As we launch our RHA Skills Campaign – more on that in a moment – recent Government moves to open skills bootcamp opportunities for our sector is a welcome development.
We estimate the driver shortage still sits at around 85,000 – down from 100,000 last summer after DVSA laid on extra driving test capacity after lockdowns. Nonetheless, a perfect storm of an ageing workforce, the loss of EU drivers, and the economic shock caused by the pandemic still dogs our industry.
The bootcamps, which include HGV driver training for 11,000, were set up as part of the National Skills Fund. The £34 million Government pledge to help get more drivers behind the wheel is a significant investment, and will help new blood get their licences, and make it easier for others to return to driving with refresher training and CPC.
Our RHA Skills Campaign is the first of three key initiatives we’re launching to tackle the biggest issues affecting our industry. This is about finding smarter ways to campaign and support our members, and builds on the 12-point plan we published last year to offer practical short and long-term solutions to the shortage crisis.
Ministers have a lot to do to help our industry recover from the pandemic and recruit the next generation of workers, but we have a leading role to play too. We’re on a mission to do more with training providers, the education sector, local authorities, and others to make careers in road transport and logistics a more aspirational choice.
With new migration rules largely closing off overseas labour markets the emphasis is on developing a domestic workforce. The challenge is to win the hearts and minds of school leavers with better promotion of our industry as a rewarding career path. This requires some joined-up, strategic thinking between government and industry to make real, and it’ll be a prominent theme as our Skills Campaign grows over the months ahead.
Hot on its heels are our campaigns focusing on facilities and the environment. Taking them in turn, our RHA Facilities Campaign is about the two ‘R’s’ – recruitment and retention. Many lorry and coach drivers leave, disillusioned because they get fed up with poor facilities on the road and poor treatment when they’re making deliveries. And who can blame them? Most of us wouldn’t be expected to put up with spartan facilities and disrespect in the workplace, so why should our drivers?
This isn’t anything new, but despite some welcome attention from media, the public and politicians in the last couple of years nothing has fundamentally changed. Thousands of truckers every night have nowhere safe to park up – and many of those who do are confronted with poor food choices and worse toilets. We need to change this dynamic – our Facilities Campaign is set up to tackle it.
Completing our trilogy is our RHA Environment Campaign. The road to Net Zero is fraught with danger. Many people have formulated oversimplistic views on how we can decarbonise transport. The Government has set some ambitious targets around ending the sale of diesel vehicles, but the picture for us is much more complex than for cars. Is the future electric? Is it hydrogen? Is it both? Something else? No-one knows, but we recognise our responsibility to ensure that the transitional journey is measured and evidence based. Firms smarting from ill-conceived clean air zones and rightly worried that history will repeat itself are looking to us for leadership as we move towards a Net Zero future. Stranded assets are the reality when knee-jerk, wishful thinking wins out over pragmatism. We can’t afford to let that happen again.
For further information, visit: www.rha.uk.net