Following my post on 28/2/2019 about the ADAC Structure and COWI reports on the funicular (see here), this post shows how Highlands and Islands Enterprise are deliberately trying to cover up and hide information about what has gone wrong with the Funicular on Cairngorm.
I sent an FOI request on 03/10/2018 for two other reports on the funicular, the Condition Report Funicular Railway, Cairngorm Mountain, dated July 2018 and the Ancon Bearings Report of August 2018.
On 31/10/2018 HIE replied:
“HIE have not been issued with any further condition reports regarding the Funicular railway since January 2017, although we are aware that a condition report was undertaken by ADAC in July 2018”.
The implication here is that HIE had seen a copy of the report, but did not actually have a physical copy for their records, that being retained by Cairngorm Mountain Ltd.
When Cairngorm Mountain Limited went into administration and was subsequently bought by HIE, they became the owner of these reports as part of the assets transfer.
On 17/12/2018, I re-applied for the reports and was informed on 17/01/19 that HIE did not have them “at the time of my request,” which is allowable under FOI legislation.
I again applied for the reports on 28/01/2019, assuming that there could be no denial of them being held as HIE/ CMSL had by then owned the business for a couple of months. The reply came back on 31/01/2019 that, as had already been stated, HIE did not hold the reports I was requesting.
A review of this decision by Mrs C. Wright, CEO of HIE, was then requested on 06/02/2019, to which I received a reply on 07/03/2019, FIVE months after my initial enquiry.
Briefly her reply says;-
(1) “On review we have identified that HIE does in fact hold both reports. The Ancon Bearing report was held at the time of your original request, (17/12/2018), and we have since obtained a copy of the condition report from July 2018”.
(2) HIE’s investigations in relation to the Funicular Railway are ongoing and as such “the information is exempt from disclosure at this time due to it’s intention to publish it within 12 weeks (as of 07/03/2019)”. At present the COWI engineers report is the subject of “a peer review”. When this is concluded HIE then intend to release all the reports together.
Most people will remember that when the Funicular Response group was set up, HIE said it would do everything possible to support local businesses and yet here we are six months later and they are saying it may be another three before we find out exactly what the problem, and therefore solution, is. In this time over £2m of public money has been thrown at a business which is totally unsustainable.
People with far more knowledge of the situation than me, have been warning for over twenty years of the dysfunctional management strategy employed on Cairngorm, resulting in the current state of affairs, and while HIE is quite happily paying out taxpayers money to pay wages, the hire of generators, diesel fuel, etc., there must be a lot of businesses in Aviemore and surrounding villages who are struggling with the lack of trade and information. In fact, so much of HIE’s budget is now being allotted to Cairngorm, what is happening to others in it’s portfolio?
What needs to happen now
Instead of committing more of its budget, is it time for HIE to put a hold on the open-ended cheque book, a phrase used in the Audit Committee report into the Funicular, that is keeping the Cairngorm business open until it can come up with a sound, financially viable business plan much as any normal business would be required to produce?
Is it also now at a stage where the Scottish Government should convene a Committee of Enquiry to investigate the way in which HIE has managed the business of Cairngorm Mountain since the Audit Committee report of 2009 and also the way in which it handles FOI requests?
I fully agree that an investigation into how HIE has managed the Cairngorm Mountain business since 2009 is required, if nothing else to learn important lessons to ensure these are not repeated. The Committee of Enquiry, however, should be fully independent of the Scottish Government, as it is very likely that they are also implicated in the many, many mistakes made.
It is appalling that you have had to persistently pursue HIE on the same FOI questions. These issues should be reported to the Scottish Information Commissioner for action. It is just not credible that HIE suddenly discovered these key reports after you requested a review of the previous knock backs on FOI requests. If it is true, that the reports were suddenly discovered after all this time, it is yet further evidence of HIE’s incompetence, and the need for a major clear out of Directors and senior staff at HIE.
Gordon Bulloch, thank you for your comment.
Do you really believe HIE will take any more notice of another enquiy than they did of the 2009 Audit Scotland report? You have a lot more faith than I do. Bosses at HIE appear to think they are untouchable, and the way some politicians are pussy-footing about you could be forgiven for thinking that is true. It strikes me as more than a little strange that select committees in Westminster can call in individuals to explain themselves, when the Scottish Parliament does….! Maybe after that report on BBC Scotland something may happen.
After requesting as many FOI’s as I and others have, we are probably getting used to the delaying tactics, although what wasn’t mentioned in the post above was the fact that initially HIE classed my FOI as an EIR request, allowing upto 40 days to reply, and then on the review request changed their minds and said it should have been treated as an FOI, max 20 days!
There is however a third more serious issue and that is the fact that despite warnings from the Jan 2017 report, between autumn 2016 and the summer shutdown in July 2018 there appears to have been no safety inspections which would surely have been required for insurance purposes.
A major clear out of directors and senior staff at HIE would certainly be a start, with loss of pension and redundancy benefits, but also the board members should be answering some pretty awkward questions as well.
I’m glad that you are just as cynical about the appalling behaviour of HIE and the Scottish Government as I am. My wife heard Fergus Ewing ‘ducking and diving’ on an interview concerning the funicular failure on Radio Scotland today. I would be amazed if he was not heavily involved in these multiple mistakes that HIE has made.
We must keep trying to expose these failures and incompetency, or the inevitable will happen again – another £20M+ of taxpayers money will go down the drain.