Ministers lose up to £25.5m by forging ahead with ferry fiasco vessel

That is £25.5m more expensive than the cost of each of two ferries being built at the Cemre Marin Endustri yard in Turkey which are due to be delivered by October next year and are destined to serve Islay.

Critics say that the development shows there is a "blank cheque" over the completion of the two ferries at Ferguson Marine.

The details emerged as ministers have come under fire for blocking the release of a £620,000 taxpayer funded study that was 'ignored' which found that going ahead with Hull 802 did not pass the value for money test.

Ministers were accused of presiding over an “outrageous mismanagement of public funds” after pressing ahead with the second ferry at the Ferguson shipyard, known only as Hull 802, despite learning it would be cheaper to scrap the vessel and tender for a new one.

Analysis of the money trail based on the Scottish Government's own accounting and audits shows that with the extra millions sanctioned for this financial year, the cost to the taxpayer of supporting Ferguson Marine both before and after it forced its nationalisation has soared to more than £450m.

Scotland's lifeline ferry fiasco features MV Glen Sannox and Hull 802 which are still languishing in the now state-owned Ferguson Marine shipyard, with costs of their construction expected to soar to quadruple the original £97m contract, while their delivery is over five years late.

Wellbeing economy secretary Neil Gray issued a rarely-used ministerial direction to overrule the value for money financial test saying completing the vessel at the nationalised yard was the fastest way of delivering more ferry capacity. That came after eight months of 'due diligence' over the extra funding requested by Ferguson Marine for this financial year.

Mr Gray said that without the ministerial direction that the yard would have been put "in jeopardy".

Sam Bourne, chairman of the Arran Ferry Action Group said the situation shows that there is a blank cheque on the ferries.

READ MORE: Jim McColl: Tycoon condemns SNP ferry fiasco contract 'cover-up'

"These extra costs are the inevitable outcome of a project that has gone wrong from day one. "The decision in 2019 when Ferguson Marine was nationalised to carry on regardless was a bad decision.

"As soon as you go wrong, you own everything. In nationalisation you own everything.

"They say there is no blank cheque but if it costs more to build one from scratch, that is blank cheque. "The real killer of the whole debacle at Ferguson's is you could get five or six vessels in by now if we had scrapped Glen Sannox and Hull 802 in 2019 and started again.

"As for best value for money, they really had not option. There was a missed opportunity to build another boat or two in Turkey.

Another ferry user group official said that while the extra costs were "eyewatering" the Scottish Government had been "boxed into a corner" by previous decisions to ensure that the project was finally complete.

He said there was concern that on current time scales, the Islay vessels may well be up and running before Hull 802, which has a contract backstop of December, 2024.

"I think islanders are fed up with delay delay delay and just want the ferries in service, on the water as soon as possible in the light of disruptions and cancellations.

"What I find baffling is that they conduct such a long due diligence on whether continuing was value for money, when they were only ever going to go ahead and complete it anyway."

The 102.4m Hull 802 is able to carry 127 cars or 16 HGVs compared to the 94.8m Islay vessels' 100 cars or 15 commercial vehicles.

Hull 802 and its sister ship Glen Sannox, were due to be the first UK-built ships capable of running off liquefied natural gas, or LNG, as well as conventional diesel. They were once hailed as a step towards a greener future for Scotland's ferry fleet.

The Islay ferries will be diesel-electric battery hybrid and will mark the first time this technology has been brought to Scotland on large ferries.

The Islay ships were designed partly by German ship design consultants Navalue - whose lead naval architect led on the design of Scotland's biggest publicly-run ferry MV Loch Seaforth, which operates on the Stornoway to Ullapool route.

In March it was confirmed that due to "persistent design gaps and build errors" the first of the two Ferguson Marine vessels, Glen Sannox is scheduled for autumn 2023 rather than the end of May 2023 with a "contract backstop" of no later than the end of December 2023.

Hull 802 is now not expected to set sail till the autumn of 2024 having already been delayed to the end of March 2024. The contract backstop was stated as being at the end of December 2024.

They were originally due to set sail in mid-2018 with one initially to serve Arran and the other to serve the Skye triangle routes to North Uist and Harris, but they are well over five years late. It is suggested the costs of delivery may quadruple compared to the original £97m contract costs.

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

Mr Gray has said that procuring a new vessel to replace Hull 802 would mean it would not be delivered till May, 2027 at the earliest.

The £91m contract to build the two Islay ferries was awarded to Cemre Marin Endustri in Turkey on March 2022, following a competitive tender.

The Turkish yard was chosen after successful bids were also made by Damen Shipyard in Romania, Remontowa Shipbuilding in Poland, and Turkish shipyard Sefine Denizcilik Tersanecilik Turizm.

Ferguson Marine embarked on a bid for the contract through the initial Pre-Qualification Questionnaire process but failed to make the shortlist.

It all comes as Mr Gray said he could not rule out further millions might be needed to complete the two Ferguson Marine vessels due to inflationary pressures.

He has defended the decision to plough on with completing the ferries, despite failing the value for money test, telling MSPs: "The overriding consideration for me was the impact on island communities of not completing [the ferry] at the yard in as fast a process as possible.

"I think colleagues... have acknowledged the fact that actually, it was the right decision to take to ensure that we had Hull 802 completed as quickly as possible because of the impact on the islands. It doesn't take a deep dive or wide assessment to be able to understand because we've been living it in terms of the disruption that there has been for island communities for so long."