Now SNP pays £3m to private consultants ... to help run railway that it nationalised
After ‘turnaround’ boss given £1m for failed bid to save ferry f irm...
THE Scottish Government is to hand millions of pounds to private consultants for advice on how to run the newly nationalised rail service.
Transport Scotland has awarded a £3 million contract to Arup – a global firm headquartered in England – for ‘technical advisory services’.
The private consultants are being brought in at taxpayers’ expense despite the existence of an eight-strong ScotRail board, each earning an average of £165,000 a year, and a new Scottish rail holding firm whose chief pockets £120,000 for a threeday week.
The set-up has already faced criticism after it emerged that ScotRail’s chief operating officer, Joanne Maguire, was hired on a £175,000 salary despite having no experience of the rail sector.
We can now reveal that a contract for ‘rail technical consultancy services’ has been awarded to Arup to ‘support’ the new public railway in Scotland.
The contract states that the help ‘is required to carry out contingency planning work’ as the ‘train operating company’ is moved ‘into the public sector’.
The Government-run railway has been beset by problems since its inception, including strikes which followed pay rows and vastly reduced timetables.
It is the latest example of taxpayers’ cash being lavished on nationalised industries.
State-owned Ferguson Marine, which has stumbled from one catastrophe to the next since being brought into public ownership by the SNP, paid now-exited ‘turnaround director’ Tim Hair £660,000 last year and £425,000 the year before.
Last night, Scottish Conservative transport spokesman Graham Simpson said: ‘This is yet more evidence that the SNP Government had no idea what it was doing when it nationalised ScotRail.
‘What was the point of taking it into public ownership if the next step was just to hand a private company millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money in order to tell it how to run the service?
‘The SNP clearly had no plan for how to actually provide, let alone improve, a rail service as we can see from the chaos that ensued.’
Earlier this month it was disclosed that ScotRail has an eight-strong board earning a total of £1,320,000.
It is headed by Alex Hynes, technically a Network Rail employee but who has the title of managing director, Scotland’s Railway, and who earns £330,000 a year.
In addition to chief operating officer Ms Maguire, the board includes a safety, sustainability and asset director, David Lister, on £150,000 a year, a service delivery director, David Simpson, on £135,000, and a commercial director in Lesley Kane, who earns £130,000 a year. Mick Hogg, the RMT union’s Scotland organiser, described the sums as ‘obscene’.
He said: ‘Our members are annoyed by the size of these pay packets. They far outweigh what they bring to the table.’
Ministers faced criticism last year after hiring Ms Maguire on her mammoth salary despite her lack of rail sector experience. Ms Maguire, 42, was resources vice principal at the University of the West of Scotland and started her new role on day one of the state-owned train operator, April 1.
Kevin Lindsay, Scotland organiser with rail union Aslef, said at the time: ‘The appointment of a chief operating officer with not one day’s experience from within the railway is staggering.
‘The Scottish Government has made a huge FIRM FOUNDER: Sir Ove Arup error before the first train has left the station.’
However, Mr Hynes said he was ‘delighted we have managed to secure Joanne’s agreement to join ScotRail’. He added: ‘She brings a wealth of leadership experience to this role, vital as we transition to the new public body’.
The new set-up sees ScotRail services provided via Government quango, Scottish Rail Holdings, headed by £120,000-a-year part time chief executive Chris Gibb, who works a three-day week.
Transport Secretary Michael Matheson brought ScotRail into public ownership after declaring the old system of rail franchising was not ‘fit for purpose’.
The move was made through Transport Scotland, acting as an ‘operator of last resort’, after he decided against a franchise competition to select a new operator following the end of Dutch company Abellio’s control in March.
Ministers stripped Abellio of the franchise three years early in the wake of repeated criticisms over service failings and rising costs.
A ScotRail spokesman said it had no comment over the consultancy contract. A spokesman for Arup also declined to comment.
A Transport Scotland spokesman said: ‘This contract is for the provision of rail technical consultancy services. Specialist technical support is required to carry out planning work, due diligence and/or shadow mobilisations of train operating companies.’
He said the executives’ salaries are ‘commensurate with market rates for senior leaders at organisations on this size and scale’.
‘What was the point of taking it into public ownership?’