Full details of the job vacancy can be found on the HIE website (https://www.hie.co.uk/about-us/vacancies/cairngorm-project-lead/)
Questions raised by this new job advertisement include:
- How has HIE been managing (or is it mis-managing) Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd and planning the future of Cairn Gorm for the last 18 months since the fall of Natural Retreats? If someone is needed, why now?
- If this person will be getting almost £55k per year, what is Susan Smith (interim Chief Executive of CMSL) getting paid?
- Couldn’t this £55k of public money not be better used in HIE’s core business of encouraging and supporting business growth throughout the Highlands & Islands?
- Why does HIE need someone to “oversee” the operational effectiveness of CMSL? In my thinking, Susan Smith should be responsible for this and she should report to the Board, or an Executive Director for her and CMSL’s performance. Maybe my management principles are out of date.
- The report says that, “The individual will also work with the wider Cairngorm project team in HIE…” “Work with” is the key phrase (not “lead”). So who then is responsible for this so-called Cairngorm project team and what are they getting paid?
- To me this whole ‘structure’ appears unclear and muddled with responsibilities poorly focussed – a recipe for further disaster, at taxpayers’ expense.
I did think for a moment that maybe The Strathy had not been given a clear picture of this new post, but the job description on the HIE website confirms the report is accurate.
The public phase of the masterplan consultation is about to commence this week, after 18 months of dithering, delay and secrecy from HIE (see here). Yet part of this new job is stated by HIE to be to:
“work closely with HIE colleagues to lead and oversee exemplary community consultation, liaison and engagement to support the long-term aspirations for Cairngorm Estate….”
Job interviews for this new post are scheduled for 10 March, so unless the successful applicant is already an HIE employee, it will be April at the earliest before this new post can be filled. It is my understanding that the public consultation phase of the masterplan exercise will be completed by then, and the masterplan consultants will have reported back to HIE. Just how is this Project Leader going to lead an exemplary community consultation, when the key part will be finished before they take up post? Yet again it’s another example of HIE dithering and delay – if this new post was needed it should have been advertised and filled over a year ago.
To date, HIE’s consultation approach has been secretive and desperately slow…and certainly very far from exemplary.
What needs to happen now for the new masterplan
- It’s up to all of us to do all we can in the coming weeks to ensure the masterplan consultants get not just the strength of public feeling, but also the facts about HIE’s failure on Cairn Gorm. (There are numerous articles on Parkswatch Scotland which demonstrate this failure and provide real viable and sustainable alternatives to repairing the funicular). It is understood that there will be a website link for members of the public who couldn’t attend any of the public consultation events or who wish to supplement their views.
- HIE and the masterplan consultants need to realise that local community consultation is one thing, but without a clear understanding of what the market wants and expects (through an objective and in depth market survey of visitors and potential visitors – both winter and summer) any masterplan for the future of Cairn Gorm is likely to fail.
Thanks Nick for all your work here. I really appreciate it and will use many of the points made at the consultation.
Regards
David
Carrbridge
It puzzles me that in reading the recent history of the hill that actually HIE has not really developed any vision . The publicly funded enterprise entity has shown enterprise only to the extent that with public money it has commissioned hitherto remote companies to come up with a plan,a vision,an enterprising master plan. And so much of that undoubtedly will be the guff about “stunning environment”, a “21st century vision”,eblah,blah and a whole lot of clichees.
Of course there`s the planning,the oversight of engineering decisions but HIE and their folk that run the hill haven`t had to show any imagination of their own. To get some idea of possible visions HIE needed to listen.I think “needed to listen” because the forthcoming consultations are not about the public talking to an open to ideas HIE.
We`ll be talking to a no doubt expensively commissioned outfit designed to protect their commissioners.Can this be considered a good use of public money?
.And as you imply,Gordon,what`s this new expensive post for?
You are right, Dick, but we are of a generation when managers were paid to manage. Nowadays, public service managers need to employ expensive consultants to provide answers for any significant decision – no wonder our taxes are so high. The same thing is also happening in England & Wales as well. The consultants employed might be good at writing slick reports with all the buzz words, but is the quality of the advise any good?
If you support the conspiracy theory, then HIE has already made up its mind – i.e. more of the same mistakes – and are just employing the consultants to play back what they want, so that the so-called business case thy put to the Scottish Government will have the illusion of credibility, just because a consultant said so.
Nevertheless, let’s still get out and speak with the masterplan consultants this week and get across to them that major changes are necessary to re-create an environmentally conscious, sustainable (in the light of climate change) and financially viable future of Cairn Gorm. Time will tell if the consultants listen or not.
When Susan Smith was at HIE, her salary was in the region of £80k (2018) which is currently circa £90k. I doubt if she has taken a drop in salary to be interim CEO of CMSL. Expenses etc. extra? There is also the question of how much is being paid by CMSL to senior management, an Edinburgh co. for secretarial work and the FIVE directors of CMSL? What exactly is their contribution to the “operational effectiveness”? HIE paid circa £100k to the SE Group for a vision that it said it could not afford to implement, £50k to the new masterplanners, for something else that it cannot afford, £90k to the A&GCT for……a project manager, and now another £100k for….. a project manager! As to the “operational effectiveness” of CMSL? Susan Smith was installed as interim CEO with a management team already in place and a board of directors to turn the business around. HIE now see a need to appoint someone to “oversee” that “operational effectiveness” suggesting that it is sadly not what was expected.
Thanks Graham for the salary figures. Unfortunately we have to wait until 31 March 2020 for the first financial year of CMSL, and they have until 26 August 2020 at the latest to make the figures (or the abbreviated version) public. I’m sure the Company Secretary will be paid, however, I hope the other directors have no payment except for allowable expenses, but we will see…