MMC rocks the boat
Page 19
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'AIN'S last nationalised er is unlikely to be popular y circumstances, and when associated with a major :ish ferry company which is quent butt of Highlanders' ;, its chances of being flaof the month are very slim 3d, writes ALAN MILLAR.
all wonder, then, that Macne Haulage should come 4 the Monopolies and Mer Commission inquiry into operator Caledonian Macne under a cloud.
e report (CM, February 26) d that CalMac, which has a opoly on most West Coast 3s, failed to observe its uniking to the Government it would treat MacBrayne age at arms' length, and given it substantial mints and preferential treatnot available to most other ators.
is bears out the complaints ed by the Freight Transport niation and Road Haulage )ciation, and contradicts the m by Scottish Transport ip deputy chairman John ttle, who is reponsible for ilac, in a letter to CM pub?cl on August 14 last year. this, he refuted claims that company would retaliate nst any company giving
to the MMC, but went on ay of MacBrayne Haulage: are is, however, no undue erence by virtue of their bean associated company. Our • peration with them, like that other hauliers, has the one Dle objective of providing the . possible service to the islers."
lere can be no doubt now Mr Whittle and other STG iagement are aware of the C's findings, and in a statent issued last week it -nised to discuss the matter, the rest of the report, with atish Secretary George
Ir Younger will make a stateit on CalMac in June, and he anging the threat of privation over MacBrayne Haulage, neasure he can take with tiers already written into the 2 Transport Act.
hat move would appeal to h the FTA and RHA, neither of Ich bears any ill will against company, although they are iappy about one potentially )sidised haulage company surviving in an otherwise entirely private enterprise market.
RHA Scottish manager Tom Brattin, who numbers MacBrayne Haulage among his members, says his members would be happy to see the company as a free standing privately-owned enterprise.
Much of the preferential treatment arose because the haulage company established new trunk services in the Seventies when CalMac substituted ro-ro ferries on short crossings for coastal cargo boats.
A case in point was the concession allowing only MacBrayne Haulage to use unlicensed tractive units to haul unaccompanied trailers at Ullapool and Stornoway ferry terminals, while all other operators on the crossing had to send drivers and licensed tractive units, Cal Mac opted for this concession to avoid using dock spotter tractors at the terminals, because they would have raised the trailers too high for use on ferry ramps.
It told the MMC that it is now looking at the possibility of using a recently-designed quickrelease stand which would be available to all operators and would permit tractive units to be unhitched during voyages.
The one other major area of concern for both trade associa tions was on discounts offered to individual operators. The ab sence of a published scale of discounts to commercial vehicle operators and the knowledge of some widespread variations in deals fuelled a raging fire of suspicion, and it was in this area that Mr Whittle was at pains to quell fears of reprisals in his letter to CM.
MMC established that discounts of at least 2.5 per cent were available on CalMac's Clyde services for operators making over 150 journeys a year. Beyond that, the deals became more complex.
One operator to Islay received a 20 per cent discount because he had transferred from another ferry company, Western Ferries, which had agreed that deal before withdrawing its ship.
And MacBrayne Haulage received several 22.5 per cent discounts — the maximum offered to any operator — in cases where its traffic only justified 2.5 per cent.
In all, the associate company got 64 per cent of the discounts paid, although CalMac insisted 25 per cent of its commercial vehicle revenue came from the haulage company, and said it would offer any busy operator the same deal.
The MMC believes that the discounts are losing CalMac revenue and discriminate in favour of larger operators, and it recommends that they be discontinued, much to the alarm of both FTA and RHA who want them applied equally.
FTA Scottish controller Gordon Dougall said this could lead to the cost of goods transport to the islands being increased, but accepted that discounts should be abolished once road equiva lent tariff (RET) is applied to ferry crossings.
RET is one of the great goals which both associations are awaiting on the ferries. It is a Norwegian concept first latched on to in the early Seventies when the Highlands and Islands Development Board proposed it as a means of reducing remote communities' costs.
In its crudest form, it relates the charge for ferry use to that which would apply if the equivalent journey could be made by road. The Government is moving in stages towards a system of RET based on the ferry companies' running costs, and the MMC report may well give it a stick with which to beat CalMac's running costs into a manageable shape.
While the MMC admires much of CalMac's performance, it has highlighted some weaknesses in its revenue protection methods and manning levels, has suggested that there is scope for the disposal of three of its ferries, including one of the nine-year old vessels used on the Gourock-Dunoon crossing on the Clyde, and has urged closer examination of the expected costs of ordering particular types of ferries in future.
It also believes there is an urgent need to appoint a fulltime chief executive, as CalMac is too important and complex a company to demand only part of Mr Whittle's time. At present, he is also responsible for the Scottish Bus Group's operations in Strathclyde Region.
The industry has hit the jackpot in its appeal for representation on the three Shipping Services Advisory Committees established by CalMac. These, at present, have chairman and secretariat provided by the shipping company. The MMC says the FTA and RHA should be admitted to membership of the committees, and that the committees should elect their own chairman and produce an annual report for wide circulation.
The two associations have much to be grateful for in the report. The terms of reference given to the MMC must be closely in line with their misgivings about some of CalMac's operation, and it is noteworthy that their complaints, rather than the petty gripes of some sectional interests carried the day.