DSO - an apology

I really owe the guys in the DSO an apology over my suggestion that they had lost the Council about £100k last year.

I was utterly wrong.

With a total final loss of £365,000 for last year, it is clear that such an achievement was beyond those who slog their guts out in the day-to-day operation of the various parts of the organisation.

A loss of such a magnitude requires the involvement of management i.e. the Council, with their superior abilities to create cock-ups on such a scale and with such inability to see the blindingly obvious as it passes over their desks.

• Simple question 1: Who has responsibility for making sure the DSO operates efficiently?
• Simple question 2: Why has the DSO gone from being profitable just a few years ago, to being the biggest millstone?
• Simple question 3: How on earth does moving the loss making DSO into Technical Services make it a profit-making organisation?

Instead, let's look at some simple realities.....

• The DSO ran as a profitable organisation for many years, because it had an excellent and highly able Director who took sole responsibility for beating it into shape
• Now there is no direct responsibility, so no-one is making sure that the bad practices are being stopped
  
• The DSO made a small profit and was always on the edge because it had a huge fixed cost base - overheads and staff costs
• If the volume of business dropped and turned the profit into a loss then there was a viscous circle of increased costs spread over less income and hence bigger and bigger losses
• The new schools project has meant that the Building Maintenance DSO has little or new work from that source and this is what has tipped the underlying position for the entire DSO from being sustainable to being unsustainable

So how does this go forward? Sorry, guys, but it is hard decision time....

• 'No job losses' is an absolute nonsense at current levels of business (without, of course, an enormous subsidy from you and I)
• Closing down parts of the DSO will simply push the remainder into bigger losses and speed up the closure of the entire DSO
• 12 months to develop a business plan - join reality and do it in 1 month, maximum
• Who will take over some of the specialist operations or take on the staff under TUPE?
• The Marybank depot is unsaleable, as it is contaminated land and will cost (perhaps) £5m to remedy
• Why, oh why, oh why, is the Council trying to run a range of commercial business when there are plenty of private sector businesses who are leaner, cheaper, and more efficient (and yes, with poorer terms and conditions)
• With large budget cuts imminent, is there any place for a large ill-managed loss-making organisation that duplicates the private sector?

Tough times, caused by management taking their eye off the ball, need tough decisions; but the ones who are going to suffer are the poor bloody infantry, and not the donkeys who lead the lions.

Clydesdale Bank £5 note

The new note has an image of St Kilda on the reverse......


There is no truth in the rumour that the printing press for these notes is to be situated in Mangersta, and that the notes are not valid for transactions in Harris or North Uist.

COU crunch meeting

I am reliably told that the COU (formerly known as the DSO) are holding a crunch meeting tomorrow morning - Tuesday - with the Chief Executive, the Leader and one of the two Directors of Technical Services.

Apparently lack of work is hitting the COU, and the year-end losses are forecast to be huge unless serious remedial action is taken immediately.

I expected the COU to be the last to be hit, due to the amount of political capital that has been invested - apprentices, continuing growth in the face of reduced work etc - but it looks like it might be the first.

Councillors are advised to pay very, very close attention to what happens here, as any subsidy for a loss making operation will be a double cut in other services over which they are allowed to have a say.

Update: It looks like another 'restructuring' is planned when the Royal Visit to Marybank takes place tomorrow.  Has the last Council restructuring ever been finished? As far as I can tell it was abandoned as 'complete' part way through - just when the difficult decisions needed to be made.

Councillors will be pleased to know that after 18 months of inaction, a new plan can be decided upon in two weeks  Without the need for any input from elected members. Except to rubber-stamp a business plan - where most of them aren't allowed to see the details of the business!

Scottish Football Team

When researching the previous post, I found a whole host of SNP press releases and news stories about the Olympics and a Scottish football team:

21/12/08: Scottish Sports Minister Stewart Maxwell has given the SFA his full backing over their opposition to a GB team at the London 2012 Olympics as Gordon Brown continues his efforts to force a GB football team.

10/3/09: The cut and shut creation of a GB side would endanger Scotland’s long term ability to compete in international football, and the UK government must ditch their crazy proposals and look at ways in which the situation can be resolved.

We must allow no precedent that could be used against us in the future, and no reason or argument given by those who seek to change the status quo has addressed that.

