Incompetence over ferries deal

REGARDING the ferries saga, you report the Finance Secretary, Kate Forbes, stating that “it is quite clear, that the reason why they are overdue and over-budget is a question of construction” (“Forbes refuses to set timetable for delivery of overdue ferries”, May 18). This is a cart-before-thehorse explanation.

Scottish ministers were warned by Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL) that ministers taking the financial risk of awarding a contract without a 100% Builder’s Refund Guarantee (BRG) would be “totally off the track of what is normal practice for the shipping industry”.

Critically, ministers were also warned by CMAL that they were then adding that to that substantial risk backdrop of not having a BRG by also then contracting with “a newly established shipyard with no track record at all of building ferries of this size”.

If ministers had listened to these high-risk alarm bells CMAL raised, rather than underwriting CMAL’S financial risk so they could sign the contract, the contract could not have been awarded to Ferguson Marine Engineering Limited (FMEL).

The letter from Transport Scotland to Scottish ministers of October 8, 2015 stated that CMAL had addressed risk by “agreeing contractual terms with FMEL which are broadly comparable with the tender specification”.

The Auditor General, Stephen Boyle, has refuted this “broadly comparable” statement.

In his evidence to the Public Audit Committee on April 28, 2022, he stated: “I apologise, as I am at the risk of repeating myself, but we clearly reached the view that the extent of risk and its management through the 25% builder’s refund guarantee and other arrangements are not broadly comparable with a full 100% builder’s refund guarantee”.

The “missing” ministerial paperwork that the Auditor General comments on, regarding how the decision was arrived at by ministers, and what was considered, should record a ministerial challenge to this fundamentally inaccurate “broadly equivalent” misrepresentation.

The only alternative conclusion, if there was no ministerial challenge, is that there was incompetent decision-making at ministerial level.

Richard Richardson,

Glasgow.