Achi news desk-
But a row has flared up as government officials have spoken out during talks over giving CalMac the right to run services directly with no time limit agreement whatsoever, with some saying this would make it a branch of government , as Transport Scotland.
There is concern that the plan to give CalMac the permanent right to run services has not been a feature of the written consultation and some have argued that there must be a separate public discussion over the proposal.
The Herald has obtained separate confirmation that ministers are considering the move.
READ MORE: How the ‘tokenism’ departure of CalMac ferry chief was totally expected
This comes after the ferry company received around £10.5m in poor performance fines in the six and a half years since CalMac took over the franchise – almost eight times more than in its first nine years in charge of the west coast fleet .
Joe Reade, chairman of one of Scotland’s key ferry user groups said he had a discussion with one of Transport Scotland’s key executives during the consultation further confirming the intention is to award a contract to CalMac “not just for 6 or 8 years, but forever”.
“If this is going to be a permanent solution, then what is the incentive to change? The default situation would be that CalMac continues to do the job.
“There is nothing in the consultation that says this will be an ongoing permanent arrangement.
“Declaring it a contract implies a start and end date.
“It needs to be highlighted, because nowhere in the consultation does it even suggest that it would be forever.”
MEPs on the Scottish Parliament’s Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee which has been examining the future of ferries have said in an inquiry that the state’s beleaguered ferry operator should benefit from an immediate award for an extended ten-year contract to run rescue services in the west. coast of Scotland.
He said he supported CalMac’s new contract length from eight to ten years as it was needed to “ensure continuity of service and avoid disruption” with the current contract which is due to expire in September.
It came against a backdrop of major disruption to lifeboat services involving a ferry fleet where more than half of the boats are older than the 25-year life expectancy.
READ MORE: Ministers told to scrap CMAL to create ferry agency and keep CalMac
Two salvage vessels, the MV Glen Sannox and Glen Rosa, due to serve Arran, are still languishing at the now state-owned Ferguson Marine shipyard, with delivery more than six years late and the costs of their construction quadrupled the original £97m. contract.
Mr Reade, chairman of the Mull and Iona Ferry Committee, said it was clear that the committee only offered a direct ruling if it was a temporary solution “but the government is using it as a justification for the [permanent] a decision”.
He said: “They are trying to show that CalMac is effectively a branch of government and so they feel they don’t need to put it out to tender, and they don’t need to negotiate a contract. use of the term ‘contract’,” he said. ‘ suggests that it is temporary.
“I asked if you would award the contract how long it would be. He said there would be no end date.
“There would be periodic assessments on how they perform.
“The consultation is misleading. The premise is misleading. Because nowhere is stability mentioned.
“A permanent award does not uphold what the committee said and is contrary to encouraging change.”
Prime Minister Humza Yousaf, when he was transport minister, said in 2017 that it was his intention to scrap future tender processes for Clyde and Hebrides ferry services and award the contract to CalMac “indefinitely”.
He said he hoped any changes to staff would be “minimal”.
The Herald can reveal, in its explanation of what the changes may mean, saying: “Essentially, we will have to ensure that governance [CalMac parent company] David MacBrayne Ltd is similarly aligned with our own Government departments. Perhaps the way Transport Scotland aligns with the Government is an example of that. We will work through the details of what that will mean and, of course, we will work closely with CalMac.
“A small change would be better, because our relationship with CalMac works well at an operational level.
“If we can meet the criteria, certainly in terms of Clyde and Hebrides ferry services, my intention is to scrap any future tenders.”
The Competition and Markets Authority has previously warned of the “potential risks” of state control over the way ferries are operated, run and paid for in Scotland.
There has been concern about the management of ferries which are cocooned within three levels of bureaucracy managed by the Scottish Government known as the ‘tripartite’ arrangement.
This includes Scottish Government agency Transport Scotland as funders, ferry acquisition and ownership company CMAL, and service providers CalMac.
