Rail consultant didn’t Tarry with ferry quango
A Yorkshire railway consultant who was appointed by SNP Ministers to the board of CMAL in preference to four island candidates has quit after less than a year, leaving the troubled quango two non-executive directors under strength.
When Mark Tarry was appointed last year, the Scottish Government said knowledge of ferries “or experience of having lived and/or worked in any of the Scottish islands” was not required for the appointment.
The panel which recommended Mr Tarry’s appointment was chaired by Morag McNeill, the Edinburgh lawyer who chairs CMAL and was instrumental in removing the only islander on the CMAL board, Lewisman Murdo Maclennan.
After Mr Tarry and another non-islander were appointed by then Transport Secretary Fiona Hyslop, Fergus Ewing – then an MSP - tabled Freedom of Information requests which secured information that four islanders applied and two were interviewed.
As the Gazette had previously reported, one of them described the experience as “surreal” with the interview dominated by questions about “diversity” with no reference to ferries or islands.
Mrs McNeill was supported on the selection panel by Andy Robinson, a Transport Scotland civil servant, and “ethical adviser” Jayam Dalal, a “diversity consultant” who at that point had been used 30 times by the Scottish Government in making quango appointments.
Before Ms Hyslop rubber-stamped the appointments of Mr Tarry and Stuart Cresswell, recently retired from Troon harbour owners Associated British Ports, a briefing note advised her: “This appointment may attract some enquiries relating to islander representation on public body Boards. We will provide robust lines to support, to include how the selection panel made their decision”.
Now, recently published minutes of CMAL’s March board meeting reveal Mr Tarry’s resignation, without explanation. Mrs McNeill “noted that the number of NEDs is now two short of where it should be” while chief executive Kevin Hobbs “emphasised the need for the two vacant NED roles to be advertised and filled post-election”.
Six months on and there have been no appointments and there is, of course, no islander on the CMAL board as the quango’s misfortunes continue to impact upon islanders. The Turkish ferries are now seriously delayed and the Sound of Harris route is out of action.
Mrs McNeill effectively removed Mr Maclennan from the CMAL board after he stood up for island interests in a dispute involving the launch of island ferries at the Cemre yard in Turkey. She withdrew her recommendation for his reappointment and Ministers accepted this.
Mrs McNeill was deputy to Erik Østergaard at CMAL throughout the Ferguson debacle and was then appointed to chair the quango after Østergaard was shoehorned into the chair of David McBrayne Ltd/CalMac through the same process – a position he still holds.
Vague proposals about merging CMAL and CalMac were included in the programme for government last week, but with no suggestion that a transfer of decision-making and accountability to island communities would be involved.