RTITB's levy of no benefit, Tribunal told
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• An appeal against the Road Transport Industry Training Board's levy assessment made to the Industrial Tribunal by SD Freight (Brighton) Co Ltd, on July 17, was heard by the Tribunal on December 15.
The company, which had been assessed for, £112 levy on an annual payroll of £8060, told the Tribunal that it had registered a financial trading loss over the past two years and that the additional levy assessment would do nothing to right the position. The sum of £112 bore no commercial return for any training facilities that the company could use to any commercial end. It was, said the company, studying the Bolton Report and taking the levy up with the Department of Trade and Industry Small Firms Division.
A director of the company, Mr. C. J. E. Haybittle, told CM, this week, that its main activity was not that of road haulage but packing and forwarding agents. The company believed in training and sent many of its staff to study courses. These were concerned with such subjects as documentation and cargo-loading seminars at Heathrow, value-added tax, and language courses, which were outside the scope of RTITB grants.
The company was therefore demonstrably not against training but could see no advantage for the levy paid. If it could benefit from the training facilities offered by the Board then it would have no objection to spending the sum of £112, said Mr. Haybittle.
The decision of the Tribunal is awaited.