Disability Access (Caledonian MacBrayne)
I welcome everyone to this morning's meeting of the Equal Opportunities Committee. Our first item is an evidence session with two representatives of Caledonian MacBrayne, William Kindness and Ken Duerden, who are both very welcome. The committee has already met organisations that have raised concerns about the accessibility of ferries to people with disabilities and we will be pleased to hear what our witnesses have to say about that and other matters. After that, we will open up the session to questions from committee members.
Ken Duerden (Caledonian MacBrayne):
Thank you very much for inviting us to this morning's meeting. I am the commercial director of Caledonian MacBrayne and Willie Kindness is our network manager.
In the few minutes that are available, I want to take the committee through the background of the company, to consider some of the current influences on our activities and to point out the facilities for passengers with impaired mobility on the major and minor vessels. I will then hand over to Willie, who will touch on the recommendations from the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee; the situation with the upper-Clyde vessels, which was discussed in a previous committee meeting with representatives from Achievement Bute; facilities in the ports; staff training for disability awareness; and concessionary fares.
I will start with the background to the company. I realise that some committee members have a lot of knowledge about our activities and have worked with us over the years. We operate a fleet of 28 vessels and have two under construction. Yesterday at Ailsa shipyard in Troon, we launched a new vessel, which will come into service later this summer on services from Mallaig to the small isles of Eigg, Muck, Rum and Canna. Another major vessel, which is being built at Fergusons in Port Glasgow, is due to be launched later this summer and come into service towards the end of the year on the services from the north of Skye to Harris and Uist.
We operate between 50 terminals, with 25 Scottish routes and one Irish route, and sail directly to 23 Scottish islands, one Irish island and four peninsulas. In 1999, we carried a total of 4.8 million passengers, 895,000 cars, 84,000 commercial vehicles and 12,500 coaches.
The company budgets to break even each year, which means that there is no profit element built into the budgetary process. To break even in 1999-2000, we received a subsidy of £14.8 million from the Scottish Executive. We have an undertaking with the Executive that specifies a number of routes that we are required to operate and allows us to operate those routes at a loss. We can also operate outside the undertaking, if we wish, but such activities are subject to stringent rules to ensure that there is no seepage of subsidy.
The biggest current influence on us is probably the state aid issue. A consultation exercise on the requirement to tender our services is due to end in June. Part of that process is consultation on the Gourock to Dunoon service—I know that you have discussed the future of that service and the condition of Dunoon pier. The process has included the publication of the Deloitte & Touche report and supplementary work since that report was commissioned. The Gourock to Dunoon situation has a bearing on the Wemyss Bay to Rothesay service, mainly because of the interchangeability of the vessels.
No new vessels were introduced into our fleet between 1979 and 1984—that is quite a long period with no new vessels. We currently operate 12 major vessels, eight of which have been replaced since 1984—all the major vessels have been replaced except the upper-Clyde vessels. All the new vessels that we have introduced since 1984 have easier gangway access, lifts between decks and between the car deck and the accommodation decks, accessible toilets, and modified tables in the cafeteria to accommodate wheelchairs.
You may be interested to know that in 1995 we introduced a new vessel, the Isle of Lewis, to the Ullapool to Stornoway route. She was investigated by the Department of Transport mobility unit shortly after she came into service, and her facilities were given a very favourable report.
We have replaced 10 of our minor vessels since 1986, which leaves five pre-1978 minor vessels. Those vessels operate on the Tarbert to Portavadie service, on the service between Oban and Lismore, and between Ballycastle, on the mainland of Northern Ireland, and Rathlin island. All the new minor vessels have widened access. Kerbs have been built on those new vessels to allow wheelchair access, and the sills that are normally built in doorways to prevent water entering the accommodation have been removed to allow much freer access. Most small vessels tend to operate on short crossings and most of the passengers travel in cars.
William Kindness (Caledonian MacBrayne):
Part of the difficulty that ferry operators have faced in constructing ships is that there have been no guidelines on facilities for the disabled.
I am a member of the ferry committee of DPTAC, which is producing guidelines on the internal structure of ferries. We will put the final touches to the guidelines at a meeting in London next week. The draft guidelines were circulated around all the major ferry operators in the UK for their advice before DPTAC makes its recommendations.
