Truck and Track Autumn 2021

www.truckandtrack.com Autumn 2021 Truck and Track 39 UPN – (UNITED PALLET NETWORK) – FINALIST – MULTIMODAL – PALLET NETWORK OF THE YEAR 2021 There is just not enough young blood coming in. This lack of young and new drivers joining the industry has been further affected by the availability of HGV tests. Then there are the new HMRC IR35 rules that have served to remove many agency drivers from the market. Brexit has meant the loss of thousands of European drivers and the addition of more intensive border controls slowing the process of inbound and outgoing freight. Covid has created a further myriad of challenges across the country. But really the driver shortage has been around for many years and it’s so clear that nothing has been done to improve the situation and encourage new people – male and female – into these roles and indeed into Logistics generally. “Nowhere near enough, has been done to attract the youth of today into Logistics” School leavers are actively encouraged to join the IT sector, Finance Sector, Sales, Marketing, and Commerce, but nowhere near enough, has been done to attract the youth of today into Logistics a sector that actually has proved to have excellent career paths and a real history of “Home Grown Timber” – a life time career trajectory – often with the same company. UPN has joined forces with the APN (The Association of Pallet Networks) and the other Pallet Networks to actively promote logistics as an exciting world with so many different opportunities and a real opportunity for a stable long term career. We are all lobbying government and MP’s to focus on the current issues and trying to get them to invest in the logistics sector. We need HGV drivers to be added to the UK shortage occupation list to allow foreign drivers to come back to the UK to take up these roles. I believe that Government has been very slow to respond to these issues and is simply putting the issues back in the court of the logistic sector. Without Government focus and support pretty soon supply chains are going to slow down, shelves will be empty, and of course that will mean rising costs. An impact on our members and indeed one that is also impacting right across the Logistics sector is increasing wages and special deals for new drivers. Whilst it’s right that drivers should be valued for the increasingly challenging roles that they fulfil these increases are pushing prices up to the consumer. It’s not the solution to this major shortage though; we need more drivers as well as better wages for drivers already on the payroll. UPN being one of the smaller networks is not currently as impacted as the larger networks but everyone is concerned as we are all now entering the peak period for logistics. Supermarkets will have a larger requirement and indeed they are already offering signing on fees and higher wages that network members simply can’t compete with. Tough times indeed, and as you said Brexit hasn’t helped at all has it? How challenging was the Brexit transition for the sector and for UPN, especially your members dealing with Europe and across the Irish Sea? The challenge was that the Brexit deal was done at the last minute. There was nowhere near enough time given to enable the logistics sector as a whole to educate customers regarding the new complexities of post Brexit requirements to ship goods between the UK and Europe. There was a huge lack of expertise and experience in the sector so a really fast learning curve was required. UPN centrally took on the Brexit Education Programme and worked closely with all our members to ensure that they had the tools and knowledge necessary. We set up new systems and clearance checks to ensure the smooth transition of all shipments. We also set up a comprehensive Brexit information area on our website as a further support resource. We need HGV drivers to be added to the UK shortage occupation list Our members acting for us in Europe and Ireland have been fantastic