§ The Joint statement by West Midlands county council and the passenger transport executive does not give me confidence that all the relevant recommendations of the commission have been adequately considered. I am particularly concerned by the attitude adopted to the two special priority recommendations on the PTE's engineering premium payment scheme (EPPS) (recommendation 27) and non-manual staff levels (recommendation 30). The commission believed that there were serious shortcomings in the EPPS, with levels of bonus being paid which did not reflect actual performance achieved; and it attributed the high levels of servicing and maintenance costs in the PTE in no small part to weaknesses in planning, control and labour utilisation generally. About two thirds of the cost of public bus operators are accounted for by wages and salaries, which emphasises the importance of managements maintaining tight control on staffing levels.
§ The efficient use of resources has a direct relationship with the level of services and fares that can be afforded without excessive burdens on ratepayers. The commission's report reveals that the PTE had the highest non-manual staffing levels of the undertakings investigated, particularly in the engineering function. I am therefore disappointed that the joint statement rejects without adequate explanation the recommendation that there should be a review of non-manual staffing levels. The statement concludes by noting that the commission's report does not suggest that privatisation would serve the public interest. The commission in fact made no recommendation either way on this subject, since consideration of the benefits of privatisation was not within its terms of reference.
§ The West Midlands statement does not favour recommendation 43 that my Department should take a leading part in publication of unit cost information by bus operators. Quite sensibly the other operators are willing to consider this idea and I propose to discuss with representative bodies the further development of measures of performance and efficiency. One other recommendation in the report, on the medical examination of PSV drivers (recommendation 15), is directly related to my 44W Department's responsibilities. Medical standards for PSV and HGV drivers will be the subject of the report of a working party which I expect to receive very shortly.