The four upper-Clyde vessels—the Rothesay ones come to mind—are from the older part of our fleet. They were built in the 1970s before the focus on the needs of the mobility impaired developed. The particular difficulty with those four ships, as the Rothesay people no doubt mentioned to you when you met them—I have met the same people—is that the level of the tide determines the level at which one boards those four vessels, and access to the lower decks is by an outside staircase.
We asked Stairlifts (Scotland) to advise us on resolving the problem and considered many options, including Stannah lifts and stairlifts. Stairlifts have never been fitted in ships and are no use outside. We thought that we had cracked the problem recently when we were offered and tried stair-climbing wheelchairs. One of our larger port managers sat in one of the chairs and went up and down the outside stairs. The chairs worked extremely well on the days on which we tried them—there was very little motion on the ship; they were nice days—so we thought that that was the answer. However, we have had a quote from the suppliers and the chairs are pretty expensive—£5,000 each. We would need four. The main worry, however, is that they can be used only in dry weather. We operate in the west of Scotland so we do not get many dry days, which throws the whole thing into doubt. There is no means of shifting people on the decks of the ships other than by physically carrying them. We are not happy about that at all. The other option for wheelchairs, again dependent on the weather, is to take them on via the car deck, which is hardly ideal, as we have to stop all the movement of vehicles.
As Ken Duerden indicated, the whole issue for the upper-Clyde vessels is state aid and the Deloitte & Touche report, which indicated that the Gourock to Dunoon ferry may become a passenger-only service, which would probably mean new ships. That has a bearing on what happens to the Wemyss Bay to Rothesay route. Until the Executive makes a decision on state aid and the Deloitte & Touche report, that will be put in limbo. We have hit a brick wall.
We have been considering facilities not only on the ships, but in the ports—the DPTAC guidelines will include recommendations on what facilities should be available in the ports. We have a slight difficulty because not all the ports are owned by Caledonian MacBrayne; some are owned by the local authorities.
Whenever we have a difficulty, we solve it by appointing a committee. Taking the DPTAC guidelines as a benchmark, a committee of port managers went round the ports to see what needed to be done. Its members quickly realised that they were not qualified to decide what was needed. A group of chartered architects, who had carried out work for the Scottish Office and Lothian Regional Council on disability audits, gave a presentation. They recommended that we consider using a company; they had dealt with Smith, Scott, Mullan + Associates.
We are about to introduce mobility impairment awareness training for all staff. We will be using a training module called "IMPART: putting people first", which is a scheme recommended by the Scottish Executive. Such disability awareness training will become mandatory for all sailing staff by the end of next year.
We offer concessionary fares for people who are disabled. Depending on what they get from the social services, we offer anything between a 10 and 50 per cent reduction in the car fare, principally to allow them to get around more easily and cheaply. If someone possesses an orange parking badge, they automatically get a 10 per cent discount on the single car fare. If that is supported by a tax disc exemption certificate or proof of receipt of disabled living allowance at the higher rate from the Department of Social Security, we give a 50 per cent discount.
That is where we are at the moment.
Thank you very much. The floor is open for questions.
Thank you for that very good presentation. You have answered a lot of the questions that I was going to ask. I am an MSP for the Highlands and Islands. I have been using CalMac all my life—I can even remember the days when I used to have to climb down a rope ladder to get on to the ferry to go to Coll. I was thinking just the other day that we have come a long way since then.
Caledonian MacBrayne offers a very good service. I often use the Isle of Lewis, which you talked about. In the big boats, provision for the disabled is good; but there are concerns—certainly for Rothesay people—about the Juno, the Jupiter, the Saturn and the Pioneer. I am not sure what the climbing wheelchairs are called.
They are just given a code name.
I know that those chairs work fine. However, as you said, they cannot work in the wet. Would it be possible to produce a chair that did work in the wet?
The suppliers are concerned because the staircases are metal. The chairs are fine; the ambulance service uses them. However, its staircases are usually inside, whereas our staircases are often outside and very steep, at 45 deg, with steps that are narrow, at 9 in. The rubber wheels of the chairs have to catch on to a very narrow space.
So the problem is not the fact that that chairs are electrical, but that they might slip.
Yes.
My second question is on your shore-based customer care team. Disabled people find your offices a bit difficult. People in wheelchairs cannot see over the counter, which is a problem for someone who is trying to buy a ticket. Moreover, the door handles are too high.
