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Rod for their own back
by Janus
FROM the way things are going, the last Government may be glad to be rid of the embarrassment of implementing their own proposals for a transport manager's licence. The new Minister for Transport Industries, Mr John Peyton, has shown no great eagerness to pursue the subject. He can put off a decision, or even openly abandon the project, with no loss of face. His Government have no obligation to treat the Transport Act 1968 as holy writ.
However comfortable his present position may be with all options open indefinitely, the road transport industry cannot afford to let matters take their course. Different sections of the industry have different opinions and are equally anxious that these should not go by default.
ONE handicap to freedom of expression is the supposed obligation to set the opinions within the framework of the provisions in the Act. Beyond the scope so far of any official pronouncements is the growing feeling, especially among operators, that the whole concept of the transport manager's licence was a mistake and that the Minister's hesitation to proceed with it is based on sound intuition.
Circumstances strengthen this point of view. There has surely been more than enough legislation for the industry to digest over the past two or three years. Operators would welcome a respite and no doubt this opinion is shared by the Department of the Environment and especially the Licensing Authorities. Some hauliers have what they consider an additional grievance. They have lost the privileges that they believe were attached to their A or B licence; and, as far as they can see, the transport manager's licence can only mean additional restrictions. In promoting it, they would be making a rod for their own back.
CARRIERS' licensing was abolished almost entirely on the strength of the report of the Geddes Committee. Operators may like to exercise their imagination by guessing the verdict of a similar committee on the proposed transport manager's licence.
The Geddes report examined in turn the alleged benefits derived from carriers' licensing and rejected them one by one. No doubt a similar procedure would be followed with the new subject. The main themes on this basis could be conveniently alliterated as safety, standards and status. The committee would not fail to observe that the stress on any one of these three items varied according to the interest concerned.
Safety was the main, if not the only, reason for the original idea of a licence for transport managers. It was also the reason for most of the other road transport provisions in the Act. Operators and their drivers were brought within strict limits. One can only surmise that a tidy-minded Minister of Transport disliked the idea that a layer of management between operator and driver should be left apparently to go its own sweet way. Applicants for operators' licences are required to show that they understand and are willing and able to apply the road safety measures laid down by law. Whether apart from this they can run their business successfully is no concern of the law. Similarly, drivers must prove that they can handle their vehicle properly and have an adequate knowledge of road safety requirements. No doubt it would be on this basis that the transport manager would be granted his licence.
-0 PERATORS would like to go further than this. They are mainly interested in the ability of the manager to run his depot efficiently and economically. Safety would be an essential but not the principal factor in his training. The wish of the operators, therefore, is that the statutory qualification—if there has to be one— should be as simple as possible and the higher grades should be regulated by the industry itself.
The Transport Managers' Licence Committee is made up of representatives from the road transport associations and from the institutes covering the industry. Its original proposals were put forward over a year ago when a Labour Government was in power. Under the new Government it should be possible to press more strongly than before that State intervention should be kept to the minimum.
On this point of principle the operators are not far from agreement with the proposals put forward by the Guild of Transport Managers. Naturally, the point of view is not identical. The operators are concerned more with standards and the managers with status. Their main proposal is that the person nominated to hold the licence would have to be a member of the Guild or of one of the four main professional bodies. These are the Institute of Transport, the Institute of Traffic Administration, the Industrial Transport Association and the Institute of Road Transport Engineers.
CANDIDATES not in membership 01 one of the organizations would haw to take a test under the supervision of a registration or certification board. This would apply even to managers already ir the industry.
Another item which may be thought particularly revealing is that the Guild will have nothing of the provision in the Act fol an appeal to the Transport Tribunal against the refusal or the revocation or suspension of a licence. Under the new proposal the Licensing Authority would have to give his reasons in writing to the person concerned the holder of the operator's licence and the appropriate organization. Appeals would gc to a committee set up by the Department ,and including representatives of the professional bodies and the Licensing Authority. The decision at that stage would be final.
FOR the first time the collective voice of the transport manager has come through without distortion. It may have been misdirected towards buttressing a dubious piece of legislation but the general tone is unmistakable. The transport manager has an uneven role in the industry. In some cases his status is acknowledged. In too many other cases he is regarded as little more than a foreman under a different title. The foreman has an important and respected job; the manager does not see why his own position shoulcl so often be more ambiguous.
One or two useful pointers may be found in the latest report by the Prices and Incomes Board on the' National Freight Corporation. The State-owned organizations, because they are by far the largest hauliers, must provide the 'greatest scope for management, presumably employ the largest proportion of highly qualified and expert managers, certainly have the best recruitment and training facilities, and yet apparently do rather less well than most other hauliers.
In the case of BRS the Board has one simple explanation. "In an industry where the actual unit of production is the individual commercial vehicle," says the report, "the advantages of operation on a large scale are limited. In particular, there is no decisive advantage in a national traffic network such as that provided by BRS Ltd, so that despite being the largest undertaking involved in this activity the market share held by the Corporation's subsidiaries is relatively small and competition is intense."
THE argument is open to discussion and considerable doubt. Nevertheless, it does throw light on the fundamental issue of the advantages of size in at any rate some branches of road transport (the Board concedes that the case is different with parcels carriers). The statistics continue to bear out the contention that the small operator—even the very small operator —can still hold his own and even be more competitive. In such conditions, the ambitious and talented transport manager must often feel frustrated. The fault may be found in the nature of the work rather than in, for example, the employer.