Your report ("Talks fail to avert CalMac strike", June 22) is disappointing but sadly predictable.
The earlier news that the Scottish Government offered CalMac Ferries Ltd and Serco Caledonian Ferries Ltd access to data to help the companies form their bids to run the Clyde and Hebrides ferry services may be have been good news for the companies concerned but, with premature strikes in the offing for one of the busiest weekends of the year, it is no cause for celebration in the communities dependent on those same "lifeline" services.
The Transport and Islands Minister, Derek Mackay reportedly said: "The award of this contract will be an incredibly important moment for the island communities served by these lifeline ferry services" but he omitted to emphasise that the winning bidder will be required to use the existing vessels (and some ports) provided and owned by Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd (CMAL) which is effectively a Government arms length agency.
This disguises the inadequacies of the ageing and increasingly failing fleet which has insufficient spare capacity to cover for contractual annual refits and breakdowns which are a major contributor to the increasing unreliability of the service.
The rate of procurement for suitable replacement vessels appears to be woefully inadequate and is unlikely to meet the need. The present vessel replacement rate, which is well short of that during previous administrations, will result in a rapid decline in service in the next few years. The introduction of Road Equivalent Tariff (RET) has compounded this with greatly increased demand and expectation and will almost certainly put unbearable pressure on the already inadequate system.
With all of that, one might wonder why the bidding companies would wish to proceed. Unsurprisingly it seems that the funding on offer from the Scottish Government is sufficient to attract their interest. With the state of CMAL assets at their disposal and the bidder's contractual obligation to use them, it is hard to see how a reliable service to meet both contract requirements and travellers needs can be achieved.
The re-tendering process may be sensible and necessary but changing the operator alone will not deliver anything like the "very best deal for all of the communities of the Clyde and Hebrides" that Mr McKay has promised and an unacceptable increase in the lack of reliability, the biggest cause of concern amongst ferry users, will surely follow.
At the centre of this failure is the contrived "business" model used by the Scottish Government and which is managed (or mismanaged) through the arms length bodies of Transport Scotland and CMAL, which try to make this look like a credible commercial structure with an implied presumption that the necessary usual checks and balances are in place. That is not the case and, without immediate attention to the inefficiencies of the present structure and the inadequacies of the fleet (and ports), it will not matter who the service operator is. The ultimate responsibility for a radical rethink about ferries and the conditions of the employees remains with the Scottish Government yet all it is doing is rearranging the deck chairs.
Neil Arthur, Broombrae,
Kilpatrick, Isle of Arran.
Should it not be for the Scottish Government to settle this by stating the terms of employment that bidders for the new contract, whether CalMac or Serco, will be required to comply with?
Charles Barrington,
Newton, Ardvasar,
Isle of Skye.
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