Visiting the academy last month, Ofsted reported significant progress in meeting all of the requirements of providing an apprenticeship and ensuring apprentices benefit from high-quality training.

The regulatory body's report on its visit to the National Logistics Academy said that its leaders "have invested significantly in the resources and capacity to ensure that subcontractor members are supported to deliver the programmes to the required high standards".

It added: "Managers have developed a range of high-quality learning resources. Senior leaders and managers have developed rigorous quality-assurance processes to monitor the quality of teaching, learning and assessment.”

The academy opertes through 25 logistics training providers across the UK, with programmes of training aimed specifically at large transport operators.

National Logistics Acadmemy chief executive Mark Currie said: “I am delighted that Ofsted has given us their thumbs up for all the hard work and investment we have put into building a high-quality apprenticeship delivery model.

"We pride ourselves on delivering the high-quality skills, knowledge and behaviour training our customers need as they grow and adapt to the fast pace of change that is challenging the whole sector."

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The report reveals the road transport sector recruited fewer than 10% of a projected 15,000 apprentices in the past year. STAT, which, among others, is made up of representatives from the DfT, TfL and Think Logistics, said that in 2017/18 the sector recruited just 1,300 apprentices. In its review a year earlier, the taskforce had predicted this number would be more like 15,000.

One reason for the shortfall in projected uptake, according to the report, is a lack of suitable apprenticeship frameworks and recognised training providers. It states: “Urgent action to address the lack of apprenticeships is vital if the road freight sector is to address the long-term labour force issues and the knock-on effects for the economy.”

The report also highlights that the 85% of the industry made up of SMEs will likely have less access to HR facilities, and could therefore be less able to spend the time on bringing apprentices into the business.

Another obstacle highlighted by STAT is a widespread lack of understanding how the levy works, not just in road freight but across all sectors.

It states: “STAT does not believe that the apprenticeships policy is delivering what was intended. Numbers are down and take-up low. Funding set aside for skills now is likely to be diverted to HM Treasury by 2019.

“Based on STAT’s discussions with its stakeholders, many employers are not engaging with the Apprentice-ship Levy. Of those who are, many are calling for reform, to allow greater flexibility in terms of allowing funds in levy pots to support a wider range of training.”

Think Logistics founder and Abbey Logistics CEO Steve Granite said that his business is yet to spend any of its levy funding. He told MT: “We couldn’t find anything that was suitable off the shelf for what we wanted, and we’re working with a training provider to design something.

“The problem is the levy came first and then the courses came after. The infrastructure wasn’t in place for people to be able to spend the funding.”

Granite added that the 2019 deadline, after which the levy pot will be cleared out by HMRC, had prompted Abbey Logistics to “get in gear and sort something out”.

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Whistl, then TNT Post, was trialling final mile operations in London and Manchester when Royal Mail announced a hike in its wholesale prices in January 2014.

Its universal service meant Whistl had no choice but to use Royal Mail for final mile deliveries of mail everywhere it wasn’t able to, and the proposed charge increase would have seen Whistl pay 0.25p more for every letter Royal Mail.

Whistl filed an official complaint to Ofcom in February 2014. Though it opted to halt its expansion of final mile operations after the proposed changes, and the operation collapsed just over a year later.

After Ofcom concluded today (14 August) that Royal Mail did breach competition law in 2014, its competition group director Jonathan Oxley said: “Royal Mail broke the law by abusing its dominant position in bulk mail delivery.

“All companies must play by the rules. Royal Mail’s behaviour was unacceptable and it denied postal users the potential benefits that come from effective competition.”

Ofcom said that a review of internal Royal Mail communications from the time proved that the suggested price changes “were part of a deliberate strategy to limit competition in delivery as a direct response to the threat of competition from Whistl”.

Responding to Ofcom’s decision Royal Mail highlighted that the price changes in question were never implemented, and insisted the move was meant to protect its universal service from other operators “cherry picking” the easier areas to deliver to.

A statement from the business said it was “”very disappointed” by the decision and that it intends to appeal it.

Royal Mail said it believed the decision will be overturned: “For an allegation of abusive price discrimination to be established, the law is very clear.  The relevant prices must be actually paid.  And, the party paying such prices must be placed at a competitive disadvantage as a result. In this case neither of these essential elements exist.”

A spokesperson for Whistl said it would not attempt to re-enter the final mile market, and added: “We have to review the Ofcom findings in detail and establish the level of damages we can seek from Royal Mail.  Initial advice is that Royal Mail is potentially liable to pay compensation for the significant damage that was caused to Whistl’s business, in addition to the fine imposed by Ofcom.”

