Debate on West Coast Ferry Disruption and Replacement
Background
The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) is the largest trade union in the Scottish ferries industry. Our members are employed on the fleet of 40 CMAL owned vessels and in the harbours that provide the Clyde and Hebrides and Northern Isles ferry services under public contract with Transport Scotland, and on Orkney Ferries inter-island fleet of ageing ships.
RMT organise 900 seafarers and shore side staff who work to deliver public ferry contracts in Scotland. We also organise seafarer Ratings on services operated between Cairnryan and Belfast by the private operator Stena Line.
The Scottish Conservatives have secured cross-party for motion S6M-135051 which will be debated in the Scottish Parliament on Thursday 20th June.
Key Points
The motion ignores the role of staff in delivering lifeline ferry services in the west of Scotland which have been compromised by the procurement failures of the Scottish Government.
The loss of services, resilience and reliability of the ferry services to Arran and across the CHFS network, not the RMT members or the public sector operator who are working harder and harder to provide lifeline services in these difficult circumstances.
Transport Scotland must improve the process for agreeing crewing levels and cabin space between CalMac and the trade unions, particularly on the Glen Sannox and the long term position of Ardrossan on the network must be secured by bringing the harbour into public ownership.
Using the 12-month extension to CalMac’s current contract to make a legally compliant long term direct award of the CHFS3 contract to the public sector, in line with RMT’s People’s CalMac campaign would better meet the needs of island communities across the CHFS network.
Every lost service is a failure. RMT support reforms that would improve communication with passengers but the uncertainty, threat to jobs and excess cost that comes from regular tendering of public ferry contracts must be ended.
1 https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/votes-and-motions/S6M-13505
June 2024
RMT support pro-worker and pro-passenger reforms to the governance of the next CHFS contracts and any enhancements to the 12-month extension must be agreed with the trade unions.
Procurement and performance – protecting the public sector
RMT continue to remind MSPs that it is the failure of procurement contracts with Ferguson Marine and for the Ardrossan Harbour Upgrade that is responsible for the declining reliability and resilience of CalMac services that our members operate for island communities, businesses and visitors to communities on Arran and across the Clyde and Hebrides network.
The motion is right to point out that there are serious problems on the Arran routes from Ardrossan and with the owner of Ardrossan Harbour, Peel Ports. Indeed, MSPs need to ensure that the Transport Secretary provides an update on the revised business case for the Ardrossan Harbour Upgrade before the summer recess, which goes beyond the maintenance issue noted in the motion.
The Motion, however, says nothing about how helpful passengers find information from CalMac staff or of the unacceptable levels of abuse and even assaults on our members when sailings are lost or services are affected in a way that frustrates passengers. In fact, the CalMac workforce is not deemed worthy of comment at all.
RMT is strongly sympathetic to anyone affected by a cancelled sailing. We know from the public meetings that the union has organised earlier this year on Mull and in Oban that passengers and communities are frustrated by CalMac’s performance but most people do not want privatisation which is an inevitable threat under competitive tendering.
The swift and successful emergency response of crew on the IsleofArranearlier this month in rescuing a passenger who had gone overboard underscored the professionalism and high safety standards in the public sector.
By contrast, the recent Maritime Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) report2 into the grounding of the MVAlfredoff Swona Island in the Orkneys by private operator Pentland Ferries raises serious concerns over basic safety management systems in the private sector. The MAIB report records all manner of alarming safety failures when the Alfredhit rocks at a speed of thirteen knots which led to forty-one passengers and crew sustaining injuries, ten of which were serious.
Pentland Ferries failures included:
The Master falling asleep at the wheel when working alone on the bridge.
No fatigue management plan in place.
Shortcomings in passenger safety provision, including lifejackets for infants.
Failure to safely secure freight and vehicles on the car deck.
Deviation from passage plan.
2 MAIB Report published 22 May 2024.
2
Private sector corrosion of the public service principle in lifeline ferry services is not restricted to Pentland Ferries, unfortunately. Ardrossan is the only privately owned harbour on the Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Services contract. Peel Ports has made huge profits out of Margaret Thatcher’s privatisation of Ardrossan harbour. Regular dividend payments are made to the parent company Peel Ports Group, which paid out a mammoth £138.9m dividend to private shareholders in 2022-23, including over £22m to owner and tax exile John Whittaker.
