Caledonian MacBrayne has handed back £6 million to the Scottish Government – because their performance was so good.
Western Isles Labour candidate, Alison MacCorquodale, said the cash should have been used to improve ferry services.
Cal Mac said: “Our efficient and effective service delivery over the year resulted in a clawback return to Transport Scotland (the Scottish Government ferry department) of more then £6 million.”
The shipping company added: “Strong performance enables us to deliver more and better services to help grow the economies of the areas we support.
“In contract year one we are proud to have delivered a reliable, punctual performance for our customers.
“Contract reliability of 99.5% and contract punctuality of 99.5% is industry leading, comparing favourably to other transport operators.
“We will continue to improve on our customer service levels currently standing at 92% of customers fairly or very satisfied with the service provided.
“Effective delivery of our services has enabled significant passenger and vehicle volume growth to help support island sustainability.”
Alison MacCorquodale said: “This is from an SNP fantasy world in which everything
is going so well with CalMac that they can afford to return over
£6 million to Edinburgh,
rather than spend it on improving services in the islands.”
She said it was “perverse
to penalise” the company on the basis of good performance, adding the criteria against
which performance is measured “tells only a fraction of the overall story.”
When bad
weather and other factors are stripped out, CalMac reported that nearly all sailings
ran within ten minutes of the scheduled times last year. On that basis, the contract
entitled the Scottish Government to claw-
Ms MacCorquodale said: “Nobody in the
islands will recognise the logic or justice in this arrangement. It is glaringly
obvious that there is a great deal CalMac could do with £6 million to improve services,
regardless of
these extremely selective performance targets.”
She added: “There could
have been additional services during the busiest periods of the year, when vehicles
were being left behind. We also know that CalMac are in urgent need of a new IT system
in order to make
their booking process more accurate and reliable.”
She called on the
Transport Minister, Michael Matheson, to give an undertaking that there will be no
further claw-
Ms MacCorquodale also compared the figure to this week’s announcement
of funding to speed up the repair of CalMac ferries that break-
She said: “On the one hand, we have the reality of £6 million being taken away and
now we have the possibility – but no certainty -
“There are no prizes for guessing which one SNP Ministers announced in a press release.”
Cal Mac hand back £6 million to Scottish Government
28 August 2018