On top of that is Ferguson Marine, the shipbuilding company that came under the control of Scottish ministers in August 2019 when it went into administration under the control of tycoon Jim McColl amid a cost explosion and delays in the delivery of two key ferries.
But Transport Scotland officials are continuing to explore how to make the ruling directly through what has been described as the Teckal procurement exception without leaving itself open to legal challenges by breaching the UK version of the state aid rules.
The idea behind state aid rules is to avoid financial support given by a government that favors a particular company or commercial group and has the potential to distort business competition.
The Teckal exemption removes the legal obligation on a public authority to tender public contracts when it can be proven that the public authority can provide the services itself, subject to certain ‘controls’ and tests.
Another ferry user group official said ministers should not be given an open-ended right for CalMac to run ferry services in Scotland.
“Although CalMac is not to blame for the age of the ferries or the lack of investment, they are not without blame for how services have been managed in that prism.
“We only need to look at last year’s island protest in South Uist about how it was so badly hit by cancellations and disruption to know that the management of the ferry fiasco has been far from competent.”
Transport secretary Fiona Hyslop said any direct award to CalMac should be a “catalyst for change” with a new management culture emerging, “one that is more supportive of customers and passengers of the community served by the network “.
The Community Ferry Board, which formed as part of CalMac’s franchise bid for the Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Service (CHFS) to be the voice of the communities, has said that in order to gain community support for a long-term directly awarded contract, it would need to see “a significant change in the organizational structure and culture of managing and operating the ferry services”.
On April 3, Robbie Drummond resigned as chief executive of CalMac with “immediate effect” following a review of his executive leadership as he faces “challenging years ahead”.
CalMac won the current £975m eight-year CHFS contract after winning it for six years in 2007 – after ministers were forced to tender for routes to meet European competition rules.
But it has been criticized for how it has managed services with the aging fleet.
Breaking the South Uist ferry protest in June, 2023.
One of the main criticisms that came to Mr Drummond at the helm related to the review of how CalMac operates during ferry incidents as it copes with old ships.
A major protest was launched on South Uist last summer when it suffered yet another disruption when a ferry broke down and delays in annual maintenance meant islanders lost their service for almost the whole of June.
He had been drawing the short straw, because it was felt that according to the way CalMac runs its disruption management work on rescue services, the least number of people will be affected if their designated vessel, MV Lord of the Isles, is withdrawn to help elsewhere. .
An estimated 500 residents, 200 cars, 40 vans and 20 lorries gathered at Lochboisdale – the port that connects South Uist to the mainland – on June 4 to protest the cancellation.
And after the intervention of the Scottish Government, CalMac launched a review of the criteria which was subsequently changed.
The Herald revealed earlier this week that almost £6m had been spent by ministers on a series of consultants advising on the future of ferries, in a move described as “outrageous”.
Private consultants Ernst and Young are the latest to benefit from the spending after being awarded a quarter of a million pounds for a new wave of advice on the future of lifeboat rescue ferry services on the island off the west coast of Scotland.
That comes on top of more than half a million pounds spent by ministers with the consultants between 2015 and 2022.
Ernst and Young was awarded its latest £250,000 contract at the start of the year to investigate the legal and financial implications of state-owned ferry operator CalMac being awarded a new contract for west coast ferry services besieged “by default” without going through a competitive tender process.
A spokesman for Transport Scotland said: “The Scottish Government’s preference for the next contract… is a direct award to CalMac using the Teckal exception. The Ministers will set out the details of the arrangements after considering the responses to the consultation and satisfactorily completing the ongoing due diligence exercise.
“This will include the length of the new arrangements and proposals for how they will be monitored. The recommendations of the Zero Net, Energy and Transport Committee will also be taken into account when specifying this.”
Transport Scotland said a direct award “could allow us to deliver the improvements that island communities have been calling for such as better resilience, more transparency, better communication, and more certainty for communities and staff”.
He said this would include “an improved performance management system that better reflects the passenger experience and is intended to act as a catalyst for change, not a reinforcement of existing practices”.