11/11/05: The Scottish National Party has called for a Scottish football team to be given "a shot" at the London Olympics.

Then I found a photo (thanks to The Steamie)..... just who do you think is a member of the GB Football Team, albeit the Parliamentary one?


You might have to squint a bit, or enlarge the photo, and look to the person fourth from the left at the back, unusually hiding themselves and not sending hourly press releases to the Gazette is our MP, Angus MacNeil.

Remember that phrase from Pete Wishart MP, "We must allow no precedent that could be used against us in the future"? Oh dear, oh dear!

Commonwealth Games - who pays?

As the budget increases from £373m to £450m plus, one has ask how a 20% overspend could possibly arise if we exclude incompetence, stupidity, lack of ability and general unprofessionalism.

However, the best prescient question came from our MSP in July 2007:

To ask the Scottish Executive (sic) what benefits the Commonwealth Games will have for the Western Isles constituency.

Answered by Stewart Maxwell (14 August 2007): The Scottish Government is working with various sectors across Scotland to ensure they are aware of the possibilities and opportunities available to individuals, communities, groups, and businesses from the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

The 2014 Games will offer some opportunities for some businesses across Scotland to supply goods or provide services.

No specific benefits to the Western Isles constituency beyond the general ones outlined above have been identified.

Of course, you will by now have realised that the question was about the 2012 Olympics, and I have deliberately changed it to make a point; that point being that being in power has a cost.

But let's leave the question hanging: just what benefit to the Commonwealth Games bring to the Western Isles?

Stornoway town centre regeneration fund

The Scottish Government has awarded £1. 5 million to regenerate Stornoway town centre. The cash will be used to improve the appearance of the town.

How do you think the money would be best spent?

There are no prizes, beyond the respect of your fellow contributors, for the best suggestions.

For those not familiar with Stornoway, here are two views of the town centre:

Stornoway town centre on a quiet Tuesday in Winter*

Stornoway town centre on Sunday

* Artists impression, post regeneration

Praise where praise is due (updated)

Everyone in the Western Isles needs to read the story in this week's West Highland which utterly, completely and finally put the future of the Rocket Range on the backburner.

The case made by QinetiQ is smoothly and efficiently gutted by the Defence Minister, who seems to have learned more about the QinetiQ operations from the employees and Tax Force than from QinetiQ themselves.

“I was very struck during my many conversations with senior engineers and technicians in the Hebrides by the fact that none of them had had sight of the detailed proposals. I was able to identify from these conversations at least one understated investment expenditure which was acknowledged by QinetiQ management.”

And, of course, from the case built by the Task Force using specialist consultants:

“I think Jane’s [Advisory Services] comments should be taken seriously and the proposal should not go ahead unless we are satisfied with QinetiQ’s response.”

Then Mr Davies beautifully skewers QinetiQ over their failure to consider any problems that might arise in getting planning permission on St Kilda, and a host of other (important) local issues.

The extent and nature of the critique should be enough to keep the Range safe for many years and it is yet another tribute to the Task Force and the workforce for their intense hard work in a short period of time.

We really must appreciate the full depth and extent of the impact that their hard work has had.

Just as well they didn't listen to our MP, talking about the visit by the Minister: “Playing the old trick of lobby me lobby me won’t wash.”


Update 14/11/09: The letters can be read here and here. The quality of the files may be less than perfect.

Glasgow NE result

What a disastrous result for almost everyone, but most especially for the SNP.

The one winner was Labour who couldn't energise it's voters - as evidenced by a 1/3 turnout - but still somehow manged to take nearly 60% of the vote and keep the majority at a respectable and healthy margin.

The LibDems must be putting the periscope up to see if they find dry land, and some prospect of survival, coming a very, very, poor fifth.

As for the SNP: this was disastrous for the natural party of opposition, who should have been able to capitalise on distrust and disillusion with the Government, and who should have been able to get their vote out. Instead the managed to lose 900 votes.

So why did this happen?

Simple - the SNP are the party of Government in Scotland and as such they are being blamed for economic mismamgement and the economic problems in exactly the same way that they have blamed Labour and Tories over the past decades.

It is a consequence of being the party of power that you stop being the party of hope, and start being just another party who says one thing and does another. Such is the price of power.