The shore team recognises those problems, and one of the first things that it has been considering is the height of the counters. It has a budget for that.
All that would be needed would be one space.
That is right—one space where we could drop the level of the counter.
Good morning, gents, and thank you for coming to speak to us. In your presentation, you talked about the facility for getting disabled people aboard with the climbing wheelchair and said that you are not allowed to operate it in wet weather. As I am sure you know, our experience on the west coast of Scotland is that we do not have many dry days, although this week has been quite exceptional.
Aboard your vessels, the facilities are appropriate. Especially on the new vessels, there are excellent facilities for accommodating people with a disability. The problem seems to be in getting from the quay to the vessel. In some of the major ports, that is not a problem, because new arrangements have been put in place. Caledonian MacBrayne does not have a monopoly on every shore facility; you mentioned that local authorities own some of them. Have the authorities co-operated with you, or been in discussion with you, on improving shore-to-ship facilities?
In general, where port facilities have been improved at ports that we do not own—whether they are owned by councils, third parties or trusts—there have been discussions. Ullapool and Stornoway are probably the best examples. Work has been done at both terminals recently by the owners; we hope to start work within the next couple of months on a new facility at Ardrossan, which is owned by Clydeport plc.
The answer to your question is that, where there have been resources to improve terminal facilities, we have had dialogue with the pier owners and have incorporated the required facilities where possible. We are more concerned with the facilities where there has not been investment and which are now lagging behind. The facilities in such places are not up to the standard that we would wish. That can apply to our ports as well. Our main thrust for investment in recent years has quite rightly been for the vessels; the shore facilities are not quite what we would like in a lot of places. I hope that, as resources become available and as the future of the company is determined through the state aid process, we will have a clearer idea of what is needed and be able to work towards upgrading substandard facilities.
It is fair to say that when an opportunity has presented itself and where there were the means to provide appropriate facilities, disabled access has been provided. It is at the lesser ports where that becomes difficult and one has to operate with a vessel that was never designed to accommodate facilities for the disabled. I am thinking of the small isles facilities—Rum, Eigg and Canna—where people had to transfer from the vessel to a flit boat and then be put ashore. It would be difficult for any company to provide a disabled facility in those circumstances.
The vessel that was launched yesterday will have disabled facilities on board. As soon as the shore structures are built at the four islands, the vessel will be able to land passengers directly on the shore. At the moment, that is only possible at Canna. Work has started on Muck and Rum, which will have slipways in the foreseeable future. The ship will be able to land people directly and there will be wheelchair access via the vehicle deck, with a lift to the accommodation decks. We are getting there. We hope that the funding for Eigg will follow shortly.
Has any work been done on what the wheels of the stair-climbing chair could be coated with in order to give grip in wet weather? If that is the only thing that is stopping you using them, it should be given some thought.
We have not done that yet. We received the quote from the suppliers only last week. We are considering the matter.
Is this a problem in other countries? Has anyone investigated whether it has been solved elsewhere?
We are taking that on board. It is just the four ships that Mr McGrigor mentioned that are affected.
What is their expected lifespan?
Three of the ships were built in 1974 and the other was built in 1978. Normally, we would expect any vessel to have a 20-year lifespan and therefore all four vessels are past the end of their expected working life. The replacement of the vessels has been delayed largely because of the uncertainty of the future of the services.
Would it be a short-term fix?
We hope soon to have a clearer idea of the future of the services.
I would like to get a sense of the scale of the problem. You mentioned the 12 major vessels and the four upper-Clyde vessels. How many vessels do you have in your fleet?
We have 28 vessels and two more under construction. Four of the 12 major vessels are the upper-Clyde vessels. Quite a high percentage of the vessels do not have the required facilities. Eight major vessels out of 12 have the required facilities.
What about the other vessels?
The other vessels are much smaller. The vessels that have been introduced since 1986 have much better access facilities.
How many of the vessels have been replaced recently?
We have replaced 10 vessels since 1986. We have five vessels from before that date that do not have the facilities, one of which is a ferry boat that tenders at Eigg. The use of that boat will be phased out as soon as the slipway is provided on the island.
Are you saying that you need to replace the vessels in order to deal with the problem?
No. We have done quite a lot of work, particularly on Juno, Jupiter, Saturn and Pioneer. The advice that we have been given is that it is not practical to retrofit—particularly lift facilities—in vessels of that age.
