• Last November we reported on DTp traffic examiner dissatisfaction
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over increasing Licensing authority interference in their work, coupled with cut-backs in their resources. It seemed, to use a medical metaphor, like no more than a localised infection. Now it appears to have been allowed to develop into a disturbing illness of potentially epidemic proportions.
Trade union officials do not usually complain publicly about low morale among their members except as a device to be used as a lever in pay negotiations; or because they are genuinely concerned. We believe that Ralph Beaumont, branch secretary of the Society of Civil and Public Servants, falls into the latter category. Last week he said bluntly: "My members are being prevented from doing their jobs by a shortage of funds." We have learnt since then that the cuts have gone even deeper than he then realised. One of Beaumont's senior examiners says that the latest budget revision (that is, cutback), the third since April last year, means that his team will be "completely ineffective, with the wholesale cancellation of road checks and investigation work."
If this is happening in the North-West there is no reason to suppose that similar drastic economies are not being made throughout the country, and that adds up to a crippling of what had become a rarity — a healthy, well-respected government agency.
This government seems to be so obsessed with cost cutting that it cannot recognise when it is much better for all concerned to leave well alone. The feeble reason that has been given to examiners for their being starved of resources is that "departmental running costs are outstripping allocations." Nobody has yet considered, it appears, that if that is so then perhaps the "allocations" should be revised.
When the Government last threatened to tamper with the DTp's generally well-respected CV inspection and testing system, by putting the I-IGV test stations into private hands it was dissuaded from doing so by almost universal condemnation of the proposal.
This time the tampering is more insidious, but potentially even more harmful — and it should be greeted with appropriately strong condemnation.
The traffic examiner cut-backs are unfortunately not an isolated malaise. They are in the same vein as the freezing of proposals to change 0-licence regulations environmental provisions, which FTA director-general Garry Turvey rightly describes as "negative and petty". It is time for some more positive thinking at Marsham Street.