Scots Ramblers say the London-centred management fails to take account of its nation's differences

Ramblers in Scotland may follow their own path after their staffing was savagely cut on the orders of its London board.

Members are angry that the organisation north of the border has been forced to bear 30 per cent of the overall cuts, leaving only one paid member of staff. Its convenor says employees have been treated shabbily. Leaders of Ramblers Scotland have set themselves on a course that could lead to the break-up of one of Britain’s leading campaign groups for walkers.

grough spoke to Dennis Canavan, the former Labour MP and independent MSP, an elder statesman of the Scottish political establishment and a key figure in some of the Ramblers’ campaigns, including the one that led to the establishment of Scotland’s right-to-roam law, the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, widely regarded as one of the best in Europe. He outlined the anger among members at being forced to bear an unrepresentative burden in the round of cuts that followed the charity’s cash crisis that developed earlier this year.

Convenor Dennis Canavan

A meeting on Monday decided to look at Ramblers Scotland taking an independent path from the British body. The working group, set up by the Scottish council of the Ramblers, of which Mr Canavan is the convenor, decided that serious consideration be given to taking more control of their own organisation. That included full independence as an option.

Mr Canavan said: “I think there is a great deal of sympathy for a completely independent body while keeping relations with the Ramblers in England and Wales, possibly in some federal structure which we will also look at.”

The working group was set up in response to the British board of trustees’ decision to close the Scottish office at Milnathort in Perth and Kinross. Mr Canavan said: “The working group that I convened drew up a submission to the board and demanded a meeting with the chief executive Tom Franklin and the chairman Rodney Whittaker.

“The meeting took place on the 8 July and Rodney Whittaker made it absolutely clear they were standing by the decision of the board.”

Five of the seven staff were made redundant. In fact, because one was on a temporary contract, there is only one person still working in Scotland: Dave Morris. The office is still earmarked for closure. The convenor said: “It is very unsatisfactory; I feel he [Tom Franklin] has treated the staff very shabbily.”

Referring to the meeting last Monday, Mr Canavan said: “There were also expressions of no confidence in the chief executive Tom Franklin.”

The Ramblers’ last published accounts show a turnover of almost £6m. Falls in revenue caused by the recession and a drop in donations have pushed the charity into a financial crisis, but Mr Canavan says it is unfair to expect the Scottish membership to absorb 30 per cent of the £1m cuts demanded by the board of trustees. Devolution means the Scottish situation is different from the rest of Britain, he says and the cuts fail to recognise this.

Ramblers' chief executive Tom Franklin

He also accuses the London headquarters of extravagance. “In my statement in the [Sunday] Herald I was referring to the treatment of the employees in the modest office, compared to the luxurious office on the banks of the Thames with about 60 employees, some of them grossly overpaid.” In the report, in the Glasgow-based newspaper, he is quoted as saying: “As an MP and MSP I have been involved in many industrial disputes, and I’ve never seen a group of workers subject to such shabby treatment.”

The Ramblers British vice-chair Tom Fisher retorted: “In order to balance the books, the trustees of the Ramblers reluctantly decided that significant staff cuts were unavoidable.

“Cuts were made in a number of areas, including the Wales and Scotland offices. Tom Franklin has implemented the decisions of the trustees with great sensitivity in a difficult situation.”

The Ramblers, formed from the disparate walking clubs campaigning for access to the uplands of Britain in the 1930s, has about 140,000 members, of which 7,500 are in Scotland, in 58 different groups. In March this year, the Ramblers underwent an expensive rebranding, losing its apostrophe and the ‘association’ from its title. There has also been an emphasis on more urban walking and walking for health campaigns, which has distanced its leadership from more traditional support.

But Dennis Canavan supports the push for health through walking, which in Scotland has been linked with the Holyrood Government’s run up to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014. He said: “I am very much a supporter of walking for health’s sake, but campaigns over the years by the Ramblers to get access to the countryside have been vital.”

The next meeting of the Ramblers Scotland executive will be in November, but the working group will meet before then to consider the thorny problem.