Transitional licences for subsidiaries
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• The FTA considers that due to the wording of the Transport Act straightforward transition from C licences to operators' licences will not necessarily be possible where companies at present have a Section 180 Group Licence. The FTA has taken this problem up with the Ministry of Transport and it is now in a position to guide companies faced with this problem. At the same time it is understood that the Ministry has also undertaken to advise all Licensing Authorites of this agreed interpretation and ask them to co-operate fully in its implementation.
Says the FTA:
There has been a lot of understandable confusion in relation to the interpretation and scope of the transitional operators' licensing provisions and their application to holding companies and their subsidiaries. The FTA has recently been discussing these problems with the Ministry of Transport and this week it has said that guidance based on the Association's understanding of the situation is now available.
Two conditions must be met before an application for an operator's licence can be made under the simplified transitional rules:— a) The applicant must hold an A, B or C carrier's licence in his own or company name and ID) The operator's licence application must cover at least one vehicle which was on the previous ca rrier's licence.
Separate operators' licences are required for each Ministry traffic area in which the applicant wishes to have operating bases and the regulations stipulate that a vehicle cannot be specified on more than one operators' licence.
A subsidiary company whose vehicles are currently included on the holding company's group carrier's licence and which wishes to obtain its own operator's licence or licences cannot as things stand, benefit from the transitional provisions for it will not meet either of the two requirements.
The FTA feels that this puts such companies at a disadvantage for in the eyes of the law they rank as new applicants for operators' licensing purposes and must follow the full application procedures.
In the Association's view these procedures were only intended to apply initially to new entrants into the road transport industry and not to established companies which just by a quirk in the carriers' licensing system cannot themselves claim to be -existing licence holders-.
These rulings are in the Transport Act and can only be amended by a further Act.
The possibilities of this have been investigated but the chances of such a solution prior to the introduction of operators' licensing as from March 1 1970 are negligible even if the Ministry could be persuaded to initiate such action. And the FTA takes the view that the new system will have to be based firmly on the wording of the 1968 Act as it no stands.
Subsidiary companies whose vehicles are specified on their holding companies licence and who want their own operators licence are advised that there is nothing to prevent them from applying new for a C licence covering at least one vehicle over 31 tons gross plated weight for each Licensing Authority area in which it is to have operating bases once operators' licensing is introduced. This does not mean that the company must obtain a separate C licence for each traffic area nor that the vehicles specified in the C licence application must actually be based now in the relevant areas, although they must be so located at the time of the operator's licence application.
In other words each operator's licence application must specify at least one vehicle which has been on the company's C licence and it must be remembered that a vehicle cannot be included on more than one licence. From this it will be seen that a subsidiary company with depots in say five traffic areas must obtain a C licence covering a least five vehicles, i.e. in order that there is at least one vehicle available for transfer from the C licence to each operator's licence.
Alternatively the operators' licence regulations allow holding companies to take out group licences for each traffic area. covering their vehicles and those of all their subsidiaries in that area. Such applications qualify for the transitional provisions for they will invariably be made by existing licence holders. Having obtained such a licence the holding company can then arrange for its immediate surrender and require the Licensing Authority to issue separate subsidiary company licences.
The FTA considers that both these facilities will excuse subsidiary companies who want their own licences from the need to lodge full applications. But in the Association's view the former is to be preferred for it enables companies to make immediate plans for the transition so that they will know exactly where they stand before they actually have to make the important transfer from C to operators' licensing.