What would you say was the effect of the complicated announcement that was made on the matter? What effect will that have?
Which announcement?
The one on state aids.
The most recent announcement was made a couple of weeks ago. The consultation process on how to tender the subsidised services that Caledonian MacBrayne operates in order to meet the requirements of the EU legislation is due to be completed in June. I am not sure how that will work out.
Caledonian MacBrayne welcomes the opportunity to participate in that consultation process. We have a long history of serving the islands, and I hope that we will be allowed to continue to do so. We welcome the parts of the announcement that assure the future of the services and say that the company will not be privatised and that we will be allowed to bid for the services. There are quite a few positive things in the announcement, although we shall have to wait and see quite how it works out.
Following on from what Nora Radcliffe said, I wanted to ask whether there were opportunities for international comparisons. I cannot imagine that, elsewhere in the world, people have not tried to combat the lack of access for disabled citizens. Will your investigation include examining international examples of how those problems have been solved in other countries? I do not have the details to hand, but I know that other European countries are ahead of us in breaking down barriers to the disabled when it comes to transport. Can you assure me that you will look into such examples?
As I said, the basic problem with wheelchair access is that the chairs work well only in dry weather and the stairs are outside. We should try again to find a way of resolving that problem.
I have been studying the document, "Development Department Research Programme Research Findings No 76 1999—Transport Provision for Disabled People in Scotland". It says of staff training, although not specifically of ferries, that
"significant gaps were found in relation to disability issues".
What is your programme for training your staff on disability matters?
The document also states that
"few transport providers were found to undertake extensive or proactive consultation with disabled people."
Again, are you addressing that problem?
The document recommends that
"transport providers are encouraged to adopt an audit based approach to assessing the accessibility of their facilities, and to develop action plans which have, as their objective, the development of full accessibility, meeting the needs of the widest possible range of disabled people."
Are you going ahead with an audit of your ports?
Finally, when people drive a long way with a disabled passenger to catch a ferry, it is an awful nuisance to get there and find that the ferry is not sailing because of bad weather. I know that, on the Portavadie route, you put up a notice at Tighnabruaich, some distance away, saying that the ferry is off. That is very helpful. Would it be possible to do that at certain points on some of the other routes?
We have a programme for introducing remote signs electronically. We introduced the first of them on the Fishnish to Lochaline route last year on our own terminals controlled from both Oban and Tobermory. They have been successful and we plan to roll out more of them. Unfortunately, most of the roads in the area are trunk roads and we are unable to stick up signs on trunk roads. One of the obvious places to put one is at Tyndrum, which would catch people heading for the Lochaline ferry.
That would be ideal.
Unfortunately, that is also on a trunk road and we are unable to put signs on a trunk road.
That seems odd.
I agree. Nevertheless, we shall take on board the recommendation of our shore care team to have another look at the port audit.
Are you aware of the research findings document that I quoted?
I do not think that I have seen that one, but I shall read it.
I had not seen it until this morning.
On your question about consultation, we have two main consultative bodies. One is the Shipping Service Advisory Committee; Mr Munro was previously a chairman of one of its sub-committees. The other is the Caledonian MacBrayne users consultative committee, which is part of the Central Rail Users Consultative Committee. We have spent quite a lot of time with them in the past talking about facilities for disabled people. For each new vessel that we design, plans are submitted to those bodies at an early stage so that they have an opportunity to discuss them and to make recommendations about the facilities on board.
I am glad that you are talking to disabled people, especially when you are building new ships, so that they can say what is annoying for them. It is great news that you are doing that.
That information is passed back to us by the Caledonian MacBrayne users consultative committee.
Thank you for giving evidence this morning. We recognise the valuable service Caledonian MacBrayne provides and its efforts to overcome access problems. To progress the issue and to try to create an outcome from our discussion this morning, I suggest that we send a copy of the Official Report of today's meeting to Achievement Bute and ask for the group's response. Perhaps the disability reporters group could liaise with Achievement Bute to find out whether there are outstanding issues that the committee could take forward. We could also send a copy of the Official Report to the Transport and the Environment Committee, to keep it informed of the issues that have been raised today.
One of our port managers, who is on the shore care team, is also on the Achievement Bute team.
Yes. He was a member of the party that gave evidence to the committee. Thank you again.
Thank you for your time.