The Scottish Executive, spending your money wisely since 2002

[flarewearer]

My thoughts - well truth be told, my rant - on this; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4790256.stm

So after 4 years and £78 MILLION of farce, the Scottish Executive pulls the plug on Northlink Ferries. That works out at £19.5 million pounds a year, to replace a service (P & O) that ran for 30 years and in its last years of operation cost a public subsidy of £9.4 million. So the public tendering of the contracts to deliver taxpayers "value for money" ended up costing the taxpayer double what it had. Go go Scottish executive! One might forgive them for factors out with their control, but they happen to be majority owner of Calmac who happen to be joint owner and operator of Northlink. Marketplace competition to deliver efficiency and value for money? What a load of bollocks, its stealth socialism by the back door.

And the icing on the cake is, who have the executive awarded the new contract to? That's right, Calmac. The same Calmac that already eats up million upon millions in public subsidy and the same Calmac that happened to be the "brains" behind Northlink.

So folks, keep voting Lib-Lab in the Scottish Elections so that the Executive can continue delivering you value for money while the country slowly falls apart.

[s]That's better, got it all out my system.[/s]

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[Lodestone]

Think you're angry about it? Try actually having to use the service whenever you want to get home.

Marketplace competition to deliver efficiency and value for money? What a load of bollocks, its stealth socialism by the back door.

Not at all--it's corporate cronyism. Stealth socialism was holding on to the perfectly good service we had before, rather than opening it up to the disaster of marketplace competition.

[Irish Frank]

Surely you can't conflate Northlink Ferries with the country falling apart. The NHS and state school education system in Scotland are much more well-funded and in better shape than in England and Wales. My only problem with the Exec as it stands now is that it annually has a £450m budget underspend that it lets sit in the bank for no reason. Why not invest this in the NHS or education? Or use it to up the budgets of junior lecturers a bit?

And having the state run one ferry service is stealth socialism? Give me a break. Look at our wonderfully privatised St Andrews bus station. sheesh. Never mind the mess of my high school, a monument to the miracles of PFI...looks great, but not when the company, Jarvis, goes under.

[tintin]

Guess that means my firm loses an audit client...

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http://www.livejournal.com/users/mat_salleh

[flarewearer]

Quoting Lodestone from 13:50, 10th Mar 2006
Not at all--it's corporate cronyism. Stealth socialism was holding on to the perfectly good service we had before, rather than opening it up to the disaster of marketplace competition.

Thats my point. It isn't "marketplace competition", it's replacing one monoploy with an even less efficient one, and one that the state happens to have a vested interest in.

Quoting Irish Frank from 13:50, 10th Mar 2006
Surely you can't conflate Northlink Ferries with the country falling apart. The NHS and state school education system in Scotland are much more well-funded and in better shape than in England and Wales.

My point here is not that it is Northlink, it is the Executive who are to blaim for pissing good money about, and Northlink is a prime example of this.

And having the state run one ferry service is state socialism?

The state runs the vast majority of Ferry services in Scotland (and even one in Ireland) through Calmac, the state owned ferry operator that effectively killed off its rivals and any competition on the west coast in the 1970s when only it could survive the oil crisis thanks to generous state bailouts. Until 2002 the Northern Isles were the main exception to this, being operated by P & O.

Give me a break. Look at our wonderfully privatised St Andrews bus station. sheesh.

Privatised my ass. Stagecoach manages to makes its money, despite being such an utterly cretinously useless company, on generous state and council subsidies to operate bus routes. Its hardly competition and a free market when there's one single bus operator working out of the bus station that happens to be being rebuilt with public funds. Things are little better than before deregulation of the bus market (infact, probably worse after all the newly independent operators were swallowed up - almost without exception - by either Arriva, First or Stagecoach.) One rubbish monopoly has been replaced by a series of smaller effective monopolies with almost no competition between them whatsoever. All that happens now is that certain companies now make handsome profits by competing for the opportunity to run government sanctioned mini-monopolies.

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[Lodestone]

Quoting flarewearer from 14:00, 10th Mar 2006

Quoting Lodestone from 13:50, 10th Mar 2006
Not at all--it's corporate cronyism. Stealth socialism was holding on to the perfectly good service we had before, rather than opening it up to the disaster of marketplace competition.

Thats my point. It isn't "marketplace competition", it's replacing one monoploy with an even less efficient one, and one that the state happens to have a vested interest in.

I suppose what I mean is that there's a difference in the way we're being sold such shite now. It's now sold in terms of the free market--the marketplace will always give us the best service, so let's open up this service to the marketplace so's we get a better service, and, oh my, what a coincidence, our friends have just put in the best offer.

And it is true that Northlink put in the best offer. On paper. But it was blatantly obvious to Orcadians that throughout their terms they didn't actually give a rat's arse about providing a quality service--they only had to limp along until the next subsidy. I suspect they never had any intention of pursuing the contract, which is why they screwed over their consumers so badly. Towards the end the ferries were limping along on half-power because they had no incentive to pay to fix the broken engines.

Fortunately for us, during the summer at least, that route doesn't have a total monopoly, and Pentland Ferries runs a nice little quick service to John O'Groats. And we certainly did express our displeasure at Northlink by flooding to them.

