2 Modernising the Agency's approach
to enforcement
13. The Agency depends heavily on roadside checks
to enforce regulations, carrying out around 252,000 checks in
2008-09. It also undertakes visits to operators' premises to assess
their management systems such as vehicle maintenance plans and
drivers' compliance with working time regulations.[33]
The Road Haulage Association had expressed concern that the Agency
had neglected making operator visits in preference to achieving
its performance targets for roadside checks.[34]
The Agency refuted this allegation and said that the number of
operator visits had reduced for several reasons, including fewer
new registrations and operator licences being issued.[35]
14. The Agency had recently started a new programme
of tackling those operators who are found to be consistently high
risk (Red rated) by following up roadside checks with visits to
their premises to understand the reasons for non-compliance and
what the Agency might do to try and change behaviours. The Agency
had quite often found that these operators were not criminal or
negligent, but were unaware of the regulations placed on them
or that their drivers were breaking the law. The Agency considered
that it was starting to change behaviours in the operators that
it visited in this way.[36]
15. For roadside checks, the Agency's staff were
not always directed to roadside locations with the highest risk
to road safety or with high volumes of commercial vehicle traffic,
and some of the Agency's checksites were no longer located at
strategically important sites. There were also heavily used roads
with no enforcement activity owing to a lack of checksites.[37]
The Department noted that the majority of freight was carried
only short distances and that there was a correlation between
high risk operators and local operations. It was, therefore, sensible
to locate some checksites in areas such as the South-West, East
Anglia and Wales where there were fewer major roads. It did not
follow, however, that staff should be permanently located at each
checksite and the level of attendance at each site was a judgement
for the Agency to make. Some sites, for example, were used only
a handful of times a year. The Department conceded that there
were too many of these sites and that it may not be necessary
for the Agency to have staff at all of them.[38]
16. The Department had not considered the impact
of modern technology, such as satellite navigation systems, on
the choice of routes used by HGV drivers. We were aware, for example,
that some rural locations experience significant problems with
lorries using unsuitable routes as short cuts between towns, having
identified them on satellite navigation systems. In addition to
its fixed checksites, the Agency told us it occasionally used
other sites to stop vehicles in an attempt to avoid being too
predictable in its operations and to be alert to changes in HGV
movements.[39]
17. In May 2009, the Agency commissioned research
jointly with the Highways Agency to identify where best to locate
its checksites on motorways and trunk roads.[40]
This research had been suspended and subsumed within the Department's
work to develop an HGV compliance strategy. The Agency did not
believe that the suspension of the research project had had an
adverse impact on the Agency's operations and it continued to
work with the Highways Agency to acquire a number of sites. The
Agency had closed five sites in the last few years, opened a new
checksite on the M6 at Sandbach in 2009 on land owned by the Highways
Agency, and other new sites were planned.[41]
Staff at the new Sandbach site had increased the number of vehicles
they stopped from around 200 each year previously to some 2,000
in the year to date.[42]
18. The Department placed a lot of emphasis on
its development of the new HGV compliance strategy, due to be
completed later in 2010, to set the direction of the Agency's
future enforcement work, including the location of its checksites.
The Department assured us that the new strategy would take into
account this Committee's Report.[43]
19. Inspecting vehicles at or near ports allows
the Agency to tackle non-compliant vehicles or drivers at an early
stage on their journey in Great Britain. The Agency had no rights
of access to ports, however, as they were private property, and
examiners were reliant on port authorities' goodwill to permit
them to operate within the port.[44]
The Agency generally had good relationships with ports and was
working with the British Ports Association to agree a memorandum
of understanding on its access conditions.[45]
Three ports, however, —Cairnryan and Stranraer in Dumfries
and Galloway, and Twelve Quays in Merseyside—had barred
the Agency from their premises.[46]
Some ports did not cooperate as they considered that the Agency's
presence deterred customers and could move business to a rival
port, putting them at a commercial disadvantage.[47]
There could also be constrictions on the Agency's examinations
due to lack of space inside ports for parking up large vehicles.[48]
The Agency did not regard lack of access as an impediment to its
business since its examiners could inspect vehicles at a checksite
a few miles away on a road leading away from the port.[49]
20. The Agency acknowledged, however, that access
to the ports from which it was currently barred would be important
since it would enable it to demonstrate proportionality in the
checks that it carried out and to avoid giving a perceived commercial
advantage to any one port by not working there.[50]
While the Agency said it would be happy to be granted statutory
rights of access to all ports it was not convinced that this would
be a proportionate response to the current problem or that it
should be a top priority. The Agency expected that its negotiations
with the British Ports Association would lead to access to the
three ports from which it was currently barred.[51]
33 C&AG's Report, paras 8 and 2.7 Back
34
Qq 89-91; EV 15 Back
35
Qq 88 and 106 Back
36
Q 104 Back
37
Qq 1 and 55; C&AG's Report, paras 1.9 and 2.11 Back
38
Qq 55 and 92-93 Back
39
Qq 55-58 Back
40
C&AG's Report, para 2.11 Back
41
Qq 112-113 and 149-150 Back
42
Q 86 Back
43
Qq 149 and 150 Back
44
C&AG's Report, para 2.8 Back
45
Qq 116 and 133-138 Back
46
Qq 122-127; Ev 16, paras 7 and 8 Back
47
Q 117 Back
48
Q 118 Back
49
Qq 117 and 126; Ev 16, para 9 Back
50
Qq 128 and 131 Back
51
Qq 119-120 and 132 Back
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