Training Board 'failure' attack in Commons
Page 20
Page 21
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Government promises future policy decision this year
from our Parliamentary correspondent • Despite fierce criticism in a Commons debate of the Road Transport Industry Training Board, the Government last week stood firm in its determination to make no changes until a thorough review of the industrial training boards has been made.
"We shall keep our promise in the Queen's Speech, and before the Session is through we shall announce our policy on the subject," emphasized Mr Paul Bryan, Minister of State at the Department of Education.
The debate on road transport training had been opened by Mr Marcus Fox (Tory, Shipley)—the first speech he has made in the Commons.
He did not—as had been forecast—ask for the Training Board to be ended; instead he just invited the House to "take note" of the Order continuing the training levy and he hoped that when the Order was presented to MPs next year certain changes would haye been made.
Recalling his involvement in transport before he became an MP, and his experience of the Road Transport Industry Training Board, Mr Fox said he was not arguing whether there should be training or not. It was a matter of getting the best training.
It was right, he continued, that there should be an adequate supply of well-trained men and women—it was right that training should be improved wherever it could—and it was right that the costs should be shared as fairly as possible.
Three groups But the RTITB was concerned with three groups of people. First were those who received training, and they had to feel that the training was useful, practical and would be of advantage to them. They had to feel that it would enable them to do their jobs better and at the same time enhance their future prospects.
The second group consisted of the men or the firms who had to pay for the training, and it was right that they should feel thaf it was advantageous to them and their firms.
The third group were the people who did the training, and this was where the great weakness really came. They had to have the confidence of the first two groups and it had to be felt that they were serving the best interests of the industry they were supposed to lead or to serve.
"On these counts, I am sorry to have to say that the Road Transport Industry Training Board has failed," declared Mr Fox.
The Board would argue: "we have trained 35 per cent of the people who came within the scope of the Board," went on Mr Fox. That was more than 300,000 people. But what had they been trained to do? Was it training for training's sake? That, he feared was the position.
There was too much of "How much can we claim back in grant and let us fit training to it", instead of "How necessary is the training?" Was the tail wagging the dog, asked Mr Fox. It had to be remembered that training was only supposed to be a means to an end, and not an end in itself.
The Board had no control of costs, complained Mr Fox. The red flag was flying in 1968, when it was £2-1-m in the red. The following year it was £34m, and the liabilities of the Board today were £6m in excess of its assets.
There was concern about the type of training being offered, the ever-increasing recommendations from the Board, the different courses it offered. It was all totally unrealistic.
"There is an obsession with off-the-job training. I agree that with certain jobs it is necessary to take people from their normal place of work, but is it necessary for someone to be sent 200 miles away to learn how to unload a vehicle and how to stack things so that the top box does not fall off?"
In 1968 it had been said there would be no increase in the administrative staff, went on Mr Fox, but two years later there had been a 50 per cent increase.
So the story had gone on—extravagant exercises in public relations and in publications. For instance, for the training of forecourt attendants—petrol pump staff—there was a 12-page training booklet, a 41-page instructors' guide, eight easy-to-learn booklets of 10 pages each and eight plastics memory-aid cards.
It was not just the levy which was the evil, said Mr Fox. There were the hidden hours taken up with filling in forms.
One firm he knew employed 35 staff and owned 18 vehicles and nine coaches. It had operated 20 training programmes with five for the office staff. The firm had written to to him to say that it intended to discontinue the programme and was passing the cost of the RTITB to its customers, having paid £1,087 in levy for this year. It was right for the firm to do so, because it found it was uneconomic to pay a training officer out of its own pocket. What a nonsense all this was, said Mr Fox.
One of the main criticisms was the inability of small firms to benefit from the Training Board. They were defeated by the ged tape.
It should not be thought that this was just a small matter, for 52,000 firths were involved, employing 900,000. Firms employing 10 or fewer workers represented 78 per cent of the firms in the industry, which meant that 30,000 firms' had 10 employers or fewer.
To remove all these firms from the scope of the levy, all that had to be provided was that firms paying emoluments of less than £5000 a year—approximately £100 a week as a wages bill would be removed from paying the levy. Overnight, 30,000 firms would find that they had none of this red tape to cope with.
This would cost the Board £420,000 out of a total levy of £171m. Of that £420,000, £200,000 went on administration, staff and facilities.
The biggest complaint of all, said Mr Fox, was with the levy grant system—which could be understood when one remembered that this Board levied the third highest levy of all the 28 industrial training boards.
Not chick-feed He was not talking about chickenfeed —in the coming year the Board expected to raise £20m. It was no wonder that people and firms were bitter about this.
Mr Fox drew attention to the complaint that diverse industries were all lumped together and it was assumed that their training needs were the same. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The road haulage industry was incensed because it got back only half in grant what it paid in levy. The Passenger Vehicle Operators' Association was on the losing side. The motor agents did quite well but, whether they were in debit or in credit, none of them wanted anything to do with the Board in its present form. "They are unanimous in their condemnation, and they want to have a complete change."
It was necessary to get down to making the training fit the industries, continued Mr Fox. He did not argue from the point of view that these Boards should be dispensed with overnight. In the case of the RTITB there had to be decentralization, and there were three obvious industries to centre a new organization upon.
These were the three which formed advisory committees under the existing Board, explained Mr Fox--the road haulage industry, the retail motor industry and the passenger road transport industry. They would automatically be responsible for raising their own levy and for deciding how grants were given.
This was only an interim measure, and he hoped it would "get us back to the idea of thinking that training should go back to the practical people who are involved in these industries". At the end of the day, with certain safeguards, the Government should be able to opt out.
Mr Leslie Huckfield (Labour, Nuneaton) called on the Government to make clear its attitude to this industry training board. It was not clear, . he said, whether the Government would like to see it wound up completely, or whether it would like to see its structure modified. If it intended merely to propose some slight modifications, he would be inclined to support the proposals.
If, on the other hand, the Government was making out a case for abolition, it would attract his complete condemnation.
As a one-time lorry driver and member of the TGWU one thing that had struck him about the road haulage and garage side of the industry was the complete lack of career structure, said Mr Huckfield. On the railway side of the industry, and on the public service vehicle side, there were comprehensive training programmes and facilities for training were offered by the National Bus Company and by various municipal corporation bus fleets, Some independent bus operators offered training.
On the other hand, on the road haulage side, apart from cadetship schemes which used to be offered by British Road Services, there was almost a complete lack of training schemes. Since the Board had been set up 95 graduates had been attracted into road transport.
The computer routeing of vehicles and physical distribution management were sciences, said Mr Huckfield. To enable people to acquire these scientific and computer-based techniques there was a need for more advanced training. He was pleased to see the increased amount of management training which the Board was encouraging, and the number of graduates coming into the industry.
The attitude of the road haulage industry towards training was demonstrated by the way in which it had put under the carpet the proposals of the last government for a transport manager's licence, said Mr Huckfield. This attitude towards the education and training, which was obviously needed for sophisticated management techniques, demonstrated the need for the Board.
Road haulage was a non-career based industry wlich was just beginning to realize that it needed more sophisticated management techniques in its training. He believed that the Board had been a great impetus in that direction.
Mr Huckfield agreed with the suggestion about splitting the functions of the Board, which, he said, was using the levy from road haulage and the passenger vehicle operators to subsidize the garage trade.
Half the trouble was that the industry had never ,really decided who ought to represent it, continued Mr Huckfield. The bus side was split in its representation between various associations representing municipal corporation bus fleets, the independent operators and the territorial operators; the road haulage side was split between the Road Haulage Association and the Freight Transport Association; even the garage side tended to be split between the Motor Agents' Association and one or two other groups. There would have to be a much more constructive attitude to training on the part of the road transport industry, he said.
Mr David Clark (Labour, Colne Valley) said that the fact that a training board had lost confidence was no reason for abolishing the industrial training scheme. The Board for the road transport industry had done a great deal of good work—it was probably too early to judge completely how great its value was.
Mr Paul Rose (Labour, Blackley) called for the improvement and not the scrapping of training boards. An enormous responsibility rested upon the people in road transport, especially drivers of heavy vehicles. It was often this field which attracted people who might not have skills in other fields and who badly needed training.
It was recently reported that the industry was short of 25,000 heavy goods vehicle drivers, said Mr Rose. At a time when there were 690,000 unemployed, perhaps some industrial training might help to close the gap. Clearly people with a proper level of skill would not be produced without organized training.
Replying to the debate, Mr Bryan said that full account of the views and criticisms expressed in the Commons and elsewhere would be taken during the review.
Reviewing the changes made in the grant scheme, Mr Bryan said that the Board considered that the return to the three sectors would be in better balance when the grants and training services were compared with the levy. They had now pretty well evened up, said Mr Bryan, but he would not give the exact figures. It was not possible under the Act for each sector of the industry to have control over its own training needs and be in charge of its own levy.
The RTITB was already bringing expenditure under control, went on Mr Bryan. Present indications were that expenditure was being contained and in the proposals for its next scheme further action was envisaged to strengthen control over grant expenditure and to reduce the deficit.
Credit had to be given for what the Board had achieved, he said. It had achieved a good deal in group training schemes and over a 100 of these had been • founded to enable firms which were too small to employ their own specialist training staff to share the services of a -training officer.
Its first training centre, Motec, was operating successfully and most courses there were heavily subscribed. A second centre was now being established.
The question for discussion now was "whether we are paying far too high a price for the great deal that has been achieved, and whether we can improve the quality of training, get rid of some of the administrative costs, get rid of some of the paper, and have something of credit to British industrial training".