Middle Management Conference - 2011

On May 17th and 18th the ECR Middle Management conference took place. The conference was the follow-up of a pilot conference in Gatwick in 2009. The conference was hosted in the Benelux buildings, where the ECR secretariat is housed.

The target audience for the conference, the middle management, can be defined as follows: inspectorate staff who have a clear knowledge of what goes on in the field on a day to day basis and are at the same time in the position to influence the control practices and policy of their organisation.The event had participants from eleven member states: Belgium, Germany, United Kingdom, Luxemburg, Spain, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Poland, Ireland and the Netherlands.
 

Amongst other the following topics were covered:

•  How to face ever increasing competences in the face of staff cutbacks and reduced budgets?

  • Can risk rated enforcement help and to what degree?

• How can ICT solutions and data gathering help with efficient staff deployment?

• How to measure success? How do we market the importance of an efficient road inspectorate?

• Is there another way of looking at enforcement, i.e. system supervision?

• Fatigue in road accidents: how to look at the problem?

The presentations were given by colleagues from VOSA, BAG and IVW, as well as professor Karel Brookhuis of the University of Utrecht. Participants were given the opportunity to discuss what they heard during the presentations in smaller groups during the workshops using the talking points provided by the speakers.

The two-day conference yielded the following conclusions:

• Whilst all present could see the added value of risk based enforcement, the concept has not been implemented (fully or at all) in all member states.

• The enforcement practices and philosophy as well as the competencies of the inspectorates vary considerably from one member state to the next.

• Almost all member states actively gather data during the controls, but the exchange is not yet as it should be. Member states should determine together how to use the gathered information more efficiently.

• Looking at fatigue from a different angle was relatively new to the participants of the conference, but sparked interesting debate, nevertheless.

The evaluation indicated that there is a need for discussion with colleagues on this level to exchange experiences and best practices. The established ECR exchange programme provided this opportunity for inspectors, but until now, not for (middle) management. During the conference itself arrangements were made between the participants to discuss the topics further informally in the coming months.

Return to overview