Deluded ferry building company

[SnoozingFox]

Seiously, pull the plug on Ferguson Marine and put us all out of our misery. This is the shower who were what - 6 years late delivering the Glen Sannox, which has now been sent for repairs because it's leaking.

And yesterday, they were sad-facing all over the news because CalMac has placed their next order for 7 ferries with a yard in Poland. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqjd8xx8wvlo Why do you think that is, numpties?

How much is it costing to keep this lot employed?

They had someone on Radio Scotland yesterday who said it shouldn't have been put out to tender, and the contract should have been given to the Ferguson shipyard because of their performance delivering the Glen Sannox and Glen Rosa!!

Is this the lot who had presented the same boat a while back as ‘ready’ but the windows were painted on?

I don’t think anyone needs a re-run of the company’s issues and while it’s fully understandable why CalMac have chosen to go elsewhere I can’t help feeling sad for both the Shipbuilders and the fact that we seem intent in removing all industry from the country.

I mean. Nobody wants to see people losing their jobs but these people have proved they cannot DO the job!

Yes it’s sad that the Clyde used to build thousands of ships but they just dint have the skills any more and have proven that. Stop throwing good money after bad.

The ferries been built in Turkey are also late
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crknx1lp80mo.amp
it is sad to see the contract being awarded elsewhere when historically the Clyde has such a strong history of ship building. We need manufacturing to support our economy.

Need to disagree here, I don’t believe for a second that the shipbuilders and engineers in Scotland are not capable of doing their jobs.

There were all sorts of issues in the supply chain, contractual disputes and poor scheduling/planning.

The question of should they be built in Scotland is a deeper one and is essentially whether you believe that organisations should support the societies they operate in or just be focussed on money.

Personally I believe that morally they should.

At any cost?

I really think it was impossible to give the yard these orders given the shambles of the Glen Sannox /Rosa
I don’t think it was the workers fault
I understand they have a good record of building the smaller ships which was what the new contract was for
The problems were with the Scottish government

The problems were with the Scottish government

aren't they always.

The problem with the ferry situation is that it has become almost a strawman argument for anyone who wants to criticise the Scottish government.

Much of the criticism is valid, clearly there were failings at pretty much every level.

But do we really think the UK Government at the time would have done a better job given who was in charge and the errors they made, not only in Brexit/Covid Response but also large scale projects like HS2.

We really need to stop the mudslinging and think about what is best for Scotland to move on from this, how we can learn from it and use our knowledge to help our industry prosper.

We have the capability as a country to support our own workers and help make the shipbuilding industry a success.

Yes it with require government support, yes it would be challenging, yes there are risks, but in no way is it impossible.

Or we could just close another industry and fund Polish companies instead so political points can be scored.

Sometimes the right thing to do isn’t the easy thing.

What does it matter if the UK Government might have fucked it up also? They may well have done.

It's irrelevant however.

The Scottish Government did fuck it up. They're now being held to account. That's not strawmanning criticism of the Scottish Government, that's saying outright 'you're unable to do this properly'. The whole thing has been fucking embarrassing.

It matters because many of the attacks imply that if the Scottish Government didn’t exist (or was led by another party) then the issues wouldn’t have happened, when in reality all the political parties would likely have had the same outcome.

So instead of consistently pointing out the end result to score points we should look at what actually went wrong, not who, so we can help the industry improve in future.

I also think it is a poor argument that we should keep this boat yard open because there has been shipbuilding on the Clyde for centuries and it'd be sad if there wasn't any.

It is always sad when people lose their jobs but if a business has proved it is just not up to it there comes a point when you don't throw any more good money after bad, just to keep a few hundred people employed. That is not a good use of money by anyone's standards. Far better to take the millions that they are poutring into a yard which cannot get any work and use that to train, retrain, coach employees or whatever, or give them loans to start small businesses or similar.

See also: Prestwick airport.

Ferguson Marine are an executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government. So the Scottish Government fucked this up.

The Scottish Parliament's own Rural Economy and Connectivity report branded the ehole situation a "catastrophic failure" of management. So the Scottish Government fucked this up.

Audit Scotland reported that they found 'insufficient evidence to explain why Scottish Ministers made the decision to award the contract to Ferguson Marine'. So the Scottish Government fucked this up.

The Scottish Government were even reported to Police Scotland for criminal misconduct around the whole situation.

Money (including loans) cannot be accounted for.

'Lessons will be learned' but the Scottish Government will not hold a public inquiry.

I mean, it goes on and on....

At what point does the Scottish Government say 'right lads. We've fucked this up. Maybe we've not got a clue about how to do this'

I see it more as a symbol of the total incompetence of the Scottish government
They could not organise the proverbial ménage (showing my age )
And the argument that’the UK government wouldn’t have done any better’ is so weak and tired

I see it as the Scottish government wanted Scottishy ferries and wanted to claim the plaudits of ‘saving’ shipbuilding on the Clyde, so made sure the contract went to fergusson marine whether or not they were capable of delivering.

Then the Scottish government wanted them to use green fuel which has made them extra expensive and hasn’t worked. Then there was that ludicrous photo shoot.

SNP incompetence through and through. The cost of saving each fergusson marine job has been estimated at 1/3rd of a million pounds. If that’s not hosing money up the wall for an Indy cause I don’t know what is!

The sad, mouldering, never used DRS units in the car park of every Aldi near me, built on the whims of the Scottish Greens to have a Scottishy recycling scheme, are another testament to the litany of failures by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish government haven’t the wit to think any policy through.

Oh you want a DRS? Discuss with UK government AT THE OUTSET, not at the last minute.

Rent freeze? Check out how that’s worked out elsewhere.

Banning permanent exclusion? Oh look we have sky high violence in classrooms and sky high school refusals.

Want to bring in a Scottishy child payment? Guess what? You can’t balance a budget.

Cuts to council budgets? Councils are near going under.

Refuse to properly fund unis? Leads to redundancies.

Give everyone a GRC. Traumatised sexual assault survivors not wanting to share changing rooms with blokes.

All they had to do was to think through the consequences of their actions!

For those who say it should be given to Ferguson to support Scottish Industry. The £400 million extra could have been spent reducing the NHS waiting list and saving lives, not just jobs.

Is THAT what they are? I wondered! We had thought they were temporary storage things for christmas or something, you know like some companies like Marks park a refrigerated lorry outside to hold all the turkeys?

I never realised it was for Loony Lorna's recycling fiasco scheme. Agree, another utter waste of money.

Sorting out supply chain issues, and scheduling are part and parcel of any big project.

So you believe the Scottish Government should give contracts to Ferguson rather than support all the island communities struggling with ineffective unreliable transport links resulting in huge negative impact to their economies and in job loses? That money should be spent on jobs for a few in Ferguson rather than NHS treatment hundreds of thousands of Scot’s are waiting years for? That the principle of good financial management should be ignored for political gain in specific communities?

I also think that every single one of us could think of better ways to use £400 million.

Yup. It'll be 2028 until they're used at the earliest

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/news/aldi-to-install-40-reverse-vending-machines-across-scotland-stores/645409.article

https://dailybusinessgroup.co.uk/2024/03/call-to-revive-stalled-deposit-return-scheme/

Although I can quite see that Ferguson probably did get an oversized shares of the blame compared to Scot gov. On the whole, I’m hoping that new opportunities with better run companies and better governance and contracts take over. Surely the geopolitical fragmentation has made us realise that we do need to retain some capabilities - we’ve dropped the ball on some of the stuff we’re utterly dependent on the US for.

www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/john-swinney-snp-accused-corruption-34898844