CalMac has also paid Peel over £15m in harbour access fees in recent years, when the condition of the Irish Berth declined to the point of being condemned and the failure to agree upgrade work for LNG re-fuelling capacity for the Glen Sannox and now the Glen Rosa from Ardrossan have contributed to delay and overspend on the Ferguson Marine contract.
This corporate greed comes at a time when passengers and ferry staff on the Ardrossan to Brodick route have spent years coping with declining reliability and resilience in their ferry services which has seen the summer 2024 service from Ardossan to Campbeltown cancelled completely.
On top of this, the controversial decision to time charter the MVAlfredfrom Pentland Ferries was further disrupted when a survey of the Irish Berth at Ardrossan resulted in immediate closure in April and an earlier than anticipated transfer of the service to Troon, where foot passengers need a shuttle bus service from Troon train station.
Regrettably, the Scottish Government’s 2024-25 budget cut spending on vessels and infrastructure by 33%. This fund should be restored if the Islands Connectivity Plan for Vessels and Ports to 2045 is going to proceed on a sound basis and not fall victim to the costly and damaging delays seen in the Ferguson Marine contract and the Ardrossan Harbour Upgrade.
RMT also supports public ownership of Ardossan harbour which would be the most effective way of guaranteeing that multi-modal public transport services and new ferries to Arran are returned from Troon, for the long term.
The Scottish Conservatives fought the 2021 Scottish Parliamentary election on a manifesto commitment to ‘scrap CMAL.’ That was clearly a call for privatisation of the vessels and the harbours that the Scottish public own through CMAL, on the CHFS and the Northern Isles contracts. Privatisation of vehicles and infrastructure was a feature of the disastrous bus and rail privatisations of the 1980s and 1990s. Privatisation of CMAL or the CHFS contract, for that matter, would be an utter disaster for passengers, communities and employment and training on public ferry services in Scotland.
Instead, the governance reforms of the CHFS contract need to be brought forward, to enshrine these new arrangements alongside a long-term direct award of the CHFS3 contract to the public sector operator, CalMac Ferries, as supported by the RMT’s People’s CalMac campaign.
Resilience and the role of staff
3
RMT organise over 800 CalMac staff. Our members are the Deck, Engine, Catering, Onboard service and port staff who invariably face the consequences of cancelled or lost sailings.
RMT has consistently advised CalMac that they need to improve training for staff and the wider communication strategy when services fail due to wider procurement issues beyond the control of staff. The majority of CalMac staff live in the communities that they serve. They are aware more than anyone of the problems that have beset the CHFS network as a result of the time and cost overrun of the Ferguson Marine contract and associated failures such as the employer’s apparent unwillingness to correct a communication strategy that leaves both passengers and their own staff to make do and mend.
The contract is currently nearly six years late and, conservatively, at least £203m over budget. The Glen Sannox is due to be delivered at the end of July but the employer has failed to reach agreement with the unions over crewing levels, to date.
The knock-on effect that this procurement failure has had on CalMac’s vessel maintenance budget which reached a record £36.5m3 in 2022-23. This is predictable but none the less concerning, particularly for passengers, communities and staff fearful over the future of their ferry services and jobs but it also represents investment in the delivery of lifeline services, which the private sector would never accept the burden of.
Elsewhere on the network, the condition of the 39-year old MV Hebridean Isles is cause for concern on the Kennacraig to Islay route. The delivery of the MV Isle of Islay and MV Loch Indaal from Turkey is on schedule but they are not due until late 2024 and early 2025, respectively. And, once again, CalMac is dodging agreement with the trade unions over crewing levels, especially in the potential revenue earning retail and catering grades.
RMT seek support from MSPs in demanding that the crewing levels for the Glen Sannox, Glen Rosa, Isle of Islay and Loch Indaal, are agreed with the CalMac unions at the earliest stage possible. It is deeply frustrating for our members to face uncertainty over the future of their jobs as the date approaches for the Glen Sannox to finally enter service on the service to Arran.
