SCOTTISH government officials say there was “nothing choreographed” about the release of a key document which pinned the blame for the signing off of Scotland's ferry fiasco contract on transport minister Derek Mackay.
Concerns over who finally made the decision to sanction the disastrous contract in October, 2015 have continued to emerge at the Scottish Parliament's public audit committee, where there remains fears that there has not been full disclosure over how the contract was awarded without a mandatory full builder's refund guarantee.
Transport minister Jenny Gilruth was previously accused of treating the Scottish Parliament with 'contempt' after claiming to have found a 'missing' email that showed that the ferry fiasco contract was believed to have been finally approved by Mr Mackay.
The crucial document covering emails from October 8 and 9, 2015 was discovered on the day of a Scottish Conservatives - instigated debate on the calamitous deal which has seen two lifeline vessels still not delivered, running over five years late.
Ms Gilruth told the Scottish Parliament before the debate: "I hold in my hand that irrefutable documentary evidence that this decision was made rightly and properly by the then transport minister Derek Mackay."
The revelations came after Audit Scotland found ministers went ahead with granting the contract in October, 2015, despite the concerns raised by the Government’s ferry procurement body, Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL) over the lack of financial guarantees that placed them at risk.
Auditor General Stephen Boyle raised concerns about 'missing evidence' over why ministers took on the financial risk of proceeding with awarding the controversial £97m order to Ferguson Marine without mandatory refund guarantees from the shipbuilder.
The lifeline ferries the Glen Sannox and Hull 802 are due to be delivered next year, and will cost at least two-and-a-half times more than originally stated at at least £250 million.
The ships are still being worked on at the Ferguson Marine shipyard which was nationalised by the Scottish Government after falling into administration in August, 2019.
But on Fran Pacitti, Transport Scotland's director of aviation, maritime, freight and canals, said there was no collusion and nothing untoward with regard to the timing of the release.
She said: "I was not asked or instructed by anyone to continue to look for the document but accepting the interest there is in it and understanding it obligations to be as transparent as we can, we did a further search in advance of preparation this committee.
"This time, [we engaged] with IT colleagues. There is some new software which allows forensic searches and analysis that's not typically done because of the resource intensity of it. And that identified the submission or of October 9, which which you have."
When asked by the Scottish Parliament's public audit committee convener Richard Leonard about the timing of the release, she went on: "There was nothing choreographed around that. As soon as we found it we alerted the minister to it and put it in the public domain at the earliest opportunity."
Mr Leonard retorted: "Okay, I'm sure people will draw their own conclusions from that."
But further documents showed that Mr Mackay's approval had been discussed with the deputy first minister John Swinney first, while there was a request to ensure there were no "banana skins" before the award was finally made.
An email on October 9, 2015 from the ferries division of the Scottish Government to Gordon Wales, the Scottish Government director of financial management and director of procurement and property Ainslie McLaughlin stated that Mr Mackay's sanction would be passed on CMAL "this afternoon" with a view to them signing a contract with [Ferguson Marine] asap.
But three minutes later, Mr Wales in an email copied to Transport Scotland asked if it "might be sensible" to wait until Mr Mackay and Mr Swinney had spoken "to ensure there are no financial/procurement issues that he might want further reassurance on".
The first ship was meant to enter service on the Arran route in the summer of 2018 but is not expected to be ready until next year at the earliest - five years late. Hull 802, destined for an Outer Hebrides route, has gone the same way.
It has been suggested that the transparency failure was a breach of the Public Finance and Accountability Act and the affair has been reported to Police Scotland.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel