Why not total freedom?
Page 20
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THE 1982 Transport Act's environmental controls over hauliers' operating centres are now in force. It will be some time before a clear impression of their effects can be formed.
Will they put many small operators out of business, as some claim? Will Traffic Courts become mini-riots on the Archway Road pattern, as others have feared? Or will the LAs' manifest lack of enthusiasm for the whole scheme turn it into a damp squib, like the 1974 provisions destroyed by the Transport Tribunal in the Cash and McCall case? For the time being my crystal ball is staying under its velvet cover. But the scheme had already produced its first surprise a month before it came into effect. The Department of Transport published a revised version of its pamphlet "A Guide to Goods Vehicle Operators Licensing" to take account of the new Regulations. This was to be expected. The surprise is the excellence of the result.
At the time of the last major change to the '0' licensing system, when the Certificate of Professional Competence was introduced, a few extra paragraphs were inserted into the existing guide, and that was that. Today's pressures on Government expenditure and on civil service manpower might have led the industry (and certainly led this commentator) to expect similar treatment this time.
But not at all. The Guide has been completely re-written. The new version retains the question and answer form which small operators no doubt find useful. But the answers are models of the sort of unbureaucratic language which everyone urges civil servants to write but which they so often fail to use. Let us hope that the DHSS follows the DTp example.
The use of everyday language is not the only improvement. In preparing a layman's guide to complex legislation it must be difficult to know how much detail to include. Too much and the document becomes indigestible; too little and applicants may be misled. The old guide suffered from this sort of compromise. The new version manages simultaneously to give more detail and to be simpler. It does this by the device of putting the detail into nine appendices.
Perhaps the most striking example of this concerns the convictions which an applicant must reveal. In the old version there were just 46 words on this important topic. In the new guide there are over 300 words
plus an appendix which, over 11/2 pages, goes into details, including a summary of the effects of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.
Information on the vital subject of maintenance is also greatly expanded in scope and usefulness. New appendices give details of a model agreement between an operator and a garage, as well as a threepage Inspection Record based on the Department's Tester's Manual.
Finally the application forms have been re-designed. Not only is the language clearer. The appearance makes it obvious that the design has been the subject of much thought. Only a pervert actually enjoys filling in forms, but these will cause the minimum pain. Let us hope that individual LAs resist the temptation to produce their own supplementary forms.
Cynical operators may assume that the introduction of greater clarity after fifteen years of '0' licensing is simply for the benefit of the local residents who are now enjoying the new right to make representations on environmental grounds against hauliers' operating centres. Such suspicions are as natural as they are unfounded.
Indeed the main criticism of the new Guide is its lack of direction to those who might want to use the new powers. True, they are described in some detail, but in a way more likely to be of use to the applicant than the would-be "representer". (Perhaps the Editor should offer a prize for a better word to describe people using the new powers.) Few operators are likely to shed any tears over this omission. Why grieve that the enemy is deprived of ammunition? An understandable view, but shortsighted.
For if a local resident is going to make representations it will help everyone, including the applicant who is the target, if the strict limits of the new powers are clearly understood by those seeking to use them. Otherwise proceedings in Traffic Courts will be dragged out while LAs patiently explain that, even if it would make sense to send it all by rail or canal, it is outside the scope of '0' licensing to achieve that objective.
At one time the environmental societies were proposing to produce their own guide, as a supplement to the DTp's pamphlet. Perhaps they are doing this. But it would be better if the DTp, as the custodians of the legislation, were to undertake the job.
As so often happens with the actions of Government departments there is a peculiar aspect to the publication of the new guide. For its 34 pages of nicely-printed A4 size paper are free. There can be no complaint about that. But there can be about the inconsistency between this generosity and the stinginess of charging £2 (and at 1978 prices) for a much smaller guide to EEC drivers' hours rules, and £1.50 for an even smaller guide to tachographs. (The fact that some of the advice in the hours guide — eg on the animal carcass exemption — has subsequently been proved wrong adds to the injustice.) All three pamphlets describe legislation which, to put it mildly, was not sought by the industry. Why should one be free and the other two charged for?
The Annual Reports of the Licensing Authorities are another example of what in the commercial world would be seen as sheer exploitation of a monopoly position. A few years ago these Reports were given away to anyone who wanted them. Then would-be readers were asked to send a stampedaddressed envelope. Suddenly the Reports were put on sale, and at a price per page (6p in 1982-83) which would be exhorbitant even if they were printed in full colour on glossy paper. In fact they are merely copies of the typescripts prepared by the LAs as part of their statutory duty to tell the Minister what they have been ui to.
The secret seems to lie in a bureaucratic distinction. The '0' licensing guide has always had DTp form number GV74. The drivers' hours and tachograph guides lack this lucky charm. If that is the sole reason for the difference the RHA and ETA might remember to ask for a form number to be added when commenting on drafts of future DTp guides.
But these quibbles should not detract from the fact that a lot ol care and thought has been put into the preparation of the new Guide. That is to be commended, even though if it became a habit this column would be redundant.