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Council's 'horrifying' record
Page 22
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• Maintenance problems put Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council before West Midland Licensing Authority John Mervyn Pugh last week on disciplinary charges.
The LA described the list of defect notices on the council's vehicles as "horrifying", and John Baker, Sandwell's director of technical services, said they had also caused the council extreme concern.
The transport manager had been suspended during investigations as to why procedures had not been followed.
Vehicles were supposed to be inspected on a nine-week cycle: the council operated 80 licensed vehicles and 117 ex
empt vehicles. Maintenance was carried out for the service departments by a cental workshop but vehicles had not been released when they had become due for inspection. Mervyn Pugh said that he wanted the council to adopt safety checks every four weeks: he wanted flow charts to be kept at all the user depots showing when vehicles were due for inspection; he wanted drivers to have a nildaily-defect reporting system, and he wanted blunt letters to be written to all the drivers, pointing out their responsibilities, with the drivers signing duplicate copies.
Mervyn Pugh took no action as the council had readily accepted what had been suggested. He also took account of the fact that only one of the 20-plus defect notices had indicated neglect.