 The
February issue of LCDC paper, The Badge, contained an article titled:
Dial-a-Cab hit by credit crunch. The piece takes information from DaC’s
Annual Report and gives the impression that the Society is balanced rather
precariously. So in place of his usual report, Call Sign asked DaC Chairman Brian Rice
to answer some questions regarding our Balance Sheets in a language that
those unable to understand this type of financial report could understand…Call Sign: The article mentions our operating surplus as being down from £976,000 to £180,000 and suggests that the current situation looks bleak, having led to staff cuts with "a strong possibility of more to follow." Is their assessment correct? Brian Rice: What the article neglected to say is that we paid members £522k in incentives. Our surplus for the year was £1.821million, that is £1.821million put into the Society. Regarding staff, we have made twelve people redundant and stopped recruiting since May 08. Consequently, our head count is 31 less than a year ago. It is an unfortunate situation, but it is prudent management and protecting the long-term interests of members and staff alike. I am not sure where the author has been, but we are in recession! CS: The Badge says you strongly hint that the way forward includes a "distribution of cars by non-members of the Society." It also claims that the only benefits would be to minicab companies and to the DaC Board in that it would keep them in their paid positions. Any response to their view? BR: It is quite apparent the author of the piece does not have any business acumen whatsoever! The market place is changing and in order to acquire taxi work from clients, we have to supply them with their transport requirements otherwise they will go elsewhere. The author of the piece can afford to be a barrack room lawyer, as he does not have a business to run – or if he did it would not last very long! Regarding paid positions, yes I do get paid. Is the author suggesting he does not get paid by the LCDC? CS: They also claim that in 2001, one pound of subscriptions bought members £20 of work but that in 2009 that has been cut in half. Are they right? BR: It is called cherry picking. They have picked our best year ever in 56 years of trading to use as a comparison. For instance, the following year we paid to members £14.54 for every pound of subscription, yet last year we paid £15.71 (not the £10 that was stated in the article) and for the last third of the year, we were in recession. Consequently, I believe the return was quite good under the circumstances. CS: The Badge then says there was an increase in staff costs of half a million pounds despite a lower turnover. Their assumption is that this is "dueto the increase in PH work through the call centre." Is it? |
BR: Absolute rubbish! For the first eight months of the year we
were delivering record numbers, so we required more staff. That coupled with our move to the new
building, and of course you must take into account the staff’s annual wage
increase. Those are the reasons for an increase in staff costs,
incidentally, turnover was down 1% - again quite good under the
circumstances. CS: Finally, the article ends with a statement. It says: "The fact that an ever-increasing amount of work is being booked on behalf of non-members must surely threaten DaC’s mutual status, hence the interest shown by the Inland Revenue in the Societies (LCDC spelling…Ed) affairs since the introduction of the Concierge booking system." Are they likely to be correct? BR: Again absolute rubbish! As it was explained at our AGM by the Managing Partner of our accountants and auditors, HMRC see us as a very good business and they would like a share of our surplus, no other reason. These enquires take place from time to time, it is the third one to my knowledge. There will probably be another in the not too distant future and to suggest anything other than that which I have explained is just endeavouring to meddle and cause problems on issues they do not understand or indeed know anything about! CS: Thanks Brian… |
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AND THE CHAIRMAN ASKS… Do you read my reports? |
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In last month’s Call Sign, I went into detail about only completing functions when they applied - for instance the Arrival button and AAR. But it appears that some of you have totally ignored my request, with the consequence that not only are you throwing our reporting into doubt, but have caused clients to query it. One client is charging their staff for any time over 10 minutes they keep a cab waiting, so you can imagine that some of their staff are up in arms regarding the situation and as a consequence, the account is investigating our reporting. For instance, if you ‘hit’ your arrival button 3 or 4 minutes before you arrive (I know the reasons why) we could be informing the client that the taxi had been kept waiting for 14 minutes when in reality the vehicle had been there 10 minutes. I know this sounds a little far fetched, but some clients are using a stopwatch to check our times and I assure you that is true. You don’t need me to tell you how tough things are, please don’t make them worse by supplying incorrect information to us, which then throws our reporting into doubt, makes a vast amount of work for DaC staff looking at GPS co-ordinates and causes the client to become dissatisfied with our service at a time when they have plenty of alternatives - many of whom are cheaper than us. Our competition can’t supply the reporting we do - but what’s the point if it is not correct? Please do not give any client an excuse to question our service!Brian Rice |
