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Coming clean on bypass decision - for The Inverness Courier

THE decision by the Scottish government to reject the case for funding the Inverness bypass seemed very surprising to many people at the time it was announced.

Given the comments made both before and after the Scottish elections by politicians of the governing party, many people assumed that funding would be forthcoming.

It was that sense of surprise that led me to make a freedom of information inquiry to the Scottish government, asking for all of the documentation relating to that decision. The information that was forthcoming — since published in The Inverness Courier — confirmed that all was not what it seemed.

First and foremost, it showed that the local belief that there is a very strong regional case for the Inverness bypass was — and remains — correct. Until a very late stage, the assessment of officials, based on independent reports, showed that the bypass proposal scored very positively in the vast majority of areas — particularly the economic benefits.

But the information also shows that at a very late stage — and without suggesting that any new facts had become available — the assessment of the Inverness bypass had made much more negative.

There is no reason given for the change, though an official note on the earlier paper that "This looks like a very positive scheme yet it is being rejected" gives a hint. It is clear from that statement that a decision had already been made to reject it and the assessment had to be changed to fit the decision.

We need to know the full details of the background to this — something I hope Scottish parliamentary questions asked by John Farquhar Munro will help to reveal. We need to know who took the decision, when it was taken, and why.

It would be very surprising if by July, only a few weeks before the document was due to be published, ministers were not involved. We need to know at what level the decision was taken. If it was not taken by ministers, did they know about it? If not, will they now reverse the decision and provide the funding that the merits of the project justify.

We need the answers to these questions so that we can persuade the government to provide the funding in future. It is vital to understand history, so that we can make sure it does not repeat itself.

IMPACT OF RECESSION

Over the last few weeks, I have spent a lot of my time meeting local businesses and employers organisations to discuss the impact that the economic problems across the country are having.

But the problems in the banking system are a worry for almost all businesses — and causing serious problems for some.

I have had may reports of firms facing real trouble because their bank has reduced their overdraft without notice, increased the interest rate, or imposed an additional one-off fee.

I have raised this with government ministers, who are failing so far to use the majority taxpayer stake in banks to get them to do the right thing for local businesses.

Posted on: 24/02/2009