Vosa chief hits back at Bell's comments By Christopher Walton
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VOSA CHIEF executive Alastair Peoples has defended the front line staff at the agency, claiming they do "an excellent job", after senior traffic commissioner (TC) Beverley Bell (pictured) slammed Vosa for "not targeting the serially and seriously non-compliant".
The allegations were made before the Transport Select Committee in April as part of its ongoing inquiry into Vosa's work, but the full transcript of the evidence was only made public last month ahead of the publication of the committee's final report later this month. With regards to the number of Vosa-led prosecutions being seen by all TCs, Bell said: "Where are the drivers' hours referrals? Where are the serious investigations?"
She added: "In the view of all TCs, this isn't happening anymore. We don't get those serious cases brought to our attention."
Bell insisted: "It is easy for Vosa to target the soft underbelly of the nice, but incompetent, small operators. It is much more difficult to target the tough hard core of highly non-compliant operators, who show a total disregard for road safety."
In his defence, Peoples told the committee that it was "of some concern that TC Bell has raised this, because there is no evidence that I have found that this is the case". When asked to respond to Bell's accusations, he told CM: "Vosa's enforcement activities are agreed with the Department for Transport, after consideration of stakeholder objectives.
"Vosa's front-line staff do an excellent job in delivering a wide range of advice, education, testing and enforcement work that contributes to keeping our roads safe," he added.
Road Haulage Association policy director Jack Semple said that for the apparent mismatch between Vosa and the TCs to be expressed before MPs "suggests there are issues there that need to be addressed".