Hauliers outraged at training burden
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LOAD HAULIERS have reacted vitriolically to the Manpower iervices Commission's proposal that they should bear all operating costs of the Road Transport Industry Training board.
An MSC review body has ecommended major changes in he training patterns of all inlustries as a means of meeting the economic and social needs of the 1980s, and the change from taxpayer to industry support is bound to cause much dismay throughout industry.
The RHA, which is already at loggerheads with the RTITB over the cost and value for money of its training services, told CM this week that the MSC proposals will do nothing to make it feel any happier.
It is especially angry with proposals to abolish the current one per cent ceiling on training levy. MSC says it thinks this will make the boards more responsive to individual industries' needs, but it does concede that the one per cent ceiling has not been a constraint in the past.
But an RHA spokesman said: "We are diametrically opposed to this. The conspiracy between the unions and academics on the RTITB means that the maximum of one per cent could go higher. We want a reduction in the ceiling, and we want it to be as low as a quarter of one per cent.'" Nor is the RHA happy with a proposal that the training boards should no longer be subject to detailed scrutiny by the MSC. According to the review body, the MSC/training board relationship would be based on co-operation for mutual benefit.
While the RHA welcomes this as a reduction in bureaucracy, it feels that the special case of its relationship with the RTITB is one in which there is need for more control of the training board.
Again the spokesman referred to industry representatives feeling that union and academic interests on RTITB had 'ganged up" on them, "These proposals won't make the board more accountable. The built-in antiindustry bias means this will not happen."
RHA is also upset because the report has gone in a completely opposite direction from that which it suggested in its submission to the review body, "Not only is it at variance with our evidence, but it is also at variance with commonsense," said the spokesman.
It fears that the review body's deliberations will make matters worse, but is to have talks very soon with the RTITB to discuss complaints which it submitted to Employment Secretary James Prior in June