One of the most important questions, in addressing the concerns of the committee and some of the stakeholders who have given evidence to you, as far as I can see, is about the process. How did we get to where we were?
I would like to say a couple of things about that. Mr Stevenson is right to raise the issue, and I respect his experience in managing projects in both the public and private sectors in the past.
It is important to stress that the Scottish ministers were not involved in the evaluation of bids that were submitted to CMAL, because CMAL is the procuring authority. CMAL obviously assessed the tenders that were returned, which included considering evidence of the experience, expertise and financial and physical capacity of the bidders to deliver at the time of the contract award. CMAL’s chief executive, Kevin Hobbs, has given evidence to the inquiry on that issue.
I stress that what is quite important about Ferguson, which we sometimes forget in the context of the recent difficulties, is that, of the 33 vessels that are in use in the network today—admittedly, all of them are pre-2000—11 were fabricated by Ferguson in Port Glasgow. Of the 10 major vessels that are now in the network, five were built by Ferguson.
Although it did not build any ferries for our networks between 2000 and now, MV Hebrides, MV Isle of Arran, MV Isle of Lewis, MV Isle of Mull and MV Lord of the Isles—five of our major vessels—were built by Ferguson. Therefore, it had a track record. As Ms Hyslop said yesterday, the skills of the workforce are well recognised and have never been in doubt. I hope that the committee can take some confidence from that.
As we set out in the written submission, the Scottish Government’s procurement directorate undertook a focused review of CMAL’s procurement process for both vessels in May 2018. Alongside other papers, the findings of the review were published on the Government’s website in 2019. The review concluded that there was no evidence of
“any problems or areas of concern arising from the procurement process”.
As one of the ministers involved, I am comfortable that the procurement exercise was conducted appropriately. As we say in the submission:
“The Scottish Ministers have confidence in CMAL’s competence as a procurement authority and are satisfied that the processes adopted in the procurement of vessels 801 and 802 was robust.”
As I said to other members, I recognise that that is not the perception of the wider community, which is something that we have to address in the review of the tripartite arrangements that I have discussed; we have to make sure that that feeds through to any recommendations about how procurement is managed in future.
I hope that that addresses Mr Stevenson’s question about my confidence in the process. As I understand it, the procurement directorate’s review of the process found that adequate account had been taken of the factors that Mr Stevenson listed—the experience, track record and financial viability of the business—before the contract was awarded.