What makes that interesting is the impact that this new realism will have in Scotland at the next General Election.

I was surprised how well Labour did last night, but I think that it is more about how badly the SNP are doing. Or more accurately, how the imnpact of their policy decisions is feeding through to the voters.

I predict that Labour will do much better than currently forecast at the Election, and that the SNP will be hard pressed to get more than a dozen seats. I also think that there will be some surprise, local, results which will be more about the individuals than the parties, but that the overall political landscape will barely change.

As I have said before, the SNP's greatest set-back was becoming the party in power in Holyrood, which will prove a millstone rather than a springboard, and were Labour still running the show, you would be looking at the SNP being within spitting distance of a majority at this point in the electoral cycle.

However, it is the unexpected events that will drive the result of the Election; and I look forward to an exciting, incident-filled, campaign next year. Sadly, I expect a dull, dreary slog that will alienate the voters.

Synthetic fury over fuel card withdrawals

According to The Gazette, Angus MacNeil MP is furious about BP withrdrawing the fuel cards from businesses in the islands and has written to the Chancellor demanding that he bring pressure to bear on the company.

Yes, withdrawal of the cards would be a serious blow, but let's look at the knee-jerk reaction from our occasional MP....

Writing to the Chancellor: WTF use is that?  He'll write back to say that he cannot interfere with commerical business decisions.  MacNeil will blame Labour, Labour will refute any invovlement.

Contacting BP: Not on the agenda. Why not? They are the only ones who can change the policy.*

Getting the Scottish Government involved: Not on the agenda either. Could this be because MacNeil is more interested in blaming Labour than actually achieving anything.  cf MacNeil's actions over the rocket range

* Actually, the cards are provided by Fuel Card Services Ltd, who are a completely separate business, and are an agent of BP, whose existence is predicated upon getting a cut of the BP turnover by driving large volumes through the cards and through the BP Stations.

As the most likely companies to have to deal with the loss of discount are the local hauliers who have failed to pass on the benefits of RET, is there not a wider issue here about lack of joined up policies that between Edinburgh and London that needs to be sorted before blame is spayed everywhere, regardless.

Where the Sun don't shine.....

It's not often I feel a modicum of pity for Gordon Brown, but I feel myself strangely angry at The Sun, and it's manipulation of a greiving mother.

We all sometimes suffer from word-blindness, where you misread a word. I suppose it is a very mild sort of dyslexia, but one that tends to imprint the wrong word onto your consciousness.

Is the Chancellor Alastair, Alasdair or Alistair Darling? Why do people insist on spelling my surname with an H? At the PLI into the Eishken wind farm I read the wrong name out from the statement I wrote by myself, and made a bit of an ar$e of myself.

But to attempt to pillory a disabled person (for that is what he is!) for not being able to write neatly and for some spelling mistakes is a nasty and spiteful piece which reflects badly on the newspaper and the lady involved.

The secret tape-recording of the subsequent phone call smells more of an entrapment by The Sun to further their own political agenda, rather than making a truly serious political point.

This will, I suspect, backfire on both the genuine campaign to support the soldiers and on the attempts to demonstrate the general incompetence of Mr Brown. If anything this series of articles will strengthen Brown's position and gain him a substantial sympathy vote.

On the buses....

It seems that Bus na Comhairle are powered by free-range caviar-fed gold-plated rocking-horse shit, rather than simple and hideously expensive diesel.

That has to be the case, given their financial performance this year......

That's caught your attention hasn't it?

Well it certainly caught the attention of the Councillors last Monday, when the Chief Executive was given a serious bollocking - particularly, I understand, by Roddy MacKay - over his inability to control the deficits.

"If this were a commercial business..." went the oft-heard refrain.

Bus operators will be gnashing and wailing and rightly complaining about unfair competition when the truth appears in the annual accounts. Except it doesn't, as the buses are no longer considered to be a Significant Trading Operation, and hence the losses don't need to be disclosed in the accounts.

Oh yes, and as the matter is 'commercially sensitive' the Councillors can't go public with it, as it might affect the ability of BnC to compete with the private sector.

That is 'compete' in the sense of having a bottomless pit of money to use to drive the competition out of business, so that only BnC survives; and so that it's existence can be justified as a 'public service'

WTF is going on, and why is our money being squandered? And hidden from the public?

And where BnC leads, is the rest of the DSO going to follow?

Enough teasing, but sit down -- losses at the DSO last year were £100,000 of which the buses lost £84,000.

Bus owners of the islands unite, you have nothing to lose but your livelihoods.

Shock at love rats on ultra-religious islands

Thanks and (c) The Sun

Just how many people can this offend?

Out of the mouths of children.....

The children of Barra have had a long and illustrious history of activism, and successful activism, on community issues.

It was thanks to sustained pressure from the school children that Barra got mobile phones; and they even went to the House of Commons to campaign for the retention of the air service to Barra.

They know their community and are not scared to make their views known. Model children for the future in other words.

Or not, as the case may be if you are a Quango.

Sources in the Education Department have told me that when Scottish National Heritage heard that the school children of Barra were going to demonstrate yesterday against SNH and the possible designation of the Sound of Barra as a Marine Special Area of Conservation, then SNH jumped into action.

Phone calls, faxes and assorted threats later, the Education Department instructed the two Barra schools not to allow their children to show their views on the possible designation, as it wasn't the media image that SNH wanted to give.

SNH are, of course, happy to go into schools and give their perspective, but any contrary view meets with this heavy handed approach. It looks like democracy only works one way in their mind.

Does the Minister know what is being done by the organisation is is nominally responsible for?

The actual meeting in the Craigard was full to overflow, but SNH refused to discuss the issues, clkaiming that they were there to have only an informal chat, mingle and make small talk. Which required about 75% of the attendees to leave the room so that SNH, assorted hangers-on, and the vast coterie of officials, could have cheese and wine and make meaningless noises.

All at vast public expense.

SNH is held in such huge contempt by large sections of the public that it claims to represent that the need for it's very existence is questioned by most of those directly affected. This reflects very, very, badly on the entire process and consequently upon the Government itself, who seem unable - or perhaps unwilling - to take any action to bring the organisation under control.

This cavalier behaviour cannot be allowed to continue, but we've been saying this for a decade, and it is only getting worse, not better.

If they can't debate with the children who will be directly affected by the decisions they want to bring in, then why should they be trusted that what they are doing is the right thing?

Council complaints procedures - the black hole

The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman is seeking an urgent meeting with the Comhairle, about their handiling of complaints.

The policy is clear:

Your complaint will be acknowledged by, or on behalf of, the Head of Service within three working days of receipt.[...]

You will be advised in writing of the outcome of your complaint within 21 days and be given the opportunity to discuss the outcome if you so wish. If a decision cannot be given within 21 days you will be informed of the reasons for any delay.

Today, it is now 150 days since a complaint I made was acknowledged, and 170 since it was received without any further update being received.

Good stuff!

No doubt Audit & Scrutiny Committee will have a very good look at whatever the Ombudsman says.

Ferry subsidies are allowed

Was there anyone who really thought that - post Altmark - there was no way that CalMac could continue to receive a subsidy?

Cllr Manford and I read the decision carefully some 6 years ago, and only the blind or terminally stupid could have tried to insist that tendering was essential on life-line ferry services.

So it proved, when Scottish Labour continued to drive through the ludicrous deconstruction of CalMac into goodness knows how many companies to meet some fabled (and utterly unjustified) 'European' requirement for a west-coast maritime Railtrack.

Thankfully, Europe have eventually made the position clear and we can now see the CalMac ferries being brought back into a sensible single structure; rather than the fragmented shambles it has become.

Can't we? Can't we?

Raft of school closures on the horizon

That's the headline in Hebrides News.

This is not about new schools, per se, but about balancing the budget.

The Council face a number of very serious challenges in achieving the aim of rationalisation:

• The parents and teachers don't trust you
• What Councillor is going to vote to close a school in his ward?
• The Government want to protect rural schools, at a cost to the Council; not the Government
• Our MSP has made protection of Gaelic a higher priority than educational quality
• Is there actually a coherent plan?

On the positive side, the Chair of Education - Morag Munro - is probably the very best person to have in post to make these decisions and drive them through.

However, I predict many tears before bedtime, and many changes to the plans before the communities accept the inevitable - the money isn't there to keep all the schools open; and it is not in your children's best educational interest to be educated in a class of three in a semi-derelict building.

