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New RHA chief executive Geoff Dunning wants to boost the association's membership levels by focusing on what hauliers need.

"I want to reverse the trend we've seen this [past] year," he says, referring to the net decline in membership reported in the RHA's latest accounts  (MT 7 May). "We need to demonstrate to those that left in the past for one reason or another that we've changed.

"A member pays £350 and needs to get back the equivalent value or more: that's my priority."

He explains further: "Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying either the political lobbying or member services aren't important. The political bit is important because we've got to represent our members' interests and we've got to try to improve the environment in which they operate - but that's a medium-long-term thing; our members need to survive in the short-term."

Dunning is conducting a review of the services the RHA delivers to members: "I'm setting up a matrix with the three strands of the RHA's business [lobbying, services and revenue generation] and the four areas of members' interests, and making sure we're doing the right thing in each of those four areas [commercial and operational issues, employment issues,  the technology they use, and compliance]. We have got to cover all the bases."

He notes that he and his predecessor, Roger King, are from different backgrounds, but "it's all driven by the needs of our members. They will dictate what we do. Our slogan from now on will be 'phone us first'; it's very unlikely that a member's problem is one that we haven't handled before."

Asked about the industry's stakeholder organisations working together more on lobbying government, he says: "Where we can co-operate, we should; where we can't, we should have amicable disagreement."

See next week's MT for the full interview.