leylandlover:
Carl, You have just spoiled Bewick/Dennis,s day,You used the word Motec,High Ercall.lol
Hi Leylandlover, I recon my view the Training Levy was very similar to Denis’ Another tax that we could ill afford that could only come from reduced capital spending, buying about two less new vehicles a year & employing less drivers.
However reluctantly I decided banging my head against a brick wall served no purpose and if you cannot beat them join them.
The Levy was very much like what we pay the EU and the figures put on the BREXIT bus. If we played the ball with them we go a 50% Block grant which meant we only had to pay half, and stupid as it seems to get that we just had to fill pages and pages of childish papers.
I cannot remember now what exactly happened but after shouting and swearing on the phone at the RTITB I was told of the block grant and got the application forms sent. Taking a look at them I thought ‘If they think I have time to read this rubbish, never mind fill it in they have another thing coming’ So they were placed on a heap at the side of my desk. Things that should be done that I will ignore. Usually these stayed there for about 6 months & if no one reminded me they were put in a big box & sent to a room we had built in our warehouse as an Archive store. All HMRC letters went into this pile and I never dealt with anything unless it was sent recorded delivery, & had been signed for as every time they rang me to complain I had not completed childish forms they sent such as monthly statistics I denied receiving.
Then fate took a hand and a representative of RTITB called and said there was nothing to get a Block grant that we were not already doing & offered free of charge to complete them for me. bringing them back I signed & we got an award of a block grant saving 50% of the levy.
Traditionally from my grandfathers time we had started school leavers as van lads. When they reached 17plus provided they had proved themselves we got them a car licence & they drove small vans. In the days before the HGV licence the only obstruction they had to driving larger vans was age & again if they had proved themselves by the time they reached 21 we put them on larger vans. Most of our drivers were home grown.
When the HGV licence came in we were in for a bit of a shock. One driver we had Ray Hornby was an excellent driver but during the qualifying period for the HGV licence he had had a three year spell driving buses, and needed to take the HGV test and failed, through all his bad habits. Just at that time we had been offered to be founder members of Darlington driver training school an organisation started up by RTITB but set up as a private company by haulier members. We joined for a small token share price, Ray Hornby went for a week & passed his test.
We had a few who were in similar situations as Ray, most of who were just 21+ and could not get Grandfather rights as they were too young to claim they had been driving during the relevant time. I found something else then that we got a grant for every driver we taught be it car licence & HGV. We came to an agreement with Darlington Driver Training School we would train 2 per month 24 per year, and put this offer of training/employment with the employment exchange.
As with our mechanics we had always had an apprentice scheme. In those days the youngters & their parents had to sign an indemnity scheme to agree they would follow through the training & go on day release to local colleges. In those days before the minimum wage apprentices cost us peanuts and we could afford the traditional first year sweeping up making the tea etc. Again we found that we were well rewarded by RTITB for training apprentices. On average we always had about 9 apprentices and all these years later I’m proud when I hear what jobs they have ended in after this start.
All in all the block grant gave us an immediate 50% saving and we made a profit out of our driver training scheme and technician training scheme and at the same time got quite a lot of cheap labour filling in jobs as removal porters or jobs in our warehouse.
As I said I was roped in to taking two weeks holiday to go to Motec. In 20 years I think I only took about 8 weeks as I always took the view I enjoyed every day of my work & didn’t want to ruin my life with holidays. The experience at MOTEC was relaxing and to an extent enjoyable and must say they had recruited some good trainers & standard of training was good. That is not an endorsement of a view that I thought either MOTEC should have existed or been funded in the way they were in the first instant because personally I thought the levy was robbery.