Anyone understand this?

Congratulations to my brother who has just seen a patent of his published for approval.

I might be being just a bit thick, but does anyone understand just what "Secure Boot with Optional Components Method" actually means?

Kenneth, whatever you are doing is highly impressive but totally unintelligible to us mere mortals.

Edwyn Collins - utter genius

Friday night saw us out and about on the town, which is extremely unusual, as we normally prefer dinner and a few drinks on a Saturday.

We had booked tickets for Edwyn Collins at An Lanntair, and due to mainland travel and sick children we really weren't sure that we were going to make it.

What a night we had! Truly one of the best nights out we have had in a very long time, and the best live music that we have seen in years.

The support act, "The 1990s" came highly recommended by one of our staff, who had seen them live previously. They had a difficult job warming up the crowd who were predominantly slightly older than their usual target market i.e. 40-somethings and older. However, they were very good, suitably loud and made an excellent counter balance to the main attraction.

Although sparsely attended, the tour which is billed as "The Restoration of Edwyn Collins" (a reference to his serious illness) was utterly wonderful, from the moment Edwyn walked onto stage and perched on the speaker to the end of the encour. I saw the set list as we went to our seats and was delighted to see a mix of old and new, covering the Orange Juice years right up to a new song he had co-written with someone from the Cribs.

The highly professional band - which included the guitarist from Primal Scream - were absolutely excellent, and provided an excellent backing to an highly emotional and personal set from Edwyn. The songs were all so obviously chosen from an extensive catalogue to relate to his 'restoration', but poignancy never became mawkishness; and there was absolutely no suggestion of any self-pity.

My good lady ended up dancing to "A Girl Like You" along with some of the 1990s.

Afterwards we stopped in the bar for a beer or three, and ended up being very late talking to the bands, the management (Mrs Collins) and to Edwyn himself.

I remember seeing Edwyn and Orange Juice in (I think) the Locarno in the early 1980's, but it might have been the Edinburgh College of Art. And Friday night was every bit as good, as I'm not sure I would be up to a mosh-pit any longer.

Five mainland firms in running to build new island schools

Did any of the local firms try to get on the tender list, or did none of them make it to the event in Glasgow?

I was told UBC were going to try to get on the shortlist.

I can see the successful bidder coming here, setting up a base to try and win other work before, during and after the schools project, and destroying the local construction industry.

Actually, the Council will be the ones destroying the local construction industry as all the capital budgets are being raided and committed to this project, meaning that nothing else of significance is going to be built or repaired.

Good news for the islands? Hardly.

Good news for the mainland consultants? Snouts in troughs.

#Things can only get better#

A Scottish Government press release gives a flavour of the economic problems facing Scotland.

----

Scotland's Chief Statistician today announced the release of Gross Domestic Product for Scotland for 2009 Q2.

This quarterly publication measures growth, in real terms, in Gross Domestic Product at Basic Prices, also known as Gross Value Added, for Scotland.

The main findings are:

* GDP fell by 3.2 per cent annually and fell by 0.8 per cent in the second quarter of 2009 (seasonally adjusted)
* In the year to end-October 2009, the Scottish service sector fell by 2.5 per cent, the production sector declined by 5.7 per cent and the construction sector fell by 6.3 per cent
* In the second quarter of 2009, the service sector fell by 0.4 per cent, the production sector declined by 1.9 per cent and the construction sector fell by 2.8 per cent

----

I'm not going to shoot the messenger, but I am going to caution against the impact of trying to spend your way out of this deep hole. As in the 1980's, manufacturing is being hit especially hard and the capacity of the Scottish and British economy to recover seems to lie with services and with public sector spending.

Neither of these are the way to built a strong long-lasting and resilient economy, with the former being more transitory and easily transferable to a lower-cost country; and the later having the effect of smothering the country with bureaucracy and paperwork whilst delivering ego-stroking and over-priced capital projects at the expense of public services.

Counter-cyclical spending is - of course - part of the answer, but there is also going to have to be economic contraction towards the essential public sector core. And that is a fact that the Scottish Government would do well to acknowledge and take action upon now, before the Westminster Government force these unpleasant decisions upon them.

And, yes, I do realise that provoking a battle may be part of the strategy, but that's not really going to help economic growth.