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The British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA) has hit out at VOSA's revised fee structure for vehicle testing and inspection, claiming it will unfairly penalise its members. It also says the system will be forcing members to act as tax collectors to reclaim the newly integrated O-licence vehicle fee from customers.

Following VOSA's decision to abolish the O-licence vehicle fee by transferring the cost into a higher test fee, Jay Parmar, head of legal services at the BVRLA,  says: "Asking members to pay a combined annual test fee is unjust and unfair and will cost them an extra £3.2m each year. At a time when the industry is going through some tough times, is it the right period to introduce these rises?"

Parmar points out that the strategy goes against one of the government's core principles of revenue collection - that of "the user pays". It says that the cost of a government service should be paid by those using or benefitting from it.

"VOSA is asking our industry to become tax collectors. It expects our industry to claim the extra cost from our customers, who mostly have O-licenses. But how easily will our members do this in the current economic climate?"

The BVRLA also claims the 9% increase in the test fee is unfair to operators as the hike is because of previous poor financial management by VOSA, which admits that it needs to recover past deficits in revenue. Furthermore, the fee is set to rise again next year.

Parmar says:  "What about new operators who will suffer this increase even though they weren't even benefitting from enforcement when this deficit occurred. "At the very least, VOSA needs to postpone these changes so it can look at its sums and give the haulage industry a break during these tough economic times," Parmar says.