A senior representative of the HA began the meeting with an explanation of the HA position by saying, “The Secretary of State for Transport which at the moment is Lord Adonis and his Ministers including Chris Mole, is the Highway Authority for the Strategic Road Network (and the allocation of money for the HASRN). The Highways Agency discharges the Highway Authority’s roles and responsibilities on his behalf. Money is allocated to the HA from the Secretary of State.”

 

The explanation prompted an immediate question that surely part of that responsibility is the NVRM so why isn’t the Secretary of State funding them? “The Secretary of State delegate their responsibilities such as the NVRM to the HA. The HA ask for permission and funding for this project. On approval the funds are released, but there is no relationship between the Secretary of State and the NVRM. The contractual relationship is between the NVRM and the HA.”

 

The meeting with the HA then continued with a list of questions reflecting independent vehicle recovery operators concerns with answers supplied by the HA representatives present.

Q. Do your Term contractors subsidise any part of a joint project, is there any deductions from what the contractors get paid.

A. There were all sorts of different monies changing hands like green claims, red claims and some complex legal statutory arrangements.

Q. Why were the VRO’s doing all the work for a particularly difficult recovery and only receiving £3500 but the HA get paid £2500 for a phone call and some administration.

A. The VRO doesn’t do all the work the other parts of the end to end service is supplied by the HA.

Q. If the police can do it for £25 why are the HA doing it for more. For example our members used to get around £80 for cars, they now get £58. They waited 15 years to get an increase in the statutory charge. In Wales this is passed on to the VRO but in England the HA is the middleman so whereas 80% of removals involve cars instead of an increase our members have seen a decrease in income for statutory removals. The HA financed the review of the statutory charge but it turns out they were the only beneficiaries.

A. We are not going to close this gap with you. We are charged by government to deliver a reliable SRN including improving the timeliness and quality of recovery. The best way to do this was to do a national service through one NVRM in an open market. The procurement was open and fair. We give FMG targets. We pay them. Commercially FMG go out and find a network of agents or do the whole thing themselves with their own operators. This arrangement with their ‘second tier’ contractors is their commercial arrangement.

Q. So your responsibility stops at the NVRM, after that it’s up to them what they do with the payments to the VRO’s?

A. Yes.

Q. Where did the 40% to 60% alleged non payment for police instructed removals come from, this was the figure that was quoted by the Agency as the reason that VRO’s were now only getting £58 instead of £80 as all removals would be paid.

A. The 40% to 60% came out of the consultative groups and the forums, the figures came from the industry.

Q. The anticipated income from statutory charges over the 3 years is £7m to £8m. By talking to the industry we acquired a figure for the volume of recoveries. These volumes are not being achieved. The volume figures we were told by the associations are not correct.

A. The volumes are correct it’s just that the HA are not getting all the volume. The police are still holding on to their own recovery scheme in many cases so they are getting a large portion of the volume.

Q. We feel our members are not getting paid value for money and value for quality. How can they afford to re-invest? FMG have contracted our members but they have not received any work and are unlikely to because they are more than 15 mile radius away from the motorway. Traffic officers only operate on motorways. Why would they assume to contract that VRO, and for that poor VRO to make a large investment to gear up for the work when he was never going to get any work?

A. We cannot control the amount of incidents or the area where the recoveries will largely be, so what do FMG do? Do they sign up a contractor just in case there is a need even if there won’t be one? They have built up a network regardless of whether there will be a recovery situation in a certain area or not. They had to meet their targets.

Q. There was no transparency filtering through as promised. If our members had known that they were being asked to invest for a contract that didn’t produce any work they wouldn’t have done so. They are simply getting no return on their investment. Some of our members had not had this clearly explained to them. I can only assume this is FMG‘s fault from the outset. We now have another problem that some members have had the contract have made the investment have got the work but now have been told that they do not have the capabilities to carry out this work and are now only allowed to do cars.

A. We cannot answer for what FMG have said to their network.

Q. VRO’s are investing because FMG promised additional business. But we want greater transparency which you always promised us.

A. This is why we are here today.

Q. We as representative bodies have afforded a tremendous amount of time over the past 5 or 6 years without payment in HA partnership work including ATM, NVRM, Roles & Responsibilities, Sector Schemes etc anything regarding VRO’s and the HA. Is it still a requirement for contractors to be compliant to SS 17.

A. We are pushing this forward. The police did not have SS17 in their schemes they are sticking with just PAS 43. From the start of the contract we have allowed 6 months for everyone to comply. This is a step forward to put SS17 in there.

A senior HA representative summarised by saying, “Our responsibility is to manage our primary contractor, it is their responsibility and commercial arrangement what happens after that. We can look at what levers and influences we have got to influence the financial model.”

 

At the most recent meeting with FMG Support the question of SS 17 training was discussed further, where a greater transparency in this area was clearly required including timescales for compliancy at the various levels. There has been a degree of confusion regarding training requirements on the scheme with many believing if they were to operate on the NVRM scheme they were required to comply to SS 17 training modules applicable to the services they were to supply, however it has become apparent that both the HA and FMG now say only modules 1, 2 and 3 are required by personnel 6 months into supplying services with additional modules introduced over a longer period. All training on the scheme will need to be provided by IVR SS 17 qualified trainers. Action has been promised in this area quite shortly with further announcements to follow, amongst such items of news will be details of a decision to increase payment rates to VRO’s with the basic car removal moving above the £60 mark.

 

The HA explanation regarding payment of the statutory charge/scenario pricing to the Secretary of State and the HA’s payment from the Secretary of State to discharge the Highway Authority’s roles and responsibilities on his behalf remains unclear but further investigation into the matter is continuing, confirmed by RRRA, with amongst othersthe Chair of the All PartyParliamentary Freight Transport Group. Rob Flello MPLabour Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent South is asking the question of a senior Minister stating that, “The Highways Agency is in receipt of a substantial amount of revenue generated from statutory recovery fees. Only a fraction of the fee charged to individuals and hauliers is passed on to rescue companies.

 

I would be very grateful if you could get back to me, outlining how much revenue is generated for the Highways Agency in this way. I would also be appreciative if you could provide me with a breakdown of how that revenue is disposed.”

 

RO looks forward to keeping readers informed on this now long running and controversial issue.   

 

AVRO and the RRRA are expected to accept an invitation by the HA to attend a follow-up meeting sometime in July/August.