Tom Gordon: SNP and its critics could all use some humility on ferries

Last week’s Audit Scotland report into the blundering and naivete that led to the deal turning to disaster and the yard being nationalised was bad enough.

But then the Scottish Government’s high-handed response put the cherry on the midden, with Nicola Sturgeon and her finance secretary Kate Forbes somehow making the optics worse by refusing to answer basic questions about which ministers did what and when.

Even if there was nothing untoward, they made themselves look very shifty.

Their line that it was all about saving jobs on the Clyde was also overdone, given the huge amounts of subcontracting and outsourcing involved.

The Government’s bleary short-temper has led to wider questions about competence and character, and whether that unappealing mix of exhaustion and self-importance is all it has left to offer after 15 years. Opposition parties have understandably had a field day.

Yet I do feel a fair bit of some sympathy for those trying to salvage this shambles.

It is mind-bogglingly complicated. Critics will tut and ask how hard it can be to build a boat when boats are built around the world all the time. It’s what shipyards do, after all.

But it has long passed the point of logical, step-by-step construction, at least for the first of the vessels, the MV Glen Sannox, also known as hull 801.

The job is more like unbuilding, fixing and rebuilding a boat that was, according to CMAL, the state-owned firm that ordered it, badly planned from the start.

For instance, the recent find that miles of electrical cabling are too short and now have to be pulled out and replaced.

The lousy start, pre-nationalisation, means work is still being done out of sequence and then reworked in a slow, inefficient and utterly frustrating way.

Bad planning has also led to staff left idle and usable materials being scrapped.

Engines, generators, electrical switchboards and other significant pieces of equipment were installed so long ago they may now turn out to be damaged or decayed when finally started up.

Buried on the Government’s website are the monthly updates Ms Forbes and transport minister Jenny Gilruth receive on the ferries. They are not sunny reading.

One recurring line states: “Advice from CMAL is that progress on 801 remains slow to minimal. There is significant slippage and high level milestones have been missed.”

Commendably direct and barely redacted, the updates also reveal multiple other failings.

Like the abject lack of hard data at the yard making it all but impossible to know if work was proceeding to plan.

“Due to the absence of quantitative metrics and reporting, it is difficult to be certain as to extent of progress,” the August update reported.

Plus a worry about the boats being overweight, affecting “vessel stability”.

After Hull 801 failed a stability test in October, it was found that an “essential” piece of stabilising work was omitted by the yard when it was in private ownership.

In September, CMAL warned poor work on the ferries could permanently impair them. The update said “issues remain with the quality of work undertaken, which may impact on the through-life maintenance of the vessels”.

In October, CMAL estimated “around 150-200km of various electrical cables” had yet to be installed on 801. That’s not a misprint. It really is up to 125 miles.

Another ominous thing in the updates is the return of a problem that bedevilled the project, when Ferguson Marine was in the hands of tycoon Jim McColl.

In those four years, from 2015 to 2019, relations between the yard and CMAL broke down amid disputes over delays, design changes and money. Despite the buyer and the builder now both being state-owned, that tension hasn’t gone.

Throughout the second half of last year, CMAL expressed doubt that the yard could deliver according to its timetable.

A withering assessment in November’s update to ministers said CMAL’s view was that “whilst it would be technically possible for a high performing shipyard to deliver the vessels in line with the current programme, they do not consider this will be possible for Ferguson Marine”.

The following month, the yard handed over clearer data on progress it expected would “mitigate CMAL’s concerns”.

The update warned ministers “the differences of opinion which exist between Ferguson Marine and CMAL as regards deliverability on schedule are now stark... The positions of the businesses appear to be increasingly divergent.”

CMAL highlighted “their lack of confidence” in the most recent delivery dates proposed by the yard, as well as its “ability to deliver within budget”.

This “divergence of views on delivery and the lack of movement on [repairs and concerns] is creating tension”.

It got so bad that a “board-to-board” meeting was held between CMAL and Ferguson’s last month “to improve the working relationship between the parties”.

Ferguson’s chairman reported it was a short but “positive” encounter, and after CMAL had vented its “frustration”, the two sides agreed to align their opinions more.

The arrival of a new CEO at Ferguson’s in February also seems to have helped calm things.

However, given CMAL’s scepticism has proved correct - as it feared, the boats were recently delayed again, with added costs - more unity means Ferguson’s will have to bin its usual misplaced optimism, with the risk that it looks perpetually at fault.

So more potential migraines to come.

Before they next froth about the ferries, perhaps Douglas Ross, Anas Sarwar and Alex Cole-Hamilton should reflect on whether they could tame this demented monster any better than Ms Forbes if they were in her place. I very much doubt it.

And with so much work and so many unknowns ahead, the Government would also be wise to drop its defensive sulk.

There is no pride left in this burach.

But some humility at Holyrood might help Ferguson’s crack on, undistracted, and finish the boats our islands deserve.