This is an opportunity to demand that CalMac and CMAL sort out crewing levels and cabin space in dialogue with trade unions at the design stage or certainly well in advance of vessels entering service. Approval of minimum safe crewing levels from the regulator, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency also needs to be built into that timeline and process.
CalMac communities
Prior to the pandemic, in 2018-19 when the Glen Sannox should have been delivered on Ardossan-Brodick and the Glen Rosa on the Uig Triangle, 636 scheduled sailings were lost, representing 0.4% of the 148,637 sailings that were scheduled for that year. Clearly, the number of lost sailings has leapt since then but this merely serves
3 https://www.calmac.co.uk/article/10052/CalMac-accounts-show-record-maintenance-spend-and-reliability-improvements
4
to illustrate the scale of the procurement failure, not the failure of the public sector operator.
Recently, the RMT has had useful and productive discussions with the Chair of the CalMac Ferries Communities Board, Angus Campbell and with other ferry user groups, including Joe Reade, Chair of the Mull and Iona Ferry Committee.
RMT advise MSPs that the overwhelming message from these meetings with passenger groups and, most importantly, from our CalMac members is that ferry services in the west of Scotland should not be treated like a political football and what is needed, is a sensible consensus over how we build a public sector ferry company that is fit from the future and free from the threat of privatisation.
Yet the motion for debate does not even acknowledge the role of CalMac staff covered by collective bargaining agreements with RMT and other unions in continuing to operate these services in such difficult circumstances which, we repeat, are the direct result of the Scottish Government’s vessel and infrastructure procurement failures.
The reduction to a two ship service between Ardrossan and Brodick and then from Troon to Brodick for an unknown period puts massive strain on RMT members operating the 41 year old Isle of Arran during the peak tourist season and on the catamaran MV Alfred which is on an expensive time charter from Pentland Ferries.
There is also no doubt that these problems that will see reduced carrying capacity on these key CHFS routes but it is misleading to quote the 2022 passenger figures for Ardrossan-Brodick, when RMT members were instrumental in moving 724,706 passenger in 2023 – a 4.6% increase on the figure the Scottish Conservatives use in their motion. Again, it is disappointing that the role of CalMac staff and of the public sector operator itself is downplayed by the Scottish Conservatives.
Between 2013-14 and 2022-23, our members at CalMac moved over 47.3m passengers, nearly 13 million cars and over 900,000 commercial freight vehicles on the CHFS network. This has delivered fares revenue of £664.7m, subject to the fares subsidy, Road Equivalent Tariff, available to passengers on most CHFS routes and which Transport Scotland estimates4 to cost £25m per year.
The 8.7% increase in fares in March will recoup some of that subsidy but it is also worth pointing out that £31m has been clawed back from CalMac by the Scottish Government and profits of nearly £8m have been returned to the Scottish Government in a period which included the economic and social trauma of the pandemic. The Scottish Government also received £22.8m from the sale of David MacBrayne’s stake in the Ministry of Defence contract for Solent Gateway in Southampton.
We are also concerned at the Scottish Government’s delayed production of community needs assessments on CHFS routes. The assessment of the needs of communities in Cowal and Rosneath were the first stage. A written answer to Alex
4 https://www.transport.gov.scot/publication/evaluation-of-road-equivalent-tariff-on-the-clyde-and-hebridean-network/7-howmuch-has-ret-cost-the-government
5
Rowley MSP revealed last month5 that the report is on the minister’s desk awaiting publication.
The methodology for community needs assessment was changed recently and the Cowal and Rosneath routes are the first to use the new methodology. This is significant for the future delivery of public ferry services across the CHFS and NIFS networks, as it is tied to the Islands Connectivity Plan which has yet to be finalised.
Community needs assessments on CHFS routes should not stray into employment issues which affect the collectively bargained terms and conditions of RMT members at CalMac. Community needs assessments should formally involve the trade unions, which would be in line with the Fair Work Convention’s target6 for people in Scotland to have a world-leading working life where fair work drives success, wellbeing and prosperity for individuals, businesses, organisations and society, by 2025.
CHFS contract
RMT welcome to the 12-month extension announced recently by the Transport Secretary, Fiona Hyslop. We respect the Minister’s knowledge and engagement with RMT on the ferries crisis but it was clear some time ago that an extension to the existing contract, which expires on 30th September 2024, would be inevitable.
