New Sullom Voe tugs

[Ghostrider]

^ Exactly. The Council should only have a core staff and minimal equipment investment on their books across the board for everything, not just the oil industry.

 

The Foula Ferry is the perfect example of why this should be done - Under an outside contractor it costs little more than half of what it did under the Council, and there halve been no complaints from service users, only praise as far as I'm aware.

 

There's no reason to think a similar outcome wouldn't be achieved across the board - As things stand we're paying through the nose twice for a mediocre return, just think of how much more bang we'd be getting for our buck (or how much less we'd pay) if putting everything out to tender/franchise resulted in only a 10% saving/improvement across the board.

 

It was one thing for the council to own and operate a lot of things 50+ years ago, as it would have been difficult to find private enterprise capable of doing the same jobs, but times have moved on dramatically. There are now several local companies big enough to tender for numerous Council services, and transport links further afield allowing off isle outfits to be able to realistically service ones as well.

[brecken]

^ Exactly. The Council should only have a core staff and minimal equipment investment on their books across the board for everything, not just the oil industry.

 

The Foula Ferry is the perfect example of why this should be done - Under an outside contractor it costs little more than half of what it did under the Council, and there halve been no complaints from service users, only praise as far as I'm aware.

 

There's no reason to think a similar outcome wouldn't be achieved across the board - As things stand we're paying through the nose twice for a mediocre return, just think of how much more bang we'd be getting for our buck (or how much less we'd pay) if putting everything out to tender/franchise resulted in only a 10% saving/improvement across the board.

 

It was one thing for the council to own and operate a lot of things 50+ years ago, as it would have been difficult to find private enterprise capable of doing the same jobs, but times have moved on dramatically. There are now several local companies big enough to tender for numerous Council services, and transport links further afield allowing off isle outfits to be able to realistically service ones as well.

I would have thought a private firm would provide a considerably superior service and saved considerably more than 10% with the SIC having the additional cost of all those extra Directors and Executive Managers and other freeloaders with fabricated titles sitting on their ar*es on fat salaries and matching expenses doing f*ck-all, unless of course when they’re adding to their never ending list of c*ck-ups due to their incompetence, all too common with this council management team and costing an additional fortune we don’t have, heaven knows what they’re going to do when the cookie jar is empty and the public are fed up throwing money into a dark hole, time for a radical long-overdue management overhaul and a new leader too clear the deadbeats and put an end to the arrogance and headless chicken management approach the SIC has adopted of late!

[MuckleJoannie]

There once was a private firm providing tugs at Sullom Voe called Shetland Towage but a downturn in oil traffic meant it ceased to be profitable in the early 2000's.

[Ghostrider]

^ Correct me if I'm wrong, but was not the biggest millstone arond the neck of Shetland Towage's success/proftability the fact the company was wholly owned by the SIC. Effictively, while a "private firm" on paper and as a legal entity, in practice it was simply one of their "arms lenght companies" which allowed them to participate in commercial operations they, as a local authority could not legally do - and was run by the same people, policies and practices as the SIC ran everything else they did.

 

A bit like CalMac and the Western Isles ferry operations are run today, if you like. Client and contractor both run by the same people, servicing contracts for themselves - basically a paper exercise to remain legal, and not an exercise in best value/profitability/good business.

Edited September 1, 2017 by Ghostrider

[ll]

http://www.shetlandtimes.co.uk/2009/08/19/disquiet-as-councillors-are-asked-to-fill-pension-black-hole-for-shetland-towage