[tintin]

Quoting flarewearer from 14:00, 10th Mar 2006
Privatised my ass. Stagecoach manages to makes its money, despite being such an utterly cretinously useless company, on generous state and council subsidies to operate bus routes. Its hardly competition and a free market when there's one single bus operator working out of the bus station that happens to be being rebuilt with public funds. Things are little better than before deregulation of the bus market (infact, probably worse after all the newly independent operators were swallowed up - almost without exception - by either Arriva, First or Stagecoach.) One rubbish monopoly has been replaced by a series of smaller effective monopolies with almost no competition between them whatsoever. All that happens now is that certain companies now make handsome profits by competing for the opportunity to run government sanctioned mini-monopolies.

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Exactly - you only have to look at Private Eye's campaign against these bus operators like Stagecoach and WorstGroup. It is a disgrace that this has been allowed to happen, but then these big businesses are in the pocket of government (or vice-versa).

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http://www.livejournal.com/users/mat_salleh

[Ga]

Hand me the big rubber stamp marked NATIONALISED!

I'll sort out this mess


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If everything in life had a point, life would be pointless

[Lodestone]

Quoting Ga from 14:13, 10th Mar 2006
Hand me the big rubber stamp marked NATIONALISED!

I'll sort out this mess

See, things like the Northlink debacle make me feel this is true, because a democratic state does have an incentive to provide a good service. A company having money thrown at it by a government doesn't, and a short-lived company designed to make a fast buck isn;t subject to market forces.

[flarewearer]

Quoting Lodestone from 14:08, 10th Mar 2006

I suppose what I mean is that there's a difference in the way we're being sold such shite now. It's now sold in terms of the free market--the marketplace will always give us the best service, so let's open up this service to the marketplace so's we get a better service, and, oh my, what a coincidence, our friends have just put in the best offer.

My sentiments exactly. Its a bigger shower of shit than there was before, it's just been called something else. It isnt in a marketplace at all, and like you say, when it is put up against a quality private operator it gets skinned alive (a fellow Orcadian friend of mine confirmed this also).

On the subject of Nationalising it though? What will that achieve? Sure, a state *has* an obligation to provide quality public services at an accesible price, but do you really trust the state to do this? The state might have an obligation to provide, but it sure as hell doesnt have anything but an abysmal track record when it comes to actually providing them. There's a list as long as my arms and legs combined of examples of just how bloody awful the nationalised tranport services were.

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[Ga]

I hate to keep these posts short, I'm pressed for time.

Leaving out any ideological standpoints on the issue, have you got any better ideas?

How do you run a ferry/bus/train service when the market for these services can't provide more than one operator?

Community Buy Outs? For something as big as this?

I'm sticking with that big rubber stamp.

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If everything in life had a point, life would be pointless

[nighteyes]

i fail to understand how it costs almost the same to get to dundee as it does to get to glasgow - i almost fell over at the price of a return to dundee - with student discount!!!

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i didnt say i was consistant, just right!

[novium]

Usually when these issues arise, they seem to come out of the fact that things weren't turned over to the market, and instead were turned into some weird hybrid of the old system and the market, which never works. Look at California and the energy companies etc. You can't do anything half-assed.

But then again, I could be totally wrong about this situation, as I only have a hazy idea of what happened.

Quoting Ga from 14:43, 10th Mar 2006
I hate to keep these posts short, I'm pressed for time.

Leaving out any ideological standpoints on the issue, have you got any better ideas?

How do you run a ferry/bus/train service when the market for these services can't provide more than one operator?

Community Buy Outs? For something as big as this?

I'm sticking with that big rubber stamp.

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If everything in life had a point, life would be pointless

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"those who wish to be feared must inevitably be afraid of those whom they intimidate"
"In anger nothing right or judicious can be done."

[orudge]

Quoting nighteyes from 01:27, 12th Mar 2006
i fail to understand how it costs almost the same to get to dundee as it does to get to glasgow - i almost fell over at the price of a return to dundee - with student discount!!!

My Dad went to Brazil last month for a couple of weeks and managed to get a pretty cheap return flight (£250ish). Not long ago too, he was speaking to one of our old neighbours from Orkney, who was saying that her daughter had an interview for uni in Glasgow. The return flight from Kirkwall to Glasgow was apparently costing her more than Dad's flight to Brazil!

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http://www.owenrudge.net/
http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37103734

[Irish Frank]

Quoting flarewearer from 14:00, 10th Mar 2006

Thats my point. It isn't "marketplace competition", it's replacing one monoploy with an even less efficient one

Thats exactly my point. Stagecoach and First run terrible services, and the St Andrews station is actually one of the better that i've seen. You imply that having an effective state-run transport system is socialism by the back door, yet the Exec has to throw money at the companies to keep them running routes not necessarily profitable to the boardroom but necessary for the public. Its not the market ideal nor is it good service, nor a good way to spend taxes. Privatisation of natural monopolies, e.g. energy, transport, simply doesnt work.

Quoting flarewearer from 14:00, 10th Mar 2006
The state runs the vast majority of Ferry services in Scotland (and even one in Ireland) through Calmac, the state owned ferry operator that effectively killed off its rivals and any competition on the west coast in the 1970s when only it could survive the oil crisis thanks to generous state bailouts. Until 2002 the Northern Isles were the main exception to this, being operated by P & O.

I dont blame the Exec or the old Scottish Office for wanting to keep control of ferry links, seeing as privatising it will either mean certain communities and areas losing their ferry link as it is unprofitable for the company, or the Exec having to waste money helping, regulating and supervising a job the government should be doing anyway. These politicians care about votes, and weakening tranport links via privatisation, especially when these links are so crucial for island communities, is not a vote-winner.