The Inefficiency of the Chartered Fleet
Page 35
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THE article by S.T.R. dealing with the Chartered I Fleet is most timely, and those who have the interests both of the State and of the industry at heart will hope that it will be the means for driving the last nail into the coffin of that weird abortion, the Government Road Haulage Scheme. For once in a way, the interests of the State and the industry arc so patently identical that even the wilfully blind must see.
The author quotes certain figures showing that the cost per ton of moving traffic by chartered vehicle is substantially greater than would be the case under independent commercial operation, and in this he lets the scheme off lightly, as his figures relate to only the charges to be paid to the owner of the vehicle. What he did not quote, and he had every right,to rub it in, was the colossal cost of the organization behind the movement of the traffic—the salaries of the double staffs, the rents of the large offices, the,cost of the vast amount of equipment necessary, and tlie huge telephone bills.
I am not entirely in agreement with S.T.R. in blaming the local managers, although his experience of them, up and down tbe country, is obviously wider than my own. Fie will, of course, be aware that if it was desired to attract the .right type of man for these important positions—men with adequate knowledge and experience —a totally inadequate remuneration was offered. In some cases the right type of man was available; firms made sacrifices and not only released key men, but subsidized them in the interests of the industry and, as they thought, of the State.
These men are doing all that they are allowed to do to run the scheme efficiently, but their hands are tied by instructions from the Ministry which compel them to regard one small section of the industry as privileged and as having a prior right to all traffics, regardless of dead mileage, of suitability of vehicle to load, or of the standard of efficiency with which the traffic has been hitherto carried.
These men must be feeling extreme frustration at the waste of it all, and one wonders why, in the circumstances, all those members of the industry, from the Advisory Committee downwards, D.R.H.O.s, A.R.H.O.s, managers and members of H.N.T.P. Committees, do not resign in a body in protest. Sooner or later the buck will be passed to them, by the Ministry, by the industry, or both. They will be told that it was through their shortcomings that the Goverament Road Haulage Scheme failed; that the industry was running the scheme and that it was unable to find men sufficiently capable to take charge.
Owing to the policy of hush-hush pursued by the leaders of the industry, no one will be aware of the • rigid instructions and red tape within which they were expected to work, and all this will be conveniently forgotten in seeing that the industry takes the blame.
It is, in fact, a revelation that in this industry which has so of tan been blamed for its independent and even rebellious outlook, there should have been found so many men who were content to sit down and meekly accept instruetions which they well knew were incompatible with even a modicum of efficiency, and which were so unfair and detrimental "to the bulk of their fellow hauliers. ARROW. Cambridge.