Ferries crisis: CalMac and Ferguson Marine chief executives’ sackings – we’re running out of fall guys

Robbie Drummond follows David Tydeman out of the door in little over a week, but to what end?

With Robbie Drummond becoming the second chief executive of a Scottish Government-owned maritime firm to be sacked in just over a week, somebody summed it up neatly on social media: “Running out of fall guys”.

It means that on top of Ferguson Marine searching for a permanent replacement for ousted David Tydeman to continue picking up the pieces of the yard’s botched two ferries, CalMac is now looking for someone to carry on Mr Drummond’s job of trying to keep its ageing and increasingly unreliable fleet going until those two vessels – and four more being built in Turkey – arrive.

CalMac chief executive Robbie Drummond ‘removed’ from post – Transport Secretary Fiona Hyslop

Former CalMac chief executive Robbie Drummond. Picture: Rachel Keenan

It seems curious that with the end in sight of the saga of these two hugely-delayed and over-budget ferries, following Glen Sannox’s apparently successful initial sea trials and sister vessel Glen Rosa due to be launched next week, the two key people who have kept the show on the road are being dispensed with.

But despite both men becoming increasingly blunt about what they were up against from forces outside their control, ministers have become equally forthright about their patience running out regardless.

Mr Tydeman told me last year the way Glen Sannox had been constructed by his predecessors was like putting up cupboards in a kitchen before plastering the wall behind them.

Meantime, Mr Drummond’s frustration was evident when he told me last month of the "chaos” of having to relocate CalMac’s busiest route, to Arran, to Troon because of the “absolute failure of critical infrastructure” caused by delays to overhauling Ardrossan harbour.

With CalMac’s ferries the only link to islands such as Arran, it’s not surprising that residents have been critical at not being prioritised in the operator’s tricky balancing act of trying to keep all its routes served in the face of repeated vessel breakdowns.

Arran’s official ferry committee said it had warned Mr Drummond that the vessels CalMac have earmarked for the route in the absence of its main ship, Caledonian Isles, which will be away for at least another two months for repairs, will leave it short of capacity.

But he will have been left between a rock and a hard place – with no other ferries to deploy there without reducing services elsewhere, while at the same time being told he’s putting CalMac rather than communities first.

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The Scottish Government has insisted that both sackings were matters for the Ferguson Marine and CalMac boards, but it is hard not to think they were not influenced, either directly or indirectly, by ministers’ getting increasingly agitated at the state of the ferries – even if, arguably, it’s ultimately a problem of their own making.

On the face of it, it’s also difficult to see how the changes will make any short-term difference to the situation other than create more uncertainty and further add to costs.

However, politicians like to be seen to be taking action, and they will no doubt hope their decisions might change the optics so that come the general election, ferries become less of a millstone around their necks, in addition to the mounting number of other woes tarnishing the SNP’s reputation in government.