Recommendations for change coming from the Community consultation

Structure

  • Merge the operator and CMAL into one body. This will be more efficient, will produce financial savings and most importantly create a clear line of responsibility and accountability back to stakeholders. There has also been a strong case made for including the Ferries Division of Transport Scotland into the new combined body.
  • Roles and responsibilities within the combined body should also change with the operator being responsible for the day to day functions of the service while lifetime maintenance, drydocking and major refurbishment planning should be the responsibility of the ship owning and procurement arm.
  • The operator function in this partnership should continue to go out to tender to test the market for best value and encourage innovation and best practice.
  • Ownership of shore based assets should as far as possible be brought under common ownership. This would ensure equality of investment but also best value for the public pound. The principal of reinvesting landing dues from the users back into facilities should apply. When additional capital funding is needed that principal should be tested as should the need to use recognised procurement frameworks. The exception for most are Trust Ports where the principal of reinvestment in assets is seen to already be evident.

Governance

  • A single Ferries board should be formed which would oversee the full function of ferry provision including the policy function of Transport Scotland. The skills mix for this board should include a sizeable representation of knowledge of Island life and also marine expertise of operating ferry services.
  • A strategic users group should also be maintained and have a place at this board.
  • At route level ferry stakeholder groups or equivalent should be encouraged. Some communities already have this function but they should act as a touchstone for changes and improvements to services. There should be a duty to consult placed on the new organisation. This would follow the principles of effective community consultation and be an ongoing function. Decision making should also be governed by the principles established in the Islands Act.

Future Contracts

  • Government should make a national commitment to a permanent standard for the maintenance of assets used in the delivery of the ferry system. This should include average age of the fleet, a life extending maintenance program and a minimum % of income from landing dues that must be reinvested in assets. There must be ongoing budget provision that will ensure long term investment and renewal.
  • New contracts must be designed around a clear definition of provision of a lifeline service. This should be the standard to measure performance and sit alongside penalties that reflect failure to meet this standard. Communities should be able to influence how the funds from non-performance are utilised.
  • The present reporting system that allows services cancelled in advance not to affect performance statistics should not be part of future systems of evaluation.
  • Design of future services should start from the baseline of what each island community and economy needs to make them most effective and sustainable. The aspiration should be to build a future system around a service not a timetable and what works best for an operator. This approach needs Islander input into the design and construction of the next contract and a permanent place in evaluating performance and making necessary changes.

Culture

  • To make a future contract and organisational changes work we must change the culture of the bodies involved in delivering Ferry services. The present situation with historic lack of investment and pressure to keep service going has inevitably led to a culture of make do and mend and a can’t do attitude to change proposals or ideas coming from communities. Communities want to see a future way of working that encourages continual improvement, is reactive to need and shows ambition for our Islands.
  • This can better be achieved by allowing decision making to be shared throughout the network where that is appropriate and empower staff and stakeholders to localise outcomes. There was a strong feeling that more of the management and decision makers should be physically living in the Community’s affected by their actions. It is felt that this would greatly inform decision making and result in better understanding of cause and effect on Island communities resulting in better decisions being made.
  • Communication is seen as partial and late and in some instances not trusted. Consultation is often seen as being tokenism and efforts to engage by community groups seen as a waste of their time. As part of culture change there is a need to win back the trust of communities.

Ferry Commissioner

  • The concept of putting a Ferries Commissioner in place to help regulate and drive up standards of services was generally well received. The principal reason was that it would bring independent moderation to the process and some power to change that isn’t present at the moment. Approval is therefore qualified until there is a clear statement of the roles remit, powers and independence of the post. There is no desire to see another layer of bureaucracy unless it clearly demonstrated a gain for users.

Islander accessibility to services

  • The major factor preventing islanders travelling is the lack of reliability and capacity. The success of RET in stimulating demand and increasing accessibility has not been matched with the necessary investment in vessels and infrastructure. It is felt that conversely it coincided with a drop in capital investment.
  • There is a strong feeling that until capacity improves a system of protecting islanders for essential and important travel should be introduced on routes where local communities require it recognising that not all islands are the same.
  • The present system of recognising essential travel for health reasons or for bereavement is not clearly known and should be transparent to all. The principal of agreeing a manageable number of spaces reserved until close to sailing should be agreed on a route by route basis on the principle of reconciling that need with economic need and maximising deck space.
  • The principle of managing demand by increasing price is not supported as it both ignores the fundamental capacity issues and will affect those least well able to pay.
  • The concept of regular island users having access to multiple tickets at a discounted rate is thought fair.
  • The application of free under 22 travel in line with mainland bus services is widely supported and ties into issues such as equality and population retention.

Connectivity and onward travel

  • There is a need to ensure onward travel on public transport and ferry arrival/ departure times are aligned to make the journey for this dependent on public transport. This improvement would also encourage more travellers to not their own vehicles thus freeing up deck space and helping the environment. Direction for the use of public money to support a ticketing system that did not facilitate intermodal ticketing demonstrates operator wishes given greater priority than customer needs.

Northern Isles

  • Based on feedback from communities and business the relationship with the operator seems better than on the west coast and indeed some good practice could be studied for use in other areas.
  • However many common issues exist such as capacity needs, flexibility, onward travel, medical appointments and animal transportation.
  • A view also came through that the community voice could be promoted more strongly to supplement the existing bodies and agencies.
  • There is a strong correlation in the feeling that changes to social and economic needs are not able to be reflected in necessary changes to the design of services.
  • There needs to be a fairer pricing system that reflects affordability and equality. This should include the use of cabins on the longer routes.
  • A definitive replacement program for the Northern Isles Freight vessels is required and confirmation of the necessary budget.

Freight

  • The introduction of additional freight services on routes with high levels of freight traffic would free up capacity for general users but also bring more resilience into the fleet.
  • The conclusion of the freight fares review is long overdue. The cost of freight ultimately rests with the end user.