The practical impact of the compulsory 48-hour working week has not lived up to the industry’s fears but the cost burden is significant, according to the Freight Transport Association (FTA).
The association said complying with the Working Time Directive introduced last April has not been as difficult as expected.
But the overall costs to the transport industry resulting from new schedules, increased wages, increased management time and new systems to record and monitor working time, have been substantial and continue to be an additional burden on businesses, it claimed.
The FTA has arrived at these conclusions, after completing four quarterly research programmes in conjunction with commercial property consultants NAI Fuller Peiser.
FTA deputy chief executive James Hookham said the impact of the changes had been reduced by flexibility within the WTD.
“Our surveys have consistently shown that the flexibility provided by the regulations giving force to the operation of the Road Transport Directive has helped to reduce the worst effects of reducing an average 55 hour working week down to the new statutory 48 hour average,” he said.
“FTA was involved in ensuring flexibilities in the Directive that provided an extension to the reference period for calculating the average from 17 weeks to 26 weeks; that allowed a less rigid and a shorter period to qualify as night work; and that allowed 'periods of availability', where drivers were available but not working, not to be counted within the 48 hour average week, were implemented in the UK regulations.”
Hookham said without such flexibility, the government’s projected productivity losses close to ten per cent and an annual cost of £1 billion would have come about.
“As it is the costs, although clearly very substantial following wage increases, revised scheduling, increased bureaucracy and, for 26 per cent of companies surveyed by FTA, the need to employ more personnel, have been contained by a phenomenal effort by transport managers,” he added.
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