So now we know who the next CEO of the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) will be. One Graham Vidler, until April last year the External Affairs Director of the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association.
A fresh mind
He’s worked in the pensions industry for some 20 years, and from what I can see has never set foot anywhere near the transport industry, let alone the bus industry. Perhaps that’s not a bad thing. It means he comes in with no preconceptions, no baggage, a fresh mind uncluttered with the history of the industry.
Google tells us that Graham has skills in stakeholder management, strategy and strategic communications, policy development and advocacy. That seems to fit the bill nicely, especially given that the whole point of the CPT’s reorganisation is to develop a stronger voice at Westminster and Whitehall.
The big bang
The operators have also appointed a new External Relations Manager (Tom Brackenbury) and a Policy and Public Affairs Manager (Alison Edwards). I’m slightly surprised these two appointments were made before Graham Vidler was in post and able to be part of the selection process but, be that as it may, neither Tom nor Alison appear to have any experience of the bus industry either.
I’m not questioning their abilities at all. Far from it. All I am saying is that the CPT will now have three of its most senior people having no bus industry experience, no knowledge of the detailed and, in some cases, complex issues that need to be addressed.
This loss of industry expertise, the loss of the ‘institutional memory’, worries me. The knowledge and memory banks exist within the operators, of course. But if it had been my call I would have managed the transformation of the CPT in a more gradualist way.
This ‘big bang’ reorganisation makes me twitch given the three new appointees’ lack of experience in the industry. I hope my anxieties are groundless.
Institutional knowledge
And there’s change within the Department for Transport (DfT) too.
I hear that, with Graham Pendlebury retiring in May, his successor as Director for Local Transport is to be Stephen Fidler who is promoted into the post. Congratulations to him.
This is something of a reassurance. I had worried that Graham Pendlebury, one of the most experienced and seasoned officials in the DfT, would be replaced with somebody from outside with little or no experience of the department, let alone local transport, thus diluting the ‘institutional knowledge’ still further.
Stephen Fidler, however, has considerable experience of the DfT and Whitehall more generally, and was responsible for piloting the Bus Services Act through parliament.
So Stephen is very well known to the industry, understands the issues and is an extremely capable individual. At a time when it’s ‘all change’ at the CPT, I’m relieved and pleased to see that Stephen takes over the reins from Graham. Welcome back Stephen!
