MSP Christine Grahame has criticised ScotRail’s lack of foresight relating to workforce planning after it emerged that a spate of recent cancellations was the result of a lack of trained staff.

The CEO of ScotRail Abellio, Alex Hynes, was appearing before Holyrood’s Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee after the operator faced heavy criticism in the wake of numerous delays and cancellations.

He was speaking to the committee following the publication of an £18 million remedial plan, in response to being issued with an improvement notice by the Scottish Government in December because of low levels of passenger satisfaction.

A further improvement notice was issued in February following multiple cancellations of services due to ongoing staffing issues.

In the remedial plan ScotRail concedes that “the service our customers have received has not been good enough recently” and that the operator “accepts ultimate responsibility for the unacceptable service our customers have received.”

Mr Hynes announced that the recent cancellations “were not due to not having enough train crew” but instead “they were due to not having enough train crew trained in the new routes and the new types of train.”

During the questioning it emerged that the operator had not previously employed anyone with overall responsibility for workforce planning.

The Borders railway passes through Ms Grahame’s constituency, and has been badly affected by recent service disruptions, with the MSP staggered by the apparent lack of planning.

She said: “It would appear that ScotRail have recruited sufficient staff – indeed they currently have 1000 applicants for driver roles – but have completely failed in planning for what routes they’ll be needed on and when they’ll be trained on them.

“This is made all the clearer by the fact there has been no-one with overall responsibility for workforce planning, which is frankly astounding.

“I accept they have said they will now introduce this as a role, and that the new timetable was planned before the current CEO took charge, but I cannot imagine my Borders and Midlothian constituents, and passengers across Scotland, will be overly impressed at this lack of basic planning.

“Mr Hynes’ explanation that they had enough staff, but not enough staff trained, rather brings to mind the ‘wrong kind of leaves’ on the line – only this time they had the wrong kind of staff.”