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Recovery firms refuse to accept rota conditions
Page 9
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• by Guy Sheppard Dozens of vehicle recovery operators are rejecting the chance to win exclusive police recovery contracts, saying they dislike the way the scheme is being managed by a company owned by the AA.
AADL, which manages 26 police contracts around the country, is now being forced to cover parts of North Yorkshire and the Highlands of Scotland with non-local companies. As a result response times are up to three times longer than the 30 minutes required by police, according to the operators who are pulling out.
AADL, which took over the two contracts on 1 June, confirms that two of the five operators covering North Yorkshire are from outside the area. 'We had to get outsiders because people pulled out two days before the contract started," says AADL operations manager Scott Duff.
"We are providing cover but it's not as quick as we would like it. It takes time to replace those contractors but I fully expect to get enough to meet the 30-minute requirement," he says.
The company strongly denies treating recovery operators unfairly and it says that operators :should have voiced concerns at an earlier stage. A spokesman for North Yorkshire police confirms there have been problems with the new contract but asserts that new operators are being recruited. 'In the meantime we are experiencing some delays," he accepts. "Response times have not been met on several occasions."
In the Highlands the protest could prove even more disruptive. According to operators who have pulled out, only one company is now covering the 22,000-square-mile region, compared with 45 earlier this year. However, AADL says there are no problems with this contract at the moment.
Dennis Scott, spokesman for several of the Highland operators concerned, says: "The guys up here had been doing this work for 25 to 30 years without any problems. They were not happy with the attitude of AADL—it was very dictatorial."
He says some of the most unpopular changes included an £18 fee for each call-out from AADL and an Inspection charge to ensure recovery vehicles and premises were up to AADL's standards.
Mike Eagles, chief executive of the ARRA says; "A lot of the problems [with the AADL work] seemed to stem from the huge percentage of unpaid work operators are expected to do."