Call for review over future of CalMac and CMAL in ferries revolution

The Herald Scotland

30-04-2025

And it is calling for reform of the maritime transport network claiming a simpler structure will improve services and accountability while creating skilled jobs.
There has been concern over the management of ferries being cocooned inside three levels of Scottish Government-controlled bureaucracy.
This features the Scottish Government agency Transport Scotland as funders, CMAL as state-owned ferry and port owner, service providers Calmac. Add to that Ferguson Marine, the shipbuilding company that came under the control of Scottish ministers in August, 2019 when it fell into administration under tycoon Jim McColl's control.
GMB says that the critics claim that the network has "failed to delivery for islanders or taxpayers"
It is understood that ministers have felt there was "merit" in a move to scrap CMAL to be merged into a new national body as part of a revolutionary culture change in the way lifeline services are provided by ferries.
It comes after an overview of a series of consultation meetings produced by the Ferries Community Board - formed as part of CalMac's franchise bid for the Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Services (CHFS) contract to be the voice of the communities - for the Scottish Government. It said that a strong case has been made for including the ferries division of the Transport Scotland agency into a new merged body involving CMAL and CalMac.
It has been suggested that would involve scrapping both Scottish Government-controlled ferry and port owner CMAL and the operator CalMac.
Alex Logan of GMB Scotland (Image: GMB) Now GMB Scotland has told the Scottish Trades Union Congress in Dundee today the expected award of a new ten-year contract to ferry operators Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac) is an opportunity to deliver better services for islanders and secure Scotland's maritime and shipbuilding industries.
The call for change comes amid escalating concern over the age and reliability of the CalMac fleet and ongoing controversy over rising costs and delays to two ferries, the Glen Sannox, which is now in service, and Glen Rosa, which is still to be completed.
GMB Scotland, the biggest union at Ferguson Marine, the publicly-owned yard building the ferries, said the relentless focus on the troubled contracts has become a diversion from wider concerns around the organisations shaping Scotland's lifeline maritime transport links.
Ferguson Marine came under new fire as it emerged that is completing a revised build plan for a second already wildly delayed and over-budget ferry - leading to further concerns over soaring costs.
It comes a year after wellbeing economy secretary Màiri McAllan said nationalised Ferguson Marine considered the latest delays and costs forecasts - which had the ferry ready to use in September - was the "final position" after the firing of chief executive David Tydeman.
Glen Rosa and its sister ship Glen Sannox were both due to be online within first seven months of 2018, to serve Arran.
In the midst of the delays and soaring costs, Ferguson Marine, under the control of tycoon Jim McColl, fell into administration and was nationalised at the end of 2019 with state-owned ferry and port-owning agency Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd and the yard's management blaming each other.
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Alex Logan, the union's convenor at the Port Glasgow shipyard, told delegates Scotland's ferry system should be restructured to protect island communities with Fergusons becoming 'a cornerstone of an industrial strategy to provide Scotland's publicly-owned ferry fleet.'
He said: 'There have been serious mistakes made with Rosa and Sannox but they were not made by the workers.
Ferguson Marine (Image: Newsquest) 'Our yard has been building good ships for more 100 years and, with vision and ambition, we could be building them for 100 more.'
Ferguson Marine failed to win a £175m contract for seven small CalMac ferries awarded to a Polish yard, Remontowa, last month despite the Scots yard building a third of CalMac's current 36-strong fleet.
Mr Logan said: 'In an island nation like Scotland, why is a publicly owned yard not building ships for a publicly owned ferry company?
'Why are ministers in Edinburgh allowing contracts to be sent to Poland when they have a skilled, capable and committed workforce along the M8?
'It is absurd but only the latest example of how our public procurement system works.
'There is no joined up thinking on our ferries as politicians outsource decisions to unaccountable quangos where islanders and workers struggle to be heard.'
GMB is calling for a review to establish if ferry operator CalMac should be merged with CMAL, which owns and commissions ferries and terminals, and take sole charge of the fleet while working closely with Fergusons to commission and deliver small ferries.
Logan, addressing delegates at the Caird Hall in Dundee, on the final day of the STUC Congress, said: 'There is a clear opportunity for Ferguson Marine to serve as a cornerstone of Scotland's manufacturing base and ferry supply chain.
'The workers who have been used as a political football for a decade now deserve that opportunity to be seized.
'It makes sense for our islands, for taxpayers and for the future of shipbuilding in Scotland.'
Delegates unanimously supported the GMB Scotland motion calling on the Scottish Government to make a direct award of the next small ferries to Ferguson Marine; reform procurement rules to ease the commissioning of ships from Scots yards; and review CalMac, CMAL and Transport Scotland to establish if restructuring could improve services for islanders and bolster maritime industries.
The responses to a Scottish Government-commissioned consultants' study into the future of ferries says that from a business perspective many felt that issues over the ferries were leaving many firms "unsustainable".
It calls for a single ferries board to be formed to oversee the function of ferry provision including the role of Transport Scotland.
The Competition and Markets Authority has previously expressed concern about the "potential risks" of state control over the way ferries are operated, run and paid for.
CalMac's £975m eight-year Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Services contract expired in September 2024. It had previously won the contract for six years in 2007 – after ministers were forced to tender for routes to satisfy European competition rules.
It was given a year extension to the contract to allow a decision over the feasibility of a direct award approach to the contract from a financial, operational and legal perspective. The aim was to have the new arrangement in place by October 1 last year, but there has been a delay.