There have been a vast amount of words exchanged, several views expressed and many words written about the HA/FMG contract but one matter is abundantly clear, the contract is not for everyone.

 

The question is why did a number of highly respected operator’s decide to turn their back on a contract that promised to pay for every allocated job unlike police contracts, which according to the claims of the Highways Agency, non-paying jobs amounted to 40% to 60% of all jobs deployed. RO finds the percentage figures very high having sampled 10% of the Force in England where the figures quoted by operators amounted to 8%, 10%, 11% and 20%, along way off 60%. If the claims are incorrect then it makes the rates of pay on the HA/FMG contract very poor and that’s probably why a number of VRO’s decided to give it a miss!

 

After waiting 15 years for an increase in the statutory pay for the removal, storage and disposal of vehicles under Section 99 of The Road Traffic Act, it seems absurd and reprehensible that such a situation should arise whereby the VRO is now receiving less money than they were in 1993 for the majority of removals.

Probably even more disgusting to many operators is the knowledge that the bulk of the money from the new charges is going to those that don’t actually do the removal or storage i.e. straightforward car removal statutory charge £150, VRO receives £58.21 leaving £91.79!!!!!!!!!! Who? What for? Well we know that FMG receive a deployment fee, but that doesn’t explain the distribution of monies overall from the various scenario’s.

 

If you ask the HA they will say they don’t receive any of the money, it is paid to the Secretary of State. However in the latest development AVRO have advised they wrote to Jim Fitzpatrick, Secretary of State for Transport, and he clearly states in his response to AVRO that the HA receive the money. AVRO have applied for a ‘second opinion’ from Theresa Villiers the Shadow Secretary of State for Transport.

There must be accountability and justification and even transparency, the word we heard so much about when the HA project was announced; so far this is not evident and more detail will need to be exposed before VRO’s can consider any future action based on facts.

 

Based on what we know so far it is easy to understand why some operators were very uneasy about signing a contract that would pay them less than what they earned in 1993, whilst seeing the larger portion of money going to ----- Well we don’t really know yet but watch this space!       

 

26/8/09