Stand easy. Hopefully around now a shiny new email from our Chief Exec, Steve Agg, will be dropping into your inbox. Called Government Spending Review Survey, it’s, well, a CILT member survey about the Government’s spending review actually. So I’d say we’ve got the title pretty well spot on.
We’ll be using the data you give us to inform the debate in our discussions with the Transport Minister, Philip Hammond. He’s all primed for it, so this is genuinely a chance for you to decide where we spend and where the axe might fall.
As a neutral body with vast amounts of expertise in all transport and supply chain issues, we can really bring an objective and balanced view of where essential cuts in spending could fall and what should be ring-fenced. You individually won’t be an expert in all the areas the survey covers, but between us all we will come up with some valuable insights. It’s the whole reason for grouping together in an Institute. We’re stronger together than on our own.
The more of you guys who respond, the clearer the results and the more weight it will carry. So please do have a go.
I think we’re saying it takes 10-15 minutes. It took me 18 to be honest, but then I was doing a dummy test in the office yesterday, with a bunch of people queuing up to tell me the serious news of the day, Cheryl Cole has malaria. They didn’t seem to know if the mosquito that bit her had caught anything from her in return, but it has my sympathy.
I won’t say it’s a glib little survey. Question 2 is certainly a three pipe problem, as Sherlock Holmes would have said. And a couple of times you are asked to write down your thoughts, which felt a bit like I was back in the school hall doing my A levels.
Happily, unlike those A levels, there is no right or wrong answer and the questions are interesting. And there’s no need to have the answers written down in tiny letters on your sleeve before you take the test.
In fact, I’ll be honest; I found my views changing during the questionnaire, so my answers on beating congestion are completely contradictory at different points in the survey. It’s going to need a Cray Super Computer to crunch through my answers, I tell you. I may be a bit schizophrenic. I don’t know, I’m in two minds on that one.
So if you run into similar things, just push on please. We really do need your input; it’s all anonymous and no one’s sitting in judgement over your answers.
Oh, a little tip, there are some little dots to the right at the top of the survey. I thought they were just some of this nice modern design malarkey. But in fact the dots get filled in as you go along, so you can see how near the finishing line you are. Cool.
Have fun filling it in, you have till the 21st to complete it; but the earlier you do it, the more heartened we’ll be!
Good luck and many thanks!
David Jinks
Editor
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