Examination of Witnesses (Questions 336-339)
MR PHILIP
BROWN
28 JUNE 2006
Q336 Chairman: Good afternoon to you,
Mr Brown. You are most warmly welcome and we are very grateful
to you for coming. Did you want to say something before you begin?
Mr Brown: I do not think so, Chairman.
Everything I really wanted to say is set out in my very brief
submission. You will see that the Traffic Commissioners are the
independent regulators and can only act a) within their statutory
powers and b) within the information with which they are provided.
Q337 Chairman: We have lots of questions
to ask you about that.
Mr Brown: I am sure you will.
Q338 Chairman: Do you think your
Commissioners are fit for the purpose for which they are designated?
Mr Brown: Do you mean in terms
of the role of the Traffic Commissioner itself?
Q339 Chairman: I mean all of it.
Do you have enough staff? Are your powers relevant to what you
need to do?
Mr Brown: In terms of the powers
that we have, I think the powers that we have are a little bit
of a halfway house because it is how we receive the evidence to
enable us to exercise those powers. You will see one of the points
that I make in my paper is that there needs to be a modernising
of the way in which data is collected. That is the first point,
and to just expand a little on that—and it was point that
was made earlier on when talking to the bus operators and a point
that I have made many times—if the obligation was on operators
to provide Traffic Commissioners, a point you made Chairman, with
the statistical information of their performance and the reasons
why they may not have been able to achieve 100% performance, that
immediately, probably, apart from someone analysing the data in
my office, gives the Traffic Commissioner the information and
the explanation. It cuts through all of this clipboard and pen
exercise of standing at bus stops and monitoring services and
transcribing all that data.
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