However, the emphasis on using the 12-month extension to make a legally compliant direct award, for the long term, to the public sector operator CalMac is encouraging. We now need to move into the detail of the Teckal exemption and a long term direct award that is compliant with the Public Contract (Scotland) Regulations 2015 and post-Brexit legislation passed by the UK Government. Questions also remain over whether the UK regulator the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will effectively be given a veto over direct award of CHFS3 to CalMac.
We do not think that CMA involvement is either desirable or necessary but the Scottish Government may not be aware of this potential collision course.
To date, RMT has attended meetings with Transport Scotland officials under the auspices of the STUC to discuss the CHFS3 contract. There has been a lack of detailed discussion on the legal issues, as the private consultants, including Ernst and Young who are working on the legal case for direct award are not represented and the Transport Scotland officials seem more interested in discussing the national insurance status of CalMac seafarers rather than securing their future on a lucrative public contract that has the likes of Serco and other private operators seeking to gain control of.
RMT also demand to be consulted over enhancements to the 12-month extension. This could work well in terms of improvements to communication with passengers and extending the apprenticeship programme for another year but our members must be fully consulted over any changes that impact their work or the delivery of services, particularly any enhancements that may be based on responses to
5 Written Answer S6W-27538 14 May 2024
6 https://www.fairworkconvention.scot/
6
Transport Scotland’s recent public consultation over the specifications of the CHFS3 contract.
Crewing levels and small vessel replacement programme
The timeline for delivery of the small vessels required on the CHFS route has already slipped and is being influenced by the unnecessary uncertainty over the future of CalMac as the provider of these services from 1st October 2025. Direct award of public ferry contracts to subsidiaries of David MacBrayne is in line with the draft ICP’s ambitions and other Scottish Government policies, including the Fair Work Convention and the Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan.
Existing collective bargaining agreements between operators and trade unions in Scotland, including the RMT organising ferry workers must be honoured and retained on all new small and large vessels procured and delivered for operation on the CHFS and NIFS contract to 2045.
All new vessels procured to deliver the ICP Vessels and Ports Plan to 2045 must be publicly owned by the Scottish Government and chartered to publicly owned service operators, ideally subsidiaries of David MacBrayne.
We welcome the Small Vessels Replacement plan to deliver seven new small ferries to replace vessels on the CHFS routes Colintraive-Rhubodach (MV Loch Dunvegan), Sconser-Raasay (MV Loch Tarbert), Iona-Fionnphort (MV Loch Buie), TarbertPortavadie (MV Loch Riddon), Lochaline-Fishnish (MV Loch Fyne), TobermoryKilchoan (MV Loch Linnhe) and Tayinloan-Gigha (MV Loch Ranza). However, these vessels will be delivered in Phase 1, which is up to the end of 2026 and there is no capital investment programme in place.
Decisions on the design of the small and vessels must be taken in consultation with the RMT, so that our members have a direct say in their working conditions on these routes. This includes the number of cabins, a crucial element in training the future generation of seafarers, as CalMac has trained over 150 apprentices in the last decade, more than any other ferry operator in the UK.
Vessel procurement should also be cognisant of changes at international level to mandatory Seafarer Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW) requirements for crew working on ferries powered by new green technologies.
The safe operation and delivery of lithium-ion batteries which will not only power the seven new small ferries but passenger and road freight vehicles in the large ferry fleet also needs to be a formal part of the Island Connectivity Plan for Vessels and Ports. RMT responded to the recent consultation on these important draft proposals.
RMT repeat that the ICP must clearly support the application of RMT’s collective bargaining agreement, and that of other recognised trade unions, to new vessels procured on the NIFS and CHFS contracts to 2045 and beyond. All new vessels, particularly the small fleet should also be built at Ferguson Marine, to restore public sector ship building on the Clyde.
7
Climate change and the resilience of vessels and infrastructure must take account of prevailing changes operating conditions. Changes in sea conditions and wind speeds need to be carefully monitored and used to inform the safe design of new ferries and infrastructure on the CHFS and NIFS networks, particularly given the significant differences between the routes operated on the respective contracts.
8