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ScotRail ticket offices under threat to help fund staff pay increase – The Scotsman
/in The Scotsman, Transport Matters /by sm_adminPlease click the image below to read more:
Some ScotRail ticket offices could be closed or downgraded to help fund a pay rise for its 5,300 staff, The Scotsman has learned.
Other options believed to be being considered are cutting catering on trains, which has only been partially reinstated after being suspended due to the Covid pandemic.
They come as ScotRail’s four unions today rejected a 2.2 per cent increase tied to efficiency savings.
The Rail Maritime and Transport union (RMT) announced a strike ballot over pay on Wednesday.
Engineers in the Unite union started industrial action last Friday.
There was speculation that ticket offices under threat of closure could include Burntisland, Kinghorn and Cowdenbeath in Fife and Easterhouse in Glasgow.
Others could see their opening hours reduced, but staff would be redeployed as ScotRail has a no compulsory redundancies policy.
An industry source said ScotRail’s ticket offices had not been reviewed for at least 15 years and some were very little used.
They said the number of closures might be “very small”, perhaps as few as three.
In a report published in August, Professor Iain Docherty of the University of Stirling, the country’s leading transport academic, questioned “whether legacy business activities such as the provision of ticket offices is viable in future”.
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Sturgeon under fire as Scotland spends three times more on rail services than England – Yahoo news
/in Scottish devolution, Scottish Government, SNP, Transport Matters, Yahoo News /by sm_adminPlease click the image below to read more:
Nicola Sturgeon has been accused of wasting taxpayers’ money after figures showed that Scotland is spending three times as much as England on keeping railway services running during Covid.
Holyrood has paid almost £60 for every passenger journey since the pandemic struck compared with £22 south of the border, according to analysis by The Telegraph.
In Scotland, this equates to £1.86 for every kilometre each passenger has travelled, compared with 69p in England.
Rail operators on both sides of the border were effectively nationalised to prevent them going bust during the first lockdown, costing billions of pounds of public money. Politicians are now struggling to work out how to handle the ongoing financial burden of running services, amid fears that mass commuting will never return after Covid.
Ms Sturgeon’s administration decided on Monday to keep its two operators on emergency rail contracts until the end of the year. By contrast, in Westminster operators have been transferred onto less lucrative terms to try to limit the burden on taxpayers.
MSP Graham Simpson, the Scottish Conservatives’ shadow transport minister, said: “Scottish taxpayers are shelling out three times more for an SNP rail service that hasn’t operated on a Sunday in seven months and plans to slash hundreds of services.
“Rail users aren’t seeing value for money and the SNP-Green government needs to ensure that under nationalisation the rail services work for the passenger, not the operator.”
The decision came as the SNP fights a bitter industrial dispute with the RMT guards union. Passengers have suffered weekend rail disruption for several months as a result.
In Westminster, the Department for Transport is under orders from the Treasury to cut a rail subsidy that has ballooned to more than £10bn across England. The burden on the public purse is to be reduced through an increase in demand as more commuters return to work, coupled with budget cuts.
Bosses in England are in talks with union leaders to axe thousands of jobs and reduce service levels in order to balance the books.
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Alba’s Kenny MacAskill calls on cops to intervene if LNER doesn’t observe Scottish social distancing rules – The Sun
/in Alba, Scotland Under the SNP, The Sun /by sm_adminClick the image below to read more:
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Promote the benefits of being in the UK.
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