Sturgeon’s rail plan should be put in the sidings...
IT was almost a throwaway line from Nicola Sturgeon in last week’s Programme for Government – ‘We have also started the process of taking ScotRail into public ownership and aim to complete this by March’ – but changing the ownership of Scotland’s railway operator is no small thing.
Wrapped up in promises about reducing car use and decarbonisation, the move was sold as an environmental measure. The truth is, as explained when it was first mooted in March, that SNP Ministers are stepping in as an operator of last resort.
It hardly inspires confidence in millions of Scottish passengers and commuters. Especially as this SNP Government’s record of stepping in to ‘help’ has seen little by way of solution or progress at, variously, Prestwick Airport, Ferguson Marine’s shipyard or BiFab yards. Quite the opposite, in fact.
As far as transportation goes, Nicola Sturgeon’s team can’t get the basics right in ferry procurement (never mind operations), and the First Minister’s last big, blue-sky-thinking national infrastructure idea – creating a stateowned energy company – has just been abandoned despite half a million pounds being wasted on consultancy fees.
The plan – so much as there is one – for Scotland’s railways is to create an arm’s-length company owned and controlled by the Scottish Government. All ScotRail employees will be transferred over from the current franchise holder, Abellio, on the same pay and conditions.
For his part, the Transport Secretary, Michael Matheson, has roundly criticised what’s gone before – calling the franchise system ‘not fit for purpose’. But in terms of how Government ownership is going to differ, or how passengers will see any improvements at all come March, rail users are in the dark.
Indeed, since the takeover was announced six months ago, the news for Scotland’s rail passengers has been unremittingly grim. Plans to cut 300 services from pre-pandemic levels have been announced and are currently in a consultation phase.
ScotRail staff are being balloted by the RMT union for strike action which would hit services during the COP26 summit in Glasgow in November – a particularly bad look as world leaders argue for public and sustainable transport being a key plank of environmental action.
If any such strike were to go ahead, it would echo the decision taken last week by hundreds of ScotRail engineering workers who voted for industrial action due to the collapse of pay talks. The company is already in formal dispute with conductors, cleaners and ticket inspectors.
SCOTLAND is vast, with a population density that varies wildly. We make up a third of the land mass of the UK but have less than a tenth of the people. A rail route between Edinburgh and Glasgow has a running cost and profitability that is unrecognisable from, say, Glenfinnan to Arisaig.
Ticketing alone does not cover the cost of the network and Scotland’s railways are subsidised by more than £800 million of taxpayers’ money each year; nearly half a billion of which goes straight to ScotRail’s current operators, Abellio.
The rails themselves are under the remit of Network Rail, but in Scotland the same man heads up both the train company, ScotRail, and Network Rail, in charge of the infrastructure. He has to answer to two separate boards, each with competing demands.
With a pay and bonus structure that allows him to pull down more than £350,000 per year, Alex
Hynes is one of the highest paid public sector executives in the country. His package is known due to his Network Rail hat but his executive team at ScotRail do not have their salaries disclosed as Abellio is a private company.
The Scottish Government has not said whether they think the leadership of ScotRail is one of the things they wish to change in order to achieve improvements. They haven’t said whether having the same man serve two masters is a desirable or sustainable model.
In fact, ministers have not said what powers – if any – this new change of structure gives them that they didn’t have before or how they plan to do things differently or better.
As Scotland gets back to work after the pandemic, we have a Government which is about to take control of our trains with no public plan to make things better and no stated aims of reforming structure or leadership.
We have a near £1 billion taxpayer subsidy, a cut to services coming and pay disputes with vast swathes of the workforce.
With the SNP’s woeful track record of public ownership, maybe rail users should brace themselves.