Consultants are being paid over £31,000 to help Argyll and Bute Council cut the cost of its bus services.
Stantec have designed a survey asking the public’s views on school transport and other buses run by the council.
And like the council’s amenity services consultation which was criticised last month, this survey only allows the public to choose unpalatable options – increasing fares or cutting services.
Last winter the council came under fire after installing new bus stops on the Rosneath Peninsula as part of a £100,000 project funded by SPT – these were said to put the elderly at risk, while the signs themselves started to fall apart within weeks.
The survey asks the public about reducing school buses, introducing car pools for parents and replacing council-run services with minibuses driven by volunteers.
It also asks how often people uses timetabled buses, without distinguishing whether those buses are subsidised by SPT rather than the council.
It has been defended by the council, which said Stantec was appointed after a competitive tendering exercise to ensure value for money.
A spokesperson said the cost would be over £31,000 for the full project, including the survey, and was expected to ‘deliver a higher amount of savings’, as well as future options for sustainable transport services.
She added: “Years of budget reductions mean that there are no easy or obvious solutions left to bridging the £6.7m funding gap that estimates show we will have in 2021/22, and millions more in years after that.
“We are therefore identifying steps we can take to make key services as sustainable as possible in the short and longer term. This includes our bus services.
“Planning sustainable public transport in an area as large and diverse as Argyll and Bute is particularly complex. We are therefore investing in the support of experts in the field.
“This survey is one small part of a wider project. Stantec will also gather views from local and national partners, will review how the council manages its wider transport resources, and will draw on current best practice to identify solutions that will work for Argyll and Bute in the short and longer term.
“Views from our communities will play an important part in identifying for example where solutions should be tailored to different areas. People are welcome to answer as many or as few questions as they wish, and to give general comments.
“More than 300 people have already responded to the survey which we very much appreciate.”
The survey is on the council’s website and runs until November 24.
Stantec was founded in Canada in 1954 and its website states : “Stantec has the unique ability to connect to projects on a personal level and advance the quality of life in communities across the globe.
“We believe continued growth will increase shareholder value and give Stantec employees the opportunity to work with the best clients, on the best projects, and deliver exceptional service.
“We take pride in a long history of being part of the communities we serve.”
The company recently worked with Transport Scotland to develop a draft national transport strategy.
What do we pay these exhorbitant salaries to our council “managers” for? They couldn’t manage the proverbial piss up in brewery.
They make no decisions off their own bat but employ “consultants” to think of money saving schemes while paying them huge amounts. How much have these people cost this year for ideas that any schoolboy could come up with. In a FOI request a year or so ago they spent a Million pounds on them that year and now they employ others to tell them how to save a few pounds on buses. Maybe the idea is that they can then blame the consultants rather than make the decisions themselves and face the backlash.