By BRIAN WILSON
The Ferguson shipyard debacle is a terrible tale of political opportunism, spendthrift use of public money, mind-boggling incompetence and shameless blame-shifting.
In all respects, it is a useful metaphor for the Scottish Government. The most immediate victims are communities which now find their lifeline ferry services in unprecedented disarray with absolutely no sign of relief.
The stock Sturgeon defence in these situations is that they acted with best intentions and it’s someone else’s fault things have gone wrong. It won’t wash.
Governments of all hues helped keep the Ferguson yard afloat for decades. It was done quietly and judiciously. In the past, there was no reckless disregard for reality in return for a pre-election photo opportunity, by rushing through a public sector order which the yard was incapable of fulfilling.
In a world of big numbers, £300 million for two medium-size ferries may not be enough to shock. But remember, two thirds of that money could have gone on relieving poverty, shoring up council services or any other useful cause you can think of. Instead, it has been squandered on a doomed stunt.
Even claims about saving jobs need scrutiny. The same number could have been protected at a fraction of the current cost. But how many are even local? In his “valedictory report”, the turnaround director, Tim Hair, made clear that without eastern European workers returning after Christmas, the job could not be completed. I wonder how that’s going?
When the final bill is submitted, Mr Hair’s services will have cost Scottish taxpayers around £2 million over a 30 month period. He was appointed on the basis of a phone conversation with two civil servants. This week he returned with a final curtain-bow – one hopes at no additional expense.
In a supplementary report to Holyrood, Mr Hair revealed this week that there is a huge issue with cables on Hull 801 (aka Glen Sannox) which will further delay its completion with knock-on effects for Hull 802 (destined for the Uig-Lochmaddy-Tarbert routes), both already five years late.
Space and expertise prevent me from elaborating on the cable issue (details are on the Holyrood web-site) but it is clearly no minor matter – just like the recent revelation that they are still arguing about appending “ducktails” to the vessels. But why has Mr Hair only reported on it now?
When the cables issue was raised at First Minister’s Questions, Ms Sturgeon adopted her “it wisnae us” defence, claiming the offending cables were installed pre-nationalisation. That still leaves two and a half years for the issue to be discovered. It also begs the question of who was overseeing construction on behalf of the client, Caledonian MacBrayne Assets Limited?
Astonishingly, the chairman of that accident-prone body, Erik Østergaard, who very occasionally flies in from Copenhagen, has now been levered into the same position at Caledonian MacBrayne. It does seem unfortunate that our great seafaring nation cannot find anyone in Scotland (far less the affected areas) to occupy these positions. But then the function of hand-picked SNP quangoteers is to serve the government, not the people.
As the millions are splashed around at a rate which would embarrass drunken sailors, it is no surprise to find that Ernst and Young were hired to advise on the future governance of ferry services which currently falls into the deadly triangle of CalMac, CMAL and Transport Scotland.
However, Ms Sturgeon has pre-empted their report by ruling out even discussion of key options which they were asked to report on – and to which islanders are now much more open because of what has been visited upon them. Which begs the question, why were Ernst and Young hired in the first place?
It is ritual to call for public inquiries into each fiasco that unfolds. However that demand must be made in this case. The least we are entitled to in return for our £300 million and the devastation of island transport links is an independent explanation of how on earth this utter shambles has been allowed to happen.
SCOTLAND TOO NEEDS A WATCHDOG ON DODGY STATISTICS
There’s a fine Radio Four programme called ‘More or Less’ which dissects dodgy statistics, some of them political. It’s the kind of thing Scottish broadcasting could usefully do but never does.
This week, ‘More or Less’ took Boris Johnson to task for two oft-repeated claims. First, the one about there being more people in the workforce than pre-pandemic. Only if you don’t count the lost army of self-employed, the statisticians concluded.
Then we had the one about crime falling by 14 per cent. Only if you don’t count fraud as a crime, said the statisticians. Include it and crime has risen by 14 per cent. And why wouldn’t you include booming 21st century fraud, other than to grossly mislead?
In the entirely unlikely event of BBC Radio Scotland creating a similar programme, there would be no shortage of material. The current favourite is to claim repeatedly the UK Government has cut Holyrood’s budget by 5.1 per cent. (Precision always helps lend spurious credibility).
‘More or Less’ would give that one short shrift. The comparison used by SNP Ministers includes all the emergency spending related to Covid which has obviously reduced for 2022-23 though could be repeated if the same emergency needs arose. In other words, an entirely misleading comparison.
The cruel point is that the bogus 5.1 figure is used mainly to justify the treatment of Scottish local government, the cuts to which have been a long-term process over 14 years. A Scottish ‘More or Less’ could expose that one also. But let’s have another phone-in instead.
The ferry construction shambles is indeed a shambles. Conceived and implemented with the very best of intentions to retain the ship building capacity of the lower Clyde whilst supporting jobs and the economy.
Sadly, the best of intentions did not deliver with the best of results. Anecdotal reports suggest that Fergusson Shipyard was a basket case, with many commentators now suggesting that it should have been allowed to go bust. And maybe that is what the government in line with Tory ideology should have done – let it go bust. Who needs shipbuilding capacity, engineering capacity, when you can have retail shopping and fast food outlets.
The same line of right wing argument of course exists with regard to Prestwick Airport. Why should the government support it. That it supports hundreds of high quality jet aeroplane maintenance jobs, the logic is the very same. Who needs engineering when you can have eating out joints instead.
So yes between Fergusson Shipyard which went bust, the client CMAL and the Government who supported the yard the result was not good. But at least it kept the yard in business, kept people in jobs, and contributed their wages to the local economy.
Or would it have been better just to have let the yard go, the jobs and the engineering go, with thereafter the workforce going on the dole and or job creation schemes. Maybe Scotland doesn’t need shipbuilding or engineering capacity.
So easy to snipe now and maybe with some justification. But I know what I would have chosen back then and I know what I would do again today when I would redouble my effort to turn our engineering capacity round.
Or like all of the huge jackets being built for the enormous SeaGreen offshore wind farm project of the coast of Angus, would we just have the 114 jacket structures on the £3bn project built in yards in Dubai and China to be towed half way around the globe whilst our yards all shut down.
Who needs Scottish jobs?