Comment: Haulage firms in need of training help

AGEING workers and a reliance on foreign drivers must be tackled says Martin Reid

The Road Haulage Association (RHA) represents 6,000 firms in road haulage and distribution and those firms operate approximately 100,000 HGVs and provide vital services across the UK economy. The growth in the UK economy has meant an increased demand for road haulage. We, as an association, are currently conducting a review of member experiences over the past 12 months and it is clear that this increase in demand has not yet translated itself the profit margin growth we need to promote investment.

One issue has come to the fore and now dominates discussions in the industry – the emergence and impacts of a shortage of lorry drivers. The structural weakness of an ageing workforce has long been discussed and the effects are now upon us.

In a survey of our members carried out in September 2014, 70 per cent said they were currently suffering a driver shortage, with almost 20 per cent saying they expected to. Only 11 per cent felt their business was not and would not suffer a shortage of drivers.

Professor Alan McKinnon highlights the importance of road freight transport in his 2006 paper Life without Trucks and suggests that the effects of any delays in delivery (almost inevitable with a reduced workforce) would be far-reaching. He states: “The speed and flexibility of road transport has enabled companies to synchronise freight deliveries with their production and distribution operations. In many sectors, these deliveries are now seen as an extension of the productions line, with supplies being replenished on a ‘just-in-time’ (JIT) basis. There is little doubt that the JIT supply chain ethos of ‘stock less – deliver quick’ would be affected should deliveries be hampered by a lack of drivers.”

So what is causing this driver shortage? There are a number of factors. As we move out of the most challenging of trading times the haulage industry (along with many others) can remember it is counting the cost of long-term under-investment in recruiting and training UK residents to replace those leaving the industry through retirement or ill-health. This becomes even more of an issue when we consider how many fleet operators have a driver workforce with an average age of well into the 50s.

Since the recession first bit in 2008, the industry has lost a number of drivers to other industries, in which they have inevitably settled, and undoubtedly the introduction of additional training and test requirements through Driver CPC legislation will have also led to a marginal loss of the driving workforce.

We have also relied on lorry drivers from eastern Europe. The UK employs tens of thousands of such drivers, many of whom are now returning home. It has been easier to recruit from other firms or to recruit from abroad than to train UK residents. There has been an absence of a straightforward and accessible funding stream for those who wish to invest. The sector skills council, in a report on the looming driver shortage in 2012, highlighted as a key point that there is “no public funding or finance support for driver licence acquisition”.

The RHA is now calling on the Treasury to create a new scheme of grants for getting UK-resident individuals through their LGV driving licence.

The evidence of under investment is clear. Department for Transport figures show that, in 2007, the total number of individuals going to LGV test was 70,766. In 2013 that figure has dropped to 48,283. In addition to this drop, we must note that the failure rate is around 50 per cent and the figures given show retests. A driver licensed to drive an articulated lorry must pass two driving tests (C and then C+E).

It must also be said that the RHA is fully engaged with the logistic sector’s Trailblazers bid to BIS for apprenticeship funding for LGV (and other roles). However, there is little scope for accelerating this bid and so nothing will be in place for two years. Trailblazers is a major opportunity for the sector to get it right but in the meantime we need support for “the here and now”. That is why the RHA’s proposal to the Treasury is targeted and time-bound. In two years’ time we hope to have something better for the industry but unless we want to see empty shelves we need to tackle this driver shortage now.

• Martin Reid is director of the Road Haulage Association www.rha.uk.net