 Dwi'n gweithio, wrth gwrs, i ymddangos i'r 24 meitig y 2018 ym gyflwyno a'r Cymru i chi. Gallai gynhyrch i chi ddweud i chi'n mynd i ymwneud ym mwyafol? Yr first item yn ymdangos i gweithio'r gwasanaeth yn y prifedig. Yr prifedig ymdangos i'r prifedig yn y prifedig, ac yn y prifedig ymdangos i'r ymdangos i'r prifedig. I ammerodd yn boblau i enrym will?' Mike Sinnoy, eich cyfan i ei nhw gan ynser gan ddrublodolัn, i confrontedreuagon yr aes bod gwell i ddalodiauoedd, i nadddy anywayrifachon wedi ddangos byddai yn cynfer. Mae'r pobl要ion oedd Y committee o ddod dwi'n nhw bydd e'n gweithio y fGM. We have no belief that our meetings in private sessions will continue not to be undermined. The reason for that is being undermined is that there hasn't been a leak from the committee as reported in the press. The work of the committee in private sessions has been clearly misrepresented with personal attacks on you, convener, for a start. Although you are personally the most agreed, I'm sure, members of the committee, I as a member of the committee am aggrieved as well, because reading those reports in the press clearly from a member of our committee indicates that there's a grain of information in there that was private, even though the spin put on it wasn't true. From that person, we've had absolutely no commitment that this won't continue to happen. I think that it's completely undermined the work of the committee in private sessions, because people out there are reading what's appearing in the press, and that's what they think we are doing in private sessions, which is not true. I would prefer that we took all our business in public sessions, so the public could be assured that what we are doing is completely bona fide and completely right and completely appropriate, because if we continue the way we are, that person on the committee will continue, in my view, to undermine our work. Mike, thank you. I take note. I'm prepared to take very short comments, and then I suggest because a member of this committee has not agreed that we need to go to a division on taking matters in private, because I will make the observation to you that there is matters on item 4, which is our work programme, which I have given as a personal undertaking, as convener of this committee, that they would not be made public until we have had a chance to consider them. It would be inappropriate, so we will need to go to division. Stuart, would you like to make a comment? Just to reinforce what you said, convener, just a very practical point. There are matters in the private paper related to our work programme that have been shared with us in confidence, which are not yet a matter of public record, and, of course, it may turn out to be preliminary and might subsequently be changed. I think that it is extremely helpful that others are giving us that information to help the committee to plan its work. We cannot discuss the paper that is before us in public. If the committee were to conclude that this matter is to be discussed in public, that document would need to be withdrawn, the parts that have been shared in confidence removed, because we cannot discuss the paper without the paper being in public and we cannot publicise the paper. I do not understand any comments that Mike might say on other matters. In the particular instance here, we cannot discuss the paper that is before us in public. Jamie, do you want to add anything? Thank you, convener. I have sympathy for Mr Rumble's position on this, but committees in the Parliament must and should be able to meet in private to discuss matters of a wide range of nature. I would have impressed upon all fellow members of the committee that anything that is discussed in private stays in private. Thank you, John. Mr Rumble, who really wants to see as much openness and transparency in all our deliberations, I think that it would be important to say to anyone who is listening to this that it is on where occasions we meet that when we do meet it is to discuss the merits of evidence and to come to a consensual point of view that consensus and our ability to speak freely will be curtailed if anyone breaches the confidence of that. It would be very disappointing, but most importantly, if there is an agenda behind this, and I am not necessarily convinced that there is, then the work of this committee will be frustrated if we do not go into private session. So I would encourage the collegiate nature of all our undertakings thus far to continue and that we do go ahead and consider the important matters of our work programme in private. Thank you, John. Mike, you have heard the views of the committee. Do you wish to hold to your position on not taking agenda item 4 in private? Well, I hear what everybody is saying, but I genuinely think that our work has been misrepresented. The work that we have done in private session has been deliberately misrepresented by a member of the committee. Unless, if we just continue to ignore it or if we just operate as we have done before, there is nothing to stop that person doing this exactly again. Had it happened just once, I would have been inclined to agree with members, but this has happened twice in two weeks. There is no indication from that individual member to me, certainly, that he will not continue to do just that. So I want to press this to a vote. I want to vote against it. I have heard absolutely, I think, a cross-reference of views on that and we will go straight to a vote. Therefore, I would like to ask those members of the committee who agreed to take item 4 in private to raise their hand please. Those people who are against taking item 4 in private please raise their hand. Therefore, there are 10 votes in favour of taking item 4 in business and one vote in private and one vote against taking item 4 in private. Therefore, it has agreed to take item 4 in private. We will move on to agenda item 3, which is an item for the committee to take evidence on the investment to support Clyde and Hebrides ferry services. We will take evidence this morning from two panels. We will first hear from Calmat Ferries and Caledonian Maritime Assets, who run the ferry services and own ferries in the infrastructure. The committee will then take evidence from transport, tourism and community stakeholders. On the first panel, I would like to welcome this morning Robbie Drummond, the managing director of Calmat Ferries Ltd, David McGiven, the chairman of Calmat Ferries Ltd, Kevin Hobbs, the chief executive of Caledonian Maritime Assets and Jim