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Taking over from Wincanton, Maritime began delivering chilled produce to Tesco stores in the South London area a year ago, and MD John Williams said that “given the opportunity, we would like to win more business like this”.

On why the operator made its first move into chilled distribution, Williams said: “Tesco decided to tender out the operation, and we felt that we had the skill to be able to bring efficiencies that didn’t exist before because we have an operation that sits in parallel in Medway, which means that we can integrate some of that work and utilise the trucks for longer and harder.”

The operator closed the year ended 27 December with turnover of £253.7m, up 13% year-on-year on 2016’s £224.6m.

Its pre-tax profit also grew by 13% to £6.6m (2016: 5.8m).

Williams told MT: “These are challenging times for everybody in transport, especially with the driver shortage and uncertainties around Brexit.

“But I think our people are working exceptionally hard and I think our network is working to our advantage.”

The driver shortage is of particular concern to Williams, who said: “There is no let up in the issue of drivers, and we have got to find more creative ways of retaining and rewarding and recruiting and it’s a constant battle."

Williams added that performance in Maritime’s ongoing financial year have been strong so far, and that he expects to see another year of growth.

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The deal, including vehicle assets of more than £17m, completed yesterday (6 August) after more than six months of talks.

Asset Alliance, which gains its first depot in the South East in the acquisition, welcomed the links the West Thurrock site provides to London.

Hanbury Riverside director Lee Smith will remain at the depot with the same management team.

However the sale of the business marks the retirement of its remaining three directors: Glyn Davies, Philip West and non-active director Ian Wilson.

Davies, who bought the business under its previous name Riverside Commercials in 1997, told MT the directors had decided to sell in the face of “the shareholders all getting a bit older”.

“We had to really think about where we were going. We felt a great responsibility to our customers and staff to actually get the business into new hands. After a number of conversations with Asset Alliance there was a realisation that it was a good fit for both parties,” Davies said.

Asset Alliance CEO Willie Paterson said the group will treat the Hanbury Riverside legacy in the industry “very carefully” and that he thinks his business stands to learn from its newest acquisition.

“I am a great believer in the phrase don’t fix something if it’s not broken. The contract hire fits very well with the leasing and the sales business. We think there’s a leaf of two from Hanbury we can learn and adapt to the rest of our business.

“This deal is about partnership and growing together. And hopefully it will put us in a much stronger position in the market place. And it will hopefully put Hanbury in a stronger position, because they’ll have access to a bigger resource and bringing different products into the market for their customers as well.”

He added that there are no immediate plans to change the Hanbury Riverside name.

“It is a strong brand so we’re going to take our time and look at that and see where it goes. We have some different ideas that we’re looking to at the moment,” he told MT.

“We’re not in a great hurry to dramatically change anything. We want to be responsive to the customer and what they want.”

The deal will bring new product offerings into Hanbury’s portfolio, but remaining director Smith said that the business is well equipped to deal with the new stock opportunities.

He said: “We can now offer trailers and rigids and everything which we’ve never really been into. We’re going to have a lot more variety of stock and our customers will benefit from that.”

Davies’ retirement comes after almost 53 years in the road haulage sector.

The 2016 Service to Industry award recipient told MT: “There comes a point in time where you have to acknowledge that age catches up with you. And I’ve seen contemporaries of mine go on too long. I’ve had a very good run. It’s never particularly felt like work to me because I’ve always enjoyed it, but I’ve got a responsibility to the business to get it into the right place.”

But Paterson added:  “I suspect that Glyn won’t disappear over the horizon. I think we’re all very keen to have Glyn’s input. The handover and making sure that we get some benefit from his experience as well. But that’s entirely up to him.”

The Hanbury Riverside deal comes after a string of acquisitions from Asset Alliance, including its buying of ATE Truck and Trailer Sales in 2011 and Total Reefer in 2013.

Paterson said that while Asset Alliance has grown substantially through acquisitions, it had never bought a business that didn’t suit its operation and needs exactly.

“I think we’re always attracted to an opportunity,” he said, “but there’s a very deliberate structure to the business. We only bought businesses that we genuinely believe add value to the group and we’ve now got a good spectrum of businesses within the group that touch all the sectors we want to be in.”

In the wake of the Hanbury acquisition, though, Paterson said Asset Alliance’s medium-term focus will be optimising its current operations to win the business a place in the market top three in the next three years.

Pictured, left to right: Lee Smith, Willie Paterson and Glyn Davies

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The e-retail specialist saw turnover increase by 17.6% in the year ended 30 April 2018 to £400.1m (2017: £340.1m). Pre-tax profit for the year was up by 11.8% at £18m (2017: £16m).

Organic growth from existing customers including Asda, Morrisons and Wilko boosted Clipper’s cash flow during the year, as did new contracts with Edinburgh Woollen Mill, River Island and ASOS, among others.

The operator also signed a “significant” new deal with Boohoo.com-owned Pretty Little Thing before its year end, but as the operation only went live this month the financial benefit will be felt in its new financial year.

The deal, which will have 1,200 peopleworking on it by the close of 2018, will be run from a new dedicated 600,000ft² warehouse in Sheffield.

Clipper said two acquisitions it made during 2017/18 had contributed to its solid financial performance during this year.

Read more:

• Clipper Logistics to train warehouse workers as drivers across UK
• Clipper Logistics makes almost £200m in first half of financial year
• Clipper Logistics has Supergroup contract extended by five years

The operator bought Tesam Distribution for £11m in May 2017, and in its results document said the integration of the company into Clipper was complete and generating money, although a bigger benefit would be felt after a full year or ownership in its 2018/19 results. Clipper also bought technical services business RepairTech in June 2017.

Location, location

The operator opened a site in Poznan, Poland during the year, out of which it operates a returns service for ASOS. It intends to open a second site in the area to facilitate a new contract win. The build on the second site is scheduled to complete before the end of 2018.

A new site in Crick will also open in Clipper’s 2018/19 year following a scaling up of its work with customer Halfords.

The results document adds that “Zara has announced its intention to transfer a significant additional activity into Clipper”.

Steve Parkin, executive chairman at Clipper Logistics, said: “We are conscious of the wider forces affecting the UK retail sector; whilst this means that we have to bring an element of caution into our planning, recent contract wins, together with a strong pipeline of new business activity and the further evolution of our Click and Collect proposition, leave the group well positioned to achieve further growth both in the UK and internationally.”

Parkin added that Clipper’s expertise in e-fulfilment and returns management “provides the group with exceptionally strong strategic positioning for the future.”

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The European Commission issued the record €2.9bn (£2.5bn) fine to Daimler, DAF, Volvo Group and IVECO in 2016 after concluding the OEMs had operated a cartel between 1997 and 2011. MAN was found guilty but as the whistleblower avoided a monetary punishment.

Scania was later fined €881m for its involvement in the cartel.

Hauliers that bought vehicles during this time will not benefit from the fines paid, and the competing cases from the RHA and UK Trucks Claim (UKTC) have different approaches in regards how compensation should be sought for them.

The RHA’s proposed action requires operators that bought vehicles while the cartel was in operation to opt in to the claim, and the association has 3,600 hauliers signed up with a further 700 said to be poised to do so.

UKTC’s approach would be to seek a lump sum of compensation from the OEMs, which operators could then apply to claim back from.

Read more

• Truck cartel compensation action passes 2,000 operator mark
• RHA to represent operators in truck cartel compensation action
• Truck manufacturers respond to €2.9bn cartel fine

RHA chief executive Richard Burnett said: "We have worked tirelessly on behalf of the industry to see fair play. This is a perfect example of the truck manufacturers working behind closed doors. We need transparency.

“We estimate that the truck cartel will have impacted upon the buyers of 600,000 trucks that were purchased in the UK between 1997 and 2011, amounting to a potential compensation claim of over £5bn. On the same basis, we estimate that operators in the rest of Europe bought 3.4 million trucks and could also be due compensation of over £25bn."

Chairman of the UKTC board Roger Kaye QC said: “We have assembled a strong team of lawyers, economists and other experts to bring the claim with unrivalled experience, and my co-directors are each industry specialists in their chosen fields, with a broad and deep knowledge of the UK trucks market.

“I am confident that this claim provides the ideal opportunity for the UK victims of the truck cartel to achieve justice and fair compensation”.

While UKTC has predicted operators could see compensation of up to £20,000 per truck, RHA chief executive Richard Burnett told MT he believed this was too high, and that the association’s prediction of “more than £6,000” was a more realistic estimate.

Now that the applications have been submitted, the CAT is expected to hold a case management conference in the autumn, where it will make preparations for the full hearing at which the successful application will be chosen.

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Jos Opdeweegh has worked at the helm of a number of logistics and supply chain business in the US, notably working as CEO of Americold for four years.

He will assume the role at the beginning of September, but will spend time with the business during August to prepare for the handover.

His predecessor Cashmore, who has been in the role for 12 years, will remain at the business in the short-term to induct the new CEO.

In a statement sent to employees and seen by MT, Connect Group chairman Gary Kennedy said:  “The appointment of Jos is a very positive development for the group.

“It should already be clear that he has extensive experience, with a track record of building business to the benefit all stakeholders. The knowledge, energy and fresh perspective he brings will help to shape our strategy, ensuring we can all share in a successful future.”

Read more:

• Heads roll at Connect Group as Tuffnells gets stuck in reverse
• Tuffnells makes a loss as Connect Group battles on
• Tuffnells falters as Connect Group sees turnover drop over Christmas

Cashmore’s departure was announced in the wake of a profit warning in June, which said that the third quarter of its ongoing financial year had been “extremely disappointing”, resulting in “materially reduced” anticipated pre-tax profit.

CFO David Bauernfeind left the business with immediate effect in the fallout of the trading update last month, and was replaced by former Yodel CFO Tony Grace on 18 June.

The June announcement also contained the news that Connect Group will be closing parcel shop network Pass my Parcel, as it could not find a way to make the division profitable for the business.

Poor financial performance from Tuffnells was blamed in part on Pass my Parcel, because it was having to move parcel freight through its network, which is not designed for such an operation.

The IDW operator saw its turnover fall 12% year-on-year in Q3 to £43.5m (2017: £49.6m).

A spokesman for Connect Group told MT the closure of Pass My Parcel was underway and should be mostly completed by its financial year end at the close of August, but that contractual obligations meant some movements would continue in the short term.

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While the campaign’s founder Lesley O’Brien (pictured) told MT working to bring women in to the sector will “always be my passion” and will remain a crucial part of She's RHA's work, she said the skills gap road transport faces requires a wider pool of people to plug it.

“If we stay just focused on women, we may not be closing that gap. But by widening it, we’re tapping into a wider skills pool,” she said.

“If you look around where my office is in Bradford, it’s really multi cultural. To fix my skills shortage, then I have to tap into all those different cultures and people with different backgrounds or abilities.”

She’s RHA has partnered with diversity and inclusion specialists Creating Inclusive Culture (CIC) in line with its new, wider strategy.

CIC and She’s RHA will work together at events, and O’Brien said that its new partner would strengthen the trade association campaign with its stronger knowledge of workplace diversity.

Read more:

• Don’t ignore black and ethnic minority talent when recruiting
• She’s RHA reaches milestone with 200 registered members
• Why the road transport industry needs International Women’s Day

She told MT: “Though the RHA recognises the benefits of a diverse workforce our specialism is transport, not diversity and inclusion.

“The road to diversity and inclusion starts at the top and we need to incorporate this into our recruitment and staff retention strategies to address our industries skills shortage.

The partnership will also broaden She’s RHA’s geographical reach, said O’Brien.

"It is always a challenge to reach out and include members throughout the UK and by linking up with CIC we can offer greater geographical coverage and events  for members to attend," she said.

According to O'Brien, who is a partner at Bradford-based Freightlink Europe, there are no current plans to change the She's RHA name.

• Last month Career Ready warned the logistics sector that it must learn lessons from the construction market and target its recruitment drive on black and ethnic minorities (BAME) if it is to find the 1.2 million new recruits it needs.

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The operator has joined forces with PwC to offer planning support to customers in order to help them prepare for the UK's departure from the EU next year.

The four-stage planning service includes gathering insight and information before designing strategic and operational plans in the face of numerous post-Brexit scenarios, including a no-deal situation.

This planning will encompass the cost and impact of potential supply models, as well as where and how measures could affect relationships with suppliers and how business practices may need to be amended.

Wincanton CEO Adrian Colman said the move allowed the firm to with with its customers through the Brexit transition, and that PwC has an "intimate understanding of Brexit across a broad range of business challenges" that will support its customers in building "workable, dynamic" Brexit plans.

Read more

• Operation Stack alternative Project Brock may not be ready by Brexit deadline
• Government prepares for hard Brexit with cross-border permit scheme
• Transport secretary praises haulage sector, promising Brexit clarity and more truck parking

Colman added that Wincanton's status as an Authorised Economic Operator means its customers have access to simplified or fast-tracked customs systems.

PwC partner Jonathon Marshall said: “Brexit is not something that British industry can take a ‘wait & see’ view on.

"From a supply chain perspective, businesses need to understand in detail how they buy and sell products and services from around the world.

"Brexit means that, more than ever, they must understand how these are distributed, the product flows and the tariffs they are currently exposed to, and how these may change depending on the outcome of Brexit."

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