Tayside is warned
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• Tayside Buses escaped with a warning from the Scottish Traffic Commissioner after 48 of the company's 135-strong fleet were found to be faulty. A public inquiry in Dundee last week heard that 31 of the 48 buses received immediate prohibitions.
The Vehicle Inspectorate had carried out checks on the Tayside fleet in February and March, and examiner Peter Ferguson told the inquiry that "the company management were clearly unaware of the condition of the fleet". He said that while Tayside had set up maintenance systems, no effort had been made to monitor the quality of work. Sandy Strachan, managing director of Tayside, the former Dundee municipal fleet, said that there had been extensive management changes since the inspection. The company's maintenance director had taken early retirement and had been replaced by a maintenance manager, reporting directly to Strachan, himself an engineer. The ETA was now handling quality control, with regular spot checks on the bus fleet.
Scottish Traffic Commissioner Keith Waterworth asked if deliberate decisions had been taken to stop night-shift working and reduce overtime simply to reduce costs, and Strachan admitted that this had been the case: "Because of a lack of quality controls, problems were not immediately obvious."
Waterworth advised Strachan that he would not be removing the company's licence and said: "It is clear that the management has accepted the need for improvement and taken steps." Instead, he issued a formal warning about Tayside's future maintenance standards.