Anderson, the director of vessels Caledonian Maritime Assets. Now, we have a series of questions. Robbie, I cut you off in your prime. I was going to give you, I was so keen to get to the questions, I failed to give you an opportunity to make a short opening statement of three minutes, and then I'm going to ask you, Kevin, to give a short opening statement. I apologise, Robbie, would you like to lead off with a statement of three minutes or less? Yes, thank you for that. I've just got a few remarks that I'd like to make. When I appeared in front of this committee in May, I outlined the responsibilities of Calmat to deliver a contract for Transport Scotland. I believe that increased clarity over who is responsible for each aspect of ferry services has enhanced the quality of debate among communities about the challenges that we face. One of the main challenges is managing the impressive growth in carrying numbers that we are seeing right across the network. While that has been enormously positive for communities, it has placed additional pressure on our fleet, which is already working to the very limit of its capacity. Just to provide some context to the committee, in the five years to 2017, the number of cars carried annually grew by 37 per cent to 1.4 million, and passenger numbers have risen by 17 per cent to 5.2 million. Those will record carrying for Calmac in 2017, and the growth trend has continued in 2018. During the peak months of June, July and August this year, traffic grew by a further 4 per cent. That equates to more than 16,000 additional vehicles and 80,000 passengers during that three-month period. It is those additional volumes combined with the delivery of a much higher number of sailings to deliver transport Scotland's ferries plan, which is placing more and more pressure on our services, our vessels and, most importantly, on our staff. The consequence of managing higher volumes and higher sailings has significantly reduced our capacity to manage disruption. Given the average age of the fleet, it is inevitable from time to time. It should be said that we regret every instance of disruption, knowing that lives and businesses are being inconvenienced. However, I believe that our record bears out a commitment to work with communities and local stakeholders to manage and minimise disruption and to clearly explain what is wrong and what we are doing about it. It is impossible to overstate the importance of lifeline ferry services to the long-term economic sustainability of remote and vulnerable island communities, and we very much welcome the committee's interest in the Clyde and Hebrides ferry service. As a business, we are working hard on short and medium-term measures to improve the technical resilience of our fleet. Those measures include in service maintenance teams, preventative maintenance regimes and targeted investment to keep the vessels in full running order. However, communities want to understand the long-term strategy for the service and the impact that will have on their communities. We are committed to working collaboratively with Transport Scotland and the communities that we support to determine the best strategy for the future of the ferry service. From an operator's perspective, the standardisation of port infrastructure and ferry design to allow better flexibility in the deployment of the fleet would improve our resilience and reduce operating costs. Any future strategy must therefore address trust, local authority and private ports to whom we pay millions of pounds in birthing fees. We also welcome the committee's focus on accessibility. It is important to invest in facilities that enable ferry services to be used by all sections of the population. That is not easy with the ageing assets, but CalMac is absolutely committed to doing everything that we can to support customers who may require additional assistance. Thank you, Robbie and Kevin. I am Kevin Hobbs and I am the chief executive of Caledonia Maritime Assets. The company that I am today is Jim Anderson, our director of vessels. Caledonia Maritime Assets is more commonly known as CML. As the committee will be aware, CML is 100 per cent owned by Scottish ministers. Transport Scotland is our sponsoring body and is represented by the head of ferries unit, Graham Laidlaw. CML is an organisation that has responsibility for ferry assets for the Clyde and Hebride ferry services, known as CHIFS, and the Northern Ars ferry services, known as NIFS. CML is based in Port Glasgow and has 31 employees. That is a small professional team that shows great dedication and commitment to support the lifeline services that our ferries provide. Our board comprises of four non-exec directors and four executive directors. As our name implies, we are the owner of maritime assets. CML does not operate the ferries. The day-to-day performance of the vessels is undertaken by commercial operators in terms of their public service contracts, which is awarded by ministers. We have a total of 31 vessels currently operating in the CHIFS network. These vessels are chartered to the operator CalMac. We have a total of five vessels operating in the NIFS network, three of which are owned by CML purchased in April of this year, and two are bareboat chartered from a third-party company called Fortress and sub-chartered to the operator. The operator for the NIFS is Circo Northlink ferries. In addition, we own 26 port facilities located on the west coast that support the CHIFS network. The total number of harbour facilities on the west coast is 51, so we therefore have responsibility for just over 50 per cent of the total. The harbours are operated by CalMac under a harbour operating agreement. We work closely with Transport Scotland, which are in many instances their professional and trusted advisers within our specialist area of expertise. CML's financial memorandum does not permit us to borrow any money from any organisation other than the Scottish Government without prior permission. We have a number of funding streams, which can be categorised into three main ones. Number one is our revenue stream. CML, as asset owner, receives bareboat charter revenues, essentially lease payments from both CHIFS and NIFS ferry operators. We also receive harbour dues from the CHIFS operator, and there are some minor revenue streams from third parties such as cruise vessels, fish landings and property leases. The second stream is voted loans for vessels. CML receives voted loans from the Scottish Government in order to purchase vessