MOVES are being made to make a special order to allow public spending auditors to carry out a fuller investigation into the soaring costs of Scotland's ferry fiasco.

It has been confirmed that Scottish Government officials have been asked to consider and advise on making the move.

Audit Scotland has confirmed it has been hampered in their attempts to establish how pre-nationalisation Ferguson Marine Engineering Limited (FMEL) spent over £128.25m in public money in relation to the building of two long-delayed lifeline ferries.

Former FMEL owner, tycoon Jim McColl has supported moves for the order saying that there should be a deeper dive into what caused the costs to escalate.

Mr McColl, one of Scotland's wealthiest men says the public spending auditor should not just look at where the money went, but also properly investigate why the costs went up.

The two lifeline ferries for Scottish Government-owned CalMac were ordered in 2015 when Ferguson Marine was owned by Mr McColl, a then pro-independence businessman who rescued the Inverclyde shipyard firm from administration a year earlier.

The Herald:

When Mr McColl's FMEL entered administration in August 2019, it had received £83.25m in milestone payments from the government-owned ferry owning and procurement agency Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd (CMAL) and £45 million in loan payments from the Scottish Government - yet the vessels were largely incomplete.

Delivery is now over six years late with costs expected to quadruple compared to the original £97m contract costs.

But Audit Scotland has said there were legal issues getting in the way of their attempts to properly scrutinise what happened at FMEL.

That is because they do not believe they have the statutory powers to undertake a forensic analysis of Ferguson Marine's records as it is not a specified body subject to scrutiny under the Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Act 2000.

The public spending regulator has said that ministers would have to make a special order to make FMEL a body subject to scrutiny under the Act.

The Scottish Parliament's Public Audit Committee submitted a request that the order be made by well-being economy secretary Neil Gray.

The Herald: SNP MSP Neil Gray praised the work of

It has emerged that Mr Gray has asked officials to "consider and advise" on making a "competent order" to specify FMEL as a body on which Audit Scotland could initiate an examination under the Act.

A ferry user group official said that a full probe into the ferry crisis by someone independent of government was "most definitely in the public interest".

"The whole mess surrounding these ferries has been examined in fits and starts and has been smothered in political agendas which has often detracted from the seriousness of what has been happening," he said. "What is needed is a root and branch examination, independent of political agendas, that looks into everything."

Last week, a lawyer-led probe into claims that the deal to give the ferry contract to FMEL was rigged found no evidence of fraud.

KC Barry Smith was appointed in the wake of a series of concerns over the process behind why the Port Glasgow shipyard was awarded the contract to build the vessels.

While finding no evidence of fraud, he said there were a series of "missteps" in the tender process.

Included in the proposed scrutiny of the Auditor General Stephen Boyle would be the £83.25m of the £97m contract that was paid to Ferguson Marine by CMAL as milestone payments for the completion of the project - despite the fact they were largely incomplete.

Also included in the review is how two loans worth £45m that was given to the yard was spent.

The public spending watchdog said that while consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers was providing the Scottish Government with reports on FMEL spending, they did not go into detail on where the money went, so were "unable" to trace exactly how that money was spent and what progress was made on the vessels as a result.

Audit Scotland previously found that ministers went ahead with the contract despite the concerns raised by CMAL over the lack of financial guarantees that placed them at risk.

When the build ran into trouble, the shipyard firm fell into insolvency and was nationalised with the Scottish Government in control and with Mr McColl and CMAL blaming each other for the fiasco.

In an initial investigation into what happened before nationalisation, Mr  Boyle said that records relation to transactions were "not organised or categorised".

It emerged in December that David Tydeman, chief executive of the now nationalised Ferguson Marine (Port Glasgow) had stated they have not sought to evaulate old files because they "do not add value to the planning or budgeting work still needed to complete the vessels".

The Public Audit Committee had written to ask him to account for the £240m that they said at that time had been spent on the two ferries.

Of this, £128.25m was paid to pre-nationalisation FMEL.