Talk:Scottish Gas Board

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Extracts from a Letter from first Chairman give a rare insight into the issues which nationalisation presented and how one from outside the industry approached them.81.178.227.43 13:37, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Several matters of interest in these few words - the rundown state of the gas industry in Scotland where, almost all the works was owned by the Local Councils, where the main showrooms were to be found at the Councils' offices and when the gas works, public amenities and social services competed for resources.

The very large number of autonomous undertakings presented the Board with big problems and while integration did not affect the technical side of the business very seriously, on the commercial side very big changes were needed to prevent the industry failing entirely. At one stage, so slow was progress in centralising managerial control that the Gas Council had contemplated managing the industry in Scotland from London.

Notable too are the remarks about pricing. The requirement to relate price to costs and not, as in a free market, to 'what the traffic will bear' and the reluctance to use advertising other than for 'educational' purposes threatened to sink an industry whose product was acknowledged by the public to be 'nasty, smelly, dirty and dangerous'. Selling gas appliances by hire purchase was regarded as unethical by many managers. Electricity had found new markets in off-peak metering (the white tariff) and storage heating and both oil and liquid petroleum gas (LPG) were very successful in bringing modern comfort conditions to households, within and far beyond the restricted area of gas supply. Only the promotion of more efficient gas fires, the adoption of aggressive marketing of gas central heating using door to door canvassing sales teams and the increased efficiency of gas production by the Lurgi plant in Fife prolonged the survival of the industry in Scotland long enough to allow natural gas from the North Sea to give gas a new lease of life. Fenton Robb 19:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Notice too, the appreciation that reorganisation was seen to inhibit 'management by walking about' and that nationalised businesses were often seen as remote and inhuman. Fenton Robb 19:54, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Marked for cleanup - but no specific suggestions as to exact requirements. Some efforts have been made here, but probably insufficient?