Talking-up Scotland

24^th January 2017: 17:10

Today at 1.30pm, Jackie Bird announced:

‘There’s been a big fall in customer satisfaction with train services in Scotland……customer satisfaction has fallen by seven points.’

Leaving aside the fact that, in Jackie’s estimation, seven is a ‘big’ number and is an adjective not used elsewhere, this report is based on a survey ending in November 2016. The BBC website, also today, gave us a bit more useful context which would have made Ms Bird’s ‘report’ a bit more informative:

‘Passenger satisfaction with ScotRail services has fallen but remains higher than the UK as a whole, despite problems with delays and cancellations. The latest National Rail Passenger Satisfaction (NRPS) figures showed that 83% of those surveyed said they were satisfied with their ScotRail journey. This was four percentage points lower than the previous survey last June, and seven points lower than a year ago. The figure for the UK as a whole in the most recent survey was 81%.’ It was the first to be carried out following the five month closure of the upper platforms at Queen Street Station and last summer’s industrial action by RMT union members.

This is surely important contextual information of the kind the BBC Royal Charter expects?

More important, the BBC website report is also up-to-date and reports this improvement in services since last November and is also surely of interest to viewers:

‘Figures published earlier this month showed the reliability of ScotRail trains significantly improved in the weeks after the improvement plan was published. The PPM data showed 89.7% of trains arrived within five minutes of schedule in the four weeks to 7 January. This was a 6% rise on the previous four weeks, and a 2.8% improvement on the same period last year.’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-38729862

I know, the older No voters won’t have seen the website version so it was safe to put the truth there.