Former Minister on ferries fiasco
Ministers must answer for ferries fiasco
All governments waste money. The unique feature of the Scottish Government is that no politician is ever held accountable and rarely is there even an inquiry into what has gone wrong.
Yet the sums involved are eye- watering. The Ferguson’s shipyard fiasco already represents an additional bill of £ 100 million with two ferries still to be built. Extra costs at the Edinburgh Children’s Hospital are put at £ 150m, but nobody really knows.
Prestwick Airport continues to represent a large blank cheque. Then there were recent IT debacles at the Scottish Pensions Agency and Scottish Rural Affairs Department, each costing tens of millions. The list goes on and on.
Make no mistake. Every penny wasted comes out of the same large pot of money which, at the same time, grossly underfunds our local councils and fails to pass on full “Barnett consequentials” to our NHS.
Even the half-million shelled out on Alex Salmond’s legal costs, in pursuit of a doomed
defence, would have kept a few libraries and community centres open. Yet no heads will roll in St Andrew’s House where the watchword is to protect their own and keep talking about independence.
Wasting other people’ s money is not a victimless political crime. The Ferguson story is a good example of how headline- grabbing political opportunism has consequences not only for taxpayers but also communities which depend upon vital public services.
While this is portrayed as a row between the SNP and Jim Mccoll, the immediate victims are island communities served by an ageing Caledonian Macbrayne fleet. The two ferries at Ferguson’s – one already two years late and the other still a rusting hulk – were vital to the company’s operations.
Calmac is left to shuttle ferries around its network to cover for breakdowns and essential maintenance. But while it is at the sharp end of criticism and must answer to the public, the reality is it now has less control than ever before over the fleet that serves island communities.
At the centre of the dispute is a Scottish Government quango called Caledonian Marine Assets Ltd ( CMAL), which was set up to procure vessels and terminals used by Calmac. It has been at the centre of one botched job after another – yet is never held accountable for anything.
The chairman, who could
safely walk through any island community without being recognised, is a Danish logistics expert who flies in for meetings. No board members live in places served by Calmac. They answer to Edinburgh – not the islands.
Yet, while decisions taken by CMAL involve hundreds of millions of pounds, I can find no record of any Holyrood committee or Audit Scotland taking a serious look at their record of performance – far less of any minister accepting responsibility.
So will there now be a formal authoritative review of what went so wrong at Ferguson’s? Probably not because, almost certainly, responsibility would end up with SNP politicians who have no intention of inviting that level of scrutiny or, indeed, any at all.
Themccoll deal always smelled of a political stunt in the run- up to the 2015 Scottish elections. Who could possibly be against “saving” a shipyard? My guess is the specification was cooked up to avoid EU competitive tendering rules but without the necessary diligence to ensure the yard could actually do the job. But guessing is not enough. We need a proper inquiry, with proper ministerial accountability.
There is very little human touch about the Scottish Government. There are 33 ministers and endless visits to the more attractive parts of Scotland, particularly in summer. But they always take place within the comfort zone of bureaucracy, whereas devolution should surely mean meeting the people acting on real concerns.
The same traits are evident in response to the various crises affecting the NHS. Above and beyond the financial arguments and construction failures, the Edinburgh hospital scandal is primarily about people, their expectations and concerns for the welfare of their children. There has been precious little recognition of any of that while the continuing lack of information about how this situation was allowed to develop over at least two years before a last- minute recognition of reality adds insult to injury and demands face- toface explanation.
Certainly, another quango in urgent need of scrutiny is the Scottish Futures Trust, which runs the SNP’S version of the Private Finance Initiative. It is only the case of the Edinburgh Children’s Hospital that has finally drawn public attention to the way in which most major projects in Scotland are funded.
The principles are the same as those Nicola Sturgeon and her ministers were previously so vociferous in denouncing.
For the next 25 years, Lothian Health Board will be repaying Australian and Spanish multinationals to manage the building and its equipment, at three times the capital cost.
In principle, that may not be a problem – though the hypocrisy of past condemnations is obvious. However, it is essential that every deal entered into is scrutinised for value and where responsibility lies when things go wrong.
When Holyrood was established, its committee system was supposed to be the watchdog that would hold ministers to account.
That has failed miserably, resulting in an arrogant assumption that nobody in Edinburgh ever has to carry the can for incompetence or failure.