A LEADING academic has quit the Scottish Government's expert ferry group just months after it was created, accusing the organisation of sidelining the interests of passengers.
Economist professor Neil Kay called on transport minister Keith Brown to dissolve the group and replace it with a panel of independent experts.
In a resignation letter, Professor Kay criticised the group for secrecy and closed-door meetings and said the interests of service-users and communities were "peripheral".
He said: "It is now clear that the structure and working practices of the group are designed to voice and promote producer interests, including that of (some) established operators.
"The interests of those users and communities dependent on those ferry services are and will be peripheral in such a forum when they should be central … it would be better described as a platform for lobbying."
The Scottish Government created the expert ferry group (EFG) last year to advise ministers. The panel, which includes chief executive of SPT, Gordon Maclennan, and Brian Fulton, operations director for CalMac, met for the first time in October.
Professor Alf Baird, a member of the panel and an academic at Edinburgh Napier's Transport Research Institute, said he regretted Professor Kay's resignation but did not share his views.
Professor Baird said: "There are only two operators [CalMac and Western Ferries] on the EFG, therefore I don't believe it can be said to be dominated by operators. A large proportion of the group are actually from public bodies, who in turn represent users."
A spokesman for Transport Scotland said it was "very disappointed" by Professor Kay's departure. He said: "We have been clear from the start of this process that all discussions and advice relating to the EFG would be private to allow the group to have frank and open discussions on the future of the ferries sector. We believe interest of ferry users is central to the group's work."
He said agendas and minutes of EFG meetings would be published on Transport Scotland's website.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article