Jim Mather, Argyll’s MSP yesterday (30th November) met with Susan Rice, the Managing Director at the Bank of Scotland to discuss the Bank’s withdrawal of their Business manager from Islay.

According to Mr Mather, also Enterprise, Energy and Tourism Minister, Ms Rice  ‘had read all the background material and had seen the Islay petition’. He says too that she was ‘quick to state that she “didn’t want a degradation of service” for business banking customers on Islay’.

At this stage you think: ‘Great. We’re getting some movement here’ – because if anything is a degradation of service on Islay it is the loss of its Business Manager.

But no. In the hall of mirrors inhabited by people who live free in £1 million houses paid for by us, this is not a degradation of service at all. Ms Rice described it rather as: ‘a model that is working well elsewhere’. This blithe statement betrays exactly the situation of concern to Islay – the imposition of a one-size-fits-all service – highly unlikely to be reassuring to the specifics of an Atlantic island,  two to three hours out of reach of the mainland.

But the financially sheltered and Edinburgh-based Rice claimed that ‘other customers are happy with the service’. Well, hey, that’s all right then.

All she offered the Minister was a restatement of what Mr Kerr, her junior, has already offered – which itself is no more than the Bank’s original position: withdrawal of the Business manager and service by remote control from the mainland.

From the largeness of its care for Islay, the Bank ‘will assign a relationship manager to Islay business customers’. As before this will be a distant relationship and a distant relationship manager.

The formula as before is that, as Mr Mather says, ‘while most interactions would be by phone and internet, there would be a presumption (our italics) that the relationship manager could be (our italics) regularly on Islay in response to customer needs’.

So not even in this paltry service, even if it were satisfactory, is there any guarantee that the ‘relationship manager’ (perverse weasel words if ever you heard them) would actually deign to come out to Islay to talk to clients.

She who Jamie McGrigor heard declare that her aim was ‘to put the shine back’ in the Bank told Mr Mather that her objective was that ‘the same service would be delivered in a smarter, slicker way’.

Islay is more interested in substance than in ‘smart and slick’. Indeed it was the preoccupation with ‘smart and slick’ that seduced the banks into the rash and irresponsible risk-taking that has cost the rest of us so dear.

It is important though to know that she stressed to Mr Mather – ‘adamantly’ – that the Bank is not ‘pulling out’. Heavens no. It’s just pulling out the heart of the service.

Generous spirited soul that he is, Jim Mather says: ‘She is saying she will keep a close eye on how this “new model” operates and will listen attentively to any issues that arise’.

In our far less generous spirit we note that she promises no action in any circumstances. At best, where ‘issues’ arise, she will ‘listen attentively’.

The ‘best’, perhaps, is yet to come. In the way of all those who will do everything to do nothing Ms Rice now seeks to widen the sphere of responsibility as far as possible to thin the Bank’s own commitment.

Mr Mather reports that: ‘She also voiced an enthusiasm to work with Argyll & Bute to see if we could broker a tighter form of support from the ranks of the banks, accountants, lawyers, HIE, Argyll & Bute Council and the new Business Gateway service that shares premises with HIE in Kilmory’.

Of course she did.

And she may get some action on part of this front sooner than she thinks.

In a move away from the Council’s earlier statement in response to a query from us that” ‘this is not a matter the Council would comment upon’, the Council unanimously accepted a motion put by Councillor Robin Currie.

This proposed: ‘That Argyll and Bute Council resolves to contact the Bank of Scotland as a matter of urgency regarding proposals to remove Business Banking Advisers from remote and rural branches in Argyll and Bute, recognising that any such removal will have a detrimental effect on small businesses in those communities, with a subsequent negative impact on already fragile economies, and that the Council requests that any such proposals be urgently re-considered in light of these expressed concerns’.

In the light of his own discussion with Ms Rice, Jim Mather, God help him, says: ‘We now have her attention and I suggest that we use this channel of communication constructively to keep her posted on the view from Islay’. He doesn’t mean the Paps of Jura but that is all Rice is likely to be interested in.

The man has the patience of a saint but this matter is going absolutely nowhere.

If Islay has what George Bush delicately called ‘the cojones’, it is time to look seriously at alternatives. They do exist and we have previously pointed to them. They could work.

Like Scottish independence itself, they require the self belief and the determination to make them work. No one can tell us that Islay doesn’t have all of that.

The reward is control of one’s own circumstances and every possible reason to work to make it a success.

The alternative is to take whatever is offered, bite your tongue and tip your forelock. That’s the traditional way.

Over to Islay.

Note: Gus Newman of the boatbuilder, Stormcats on Islay, has published the full text of Jim Mather’s note on his meeting with Susan Rice on what has become a forum on the issue, below 0ur original story.

Related Posts

• Mather & McGrigor engage with Bank: Islay not alone in service withdrawal (0)
• Islay business banking crisis: updates from Mather and McGrigor (4)
• McGrigor writes to demoted Rice on Bank of Scotland’s Islay debacle (2)
• McGrigor rejects Bank’s response on Islay situation and asks for hard facts (0)
• McGrigor supports For Argyll call for pro tem retention of Islay bank manager (0)

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