McGrigor rejects Bank’s response on Islay situation and asks for hard facts

Jamie McGrigor has the bit between his teeth. The response he received from the Bank of Scotland came not from the Bank’s CEO to whom he had written – these days such people consider themselves above politicians elected to pursue consituents’ interests – but from Andy Maciver, Media Relations Manager.

This did  no more than blandly restated the Bank of Scotland’s determination to remove the post of Islay Business Manager from th island – and offer some meaningless intended palliatives.

The Highlands & Islands MSP had signalled that he was not going to accept this as adequate and has written again to the Bank – this time to Maciver – but noting that he looks forward to a reply not only from Maciver but from the CEO, asking for hard facts not candy-floss words.

He wants to know ‘what size the local economy has to be to support a local manager’.

Good one. All there has been so far is a series of loose statements unsupported by any factual evidence.

Islay and Argyll needs to see the hard criteria on which not only this decision – but, as McGrigor notes, similar decisions which may be made, affecting other Scottish communities.

If the Bank cannot be open about its criteria one is left with the conclusion that there were none; that this was no more than a blind cost-cutting exercise targeted on what it thought was likely to be a soft target.

Anyone who knows Islay knows how far adrift is such an assumption. This is exactly why the decision to leave the island to be served by remote functionaries at a metropolitan call centre in Edinburgh cannot be adequate.

The Bank’s senior management do not know Islay at all – so how much can the flunkies down the food chain at the end of a phone line know?