mr. Tindall said he felt that the Levy and Grant assessments would only help to develop training to a certain level. They encouraged employers who had done little or no training previously to experiment, and he felt that employers who took the plunge into training would see its value in its own right "and not merely as a method of grant maximization". For this reason he looked forward to the day when the RTITB would become a Training Advisory Service to an industry "convinced about and committed to training as a vital insurance to its own future. When this happens Levy and Grant will be reduced in both importance and size . and the administrative cost to the industry will also be reduced".
Permitting himself to gaze into his crystal ball, Mr. Tindall saw the achievement so far as the laying of foundations on which to build for the future. Sound training principles had been developed for each group of employees "with the possible exception of the management field."
Here, Mr. Tindall wondered whether the management problem was not different in kind from management training problems in other industries. Recommendations so far issued by the Board apropos management training were typical of those issued with success in other industries for many years now. Implemented in road transport they would represent a significant advance "but we could not claim that they are in any way the pattern for the future. For this reason the Board has set up a staff working party to investigate the peculiar problems of management training and development and this will look into all existing approaches and attempt to advise something new which takes into account the special circumstances of the industry-.
New attack
If this new attack on the intractable problem of transport management training is successful there would be major benefits, particularly in a fall-out of benefits in other forms of training. It was hoped that the work of TASC would mature within the next 12 months and the intention was to adapt the techniques developed into a form capable of being used by the Regional Advisory Service.
I cannot help thinking that the management training study exercise would be more likely to be successful if there was more unanimity about the future shape of the road haulage industry. If it is to continue as a cottage industry of predominantly small units simple management philosophies appropriate to employers of five to 50 vehicles must be hammered out. But if bigger units are to develop, or group training leads to much more integration of the operational and commercial aspects, then the training for management will surely take a different line? Until this Gordian knot is cut I do not envy the TASC unit their laborious ploughing contest up hill all the way.
Mr. Tindall discussed another development which could provoke a storm of criticism if its fruits are unduly delayed. The Board's substantial investment in the very latest aids of visual and audio media, with colour television equipment and a film unit represents, according to your point of view, a prodigal expenditure of the industry's money or—as I prefer to think—an imaginative tool from which everyone in road transport could benefit in the early future.
I gather from Mr. Tindall that all specialist sections of the industry are likely soon to be clamouring for appropriate training films and the problem will be to decide who most deserves priority in the queue! It is all rather reminiscent of London dock workers receiving, in turn, long-needed amenity blocks: those compelled to wait their turn get distinctly cross.
A tonic. . .
What Mr. Tindall called "mail order" training—prepared packages of instruc
tional film with ancillary training material—could be a tonic for all the small firms in the industry. Group training associations could, perhaps, be persuaded to invite non-member road hauliers to attend some evening demonstrations; it is a fair bet that many small employers will be shy about applying to the Board for a film training package. I gather that it is hoped to produce perhaps a series of 20 short film strips for issue to firms—and no doubt when series of films have been made for all aspects of this diverse industry the films will need to be revised fairly frequently.
Mr. Tindall's stimulating progress report given to a quite small group of warehousemen suggests that the Board is conscious of its public relations responsibilities as it faces some industry criticism. I understand that no member of the RTITB staff was present at the recent RHA conference because no one was invited. A more ludicrous situation could scarcely be imagined because I have yet to attend a road transport conference when the Board has not been discussed—often heatedly. In this context who is the mountain and who Mahomet is irrelevant. Common sense is called for.