The Scotsman Bulletin Thursday April 4 2024
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00:00 [Music]
00:06 Hello, welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Bulletin for Thursday. I'm Alan Young, I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman.
00:13 I'm joined today by our transport correspondent, Alistair Dalton. Hi Alistair.
00:18 Morning Alan, from the Clyde in Glasgow.
00:21 And we will find out why you are there in a minute by looking at the front page, I think.
00:28 And we splash on Alistair's story today and that's the latest twist in Scotland's ferry saga yesterday
00:37 with the removal of CalMac Chief Executive Robbie Drummond.
00:42 That comes just over a week after the head of Ferguson Marine was sacked.
00:51 It's all happening on the ferries, we'll speak to Alistair about that in just a minute
00:57 but I'd like to highlight at the top of the page, Brian Ferguson's done a big package today around the Edinburgh fringe.
01:05 Looks like this year's fringe will be one of the biggest ever, despite all the chat about cutbacks
01:14 and we also have an exclusive there on Brian Cox launching a fundraising drive for the fringe in the US.
01:24 But Alistair, the big story of the day yesterday was the news from CalMac
01:30 and it's fair to say it came as a huge surprise.
01:34 Yes, totally. As you mentioned, just over a week since the Chief Executive of Ferguson Marine,
01:40 the Scottish Government-owned shipyard that is responsible for hugely late and over-budget ferries,
01:49 albeit by previous managements, but the current Chief Executive was fired totally unexpected.
01:55 This is possibly even a bigger shock that Robbie Drummond, the Chief Executive of CalMac,
02:01 which is also owned by the Scottish Government, was removed.
02:05 Now, there's a couple of strange things about this.
02:09 First of all, there hasn't been any immediate crisis at CalMac that could have triggered this.
02:16 This isn't a ferry that suddenly broke down and will be out for months,
02:20 leaving islanders without a link to the mainland.
02:24 And secondly, the weird way in which it was announced that the CalMac board met 25 miles down the river in Gourock
02:36 and issued a statement saying he was stepping down.
02:40 Quite a cryptic messaging about challenging ahead, but no information about what he had done wrong.
02:48 And then just a couple of hours later, a letter from the Transport Secretary, Fiona Hyslop,
02:55 to the Holyrood Committee, which scrutinises ferries.
03:00 To make it much clearer, she said he had been removed with immediate effect.
03:07 Indeed. So I know you've spent a lot of time just trying to get to the bottom of what on earth is going on here.
03:18 And there are suggestions anyway today that this is an example of Scottish Government patients just running out over the ferry saga.
03:31 Yes. It appears to stem back to the Cabinet reshuffle a couple of months ago with Humza Yousaf,
03:39 now talking about the need for delivery.
03:42 The Scottish Government has befallen a whole series of negative reactions to some of its policies,
03:50 like the deposit return scheme, gender recognition, and most latterly, the hate crime legislation.
03:59 And I think the message seems to have percolated down to the boards of these nationalised industries
04:09 that action must be taken, there must be delivery, and politicians want to be seen to be doing something.
04:16 And whether it was entirely a decision for these boards or whether they were being lent on by ministers,
04:22 we're not quite clear, but it's led to these two people responsible for these two companies leaving.
04:32 Somebody said on Twitter, "We're running out of fall guys."
04:37 Indeed, there's been a lot of reaction, both from opposition politicians and some of the ferry groups that you speak to,
04:47 who point out that Mr Drummond in particular is being made somehow a scapegoat for the wider problems.
04:57 Yes. Robbie Drummond has spent a lot of time over the last year visiting islands to try and explain the difficulties that CalMac has,
05:07 and many of them are saying that he's not part of the problem, he's just the guy who's having to...
05:15 He's responsible for this really tricky balancing act of a ferry operator which doesn't order its own ferries,
05:24 it has to use what it's given. It has an ageing fleet with particularly big vessels way past their sell-by date,
05:34 and so problems are going wrong, such as the main Arran Ferry Caledonian Isles is out for months and months
05:41 until at least June with steelworker repairs that are thought to be because it was never supposed to be in service for 31 years,
05:51 which it has. So you've got increasing unreliability, and you've also got this previous hiatus in the delivery of new ferries.
05:59 The two ferries at Ferguson Marine, Glen Sonnex and Glen Rosa, are six and seven years late, they're four times over budget.
06:09 Glen Sonnex we still don't know when exactly it will be in service, it should be later in the autumn,
06:17 but with the change of chief executive there's going to be yet another update in a couple of weeks, that could be pushed back.
06:25 CalMac aren't even scheduling the ferry into its winter timetable, let alone this summer.
06:32 So Robbie Drummond is in a very, very difficult situation, and it's difficult to see immediately how his replacement will make anything different.
06:44 Indeed, there's much more to come I'm sure. Thanks very much for that Alistair.
06:49 Please keep an eye on scotsman.com throughout the day where we'll have all the very latest news and analysis.
06:56 If you can, please do subscribe so you do not miss a thing, and if you're out and about today, please do also pick up a copy of the paper from me and from Alistair.
07:05 Bye for now.
07:06 [Music]