Lesley Riddoch: Broad band of communication breakdown

Published on Friday 10 December 2010 22:01

ALEX Salmond believes there was no need for his transport minister to resign after last week's M8 fiasco, but concedes that information "did not get out" as it should and that "more could have been done in terms of communications". That is truly the understatement of this young decade.

But the shambolic lack of communication from a web-savvy and publicity-friendly group of politicians points to a larger weakness in government than insensitivity and bad timing.

It seems taxpayer-funded bits of government cannot communicate with one another - or with the public - and that problem will last longer than the current dump of snow. First, why was it ever up to one man - Stewart Stevenson - to miss, read or interpret a vital weather forecast?

Automation between Met Office forecasts, government information services and broadcasters should ensure that no off-colour minister could delay vital travel warnings. Last Sunday should have warned everyone about the dangers of centralising information and decision-making in any one man or system.

But Mr Stevenson's successor Keith Brown will doubtless be even more determined to act like a modern King Canute, seeking to demonstrate his personal control of every source of information in future. This is neither the way of the waves or the digital world. Of course, the public might well have ignored even the earliest automated warnings. Even after pictures of snow-bound, sleeping motorists were beamed around the world, the motorways were full again the very next day.

Uncertainty over public transport and the absence of remote-working strategies have left the car and the long slow drive to nowhere as the only alternative for tens of thousands of people.

This was the second massive failure of information - once Scots were on the move on Monday, few official sources were reliable, updated, specific or previously publicised enough to be much use. Some parents have praised Edinburgh and Glasgow councils for using Twitter feeds - so savvy subscribing parents at least were kept up to date about school closures. Social networking though is still a minority sport. So the vast bulk of stationary motorists had no earthly idea - or official help - about what to do in the worst travel and childcare situation they've probably ever faced. Without excellent Radio Scotland news and travel updates, isolated motorists would have been abandoned - even though many had 3G phones to access official websites.

Phone calls, friends, Facebook, Twitter and radio came to the rescue - officialdom did not. Take ScotRail. On Friday morning, I was trying to establish Glasgow to Aberdeen train times.Scotland had finally woken up to a balmy 5C but the ScotRail website proclaimed the following: "The extreme weather has worsened, with plummeting temperatures affecting rail services in most areas of Scotland." What?

I tried the phone helpline, whose recorded message said: "All sleeper services for tonight, 9 December, are cancelled." It was 10 December at 11am. Do I now trust that website or phone line? Not a lot.

Wikileaks-supporting hacktivists know their way round the web so well they can bring multinational companies to their knees without a single face-to-face meeting. Government departments and transport companies can't seem to keep websites updated despite cabinet meetings and resilience team briefings aplenty. What's going wrong?

Scottish society is still dominated by (mostly) men who think communication is the art of giving nothing away. Several inherited lifetimes of anxiety about class, accent and education have left Scots preoccupied with the dangers of making mistakes.

This defensive, analogue, anti-communication outlook will infect every formal platform new technology can create. As a result, few switched-on citizens expect anything useful from official sources. As one Facebook correspondent observed: "Now that CallMeDave is reducing society to a pin prick we're having to create our own - with ad hoc networks we can trust. If I want to know what snow clearing's like in Alness I know who I would trust to ask - and it wouldn't be Highland Council. We may have found a practical use for Facebook."

Last week was a minor turning point in human communications. Ordinary Scots discovered the weakness of official information and hastily devised their own reliable networks. But how long will voters finance systems they cannot trust? Scotland's tolerance of clannishness, silo-working and duplication means the right equipment has often been installed but not linked to those who need to know - even within the same organisation.

The rail authorities have trackside monitoring equipment to locate every train, but that system apparently doesn't link to station information boards or staff. So train locations are phoned in. Councils have installed satellite tracking devices in vehicles - does that information reach staff updating websites?

Last month the Royal Society reported that Scotland now has the lowest percentage of households with high-speed internet in the UK. Edinburgh University's Professor Michael Fourman said: "Communication is the lifeblood of society.But when it comes to delivering access to high speed broadband, Scotland… will fall behind in all areas in which high quality communication is vital: the economy, health, education, the delivery of public services and social interaction." Do enough Scots care?

Superfast broadband would let workers access office systems from home, patients visit consultants remotely, pupils study "together" in virtual teams and could deliver problem-solving videos to hand-held devices anywhere - in attics where thousands are trying to fix burst pipes or bedrooms where thousands may soon need post-icy accident physiotherapy.

This is the future broadband can deliver. It won't happen unless leaders visualise and describe it, officialdom embraces it and Scots demand it. Sadly, after last week's performance, even digital natives may feel there's little point. So Keith Brown must force existing systems to speak to one another and the public - not just to him. And he must back the super highway, not just the motorway, so that the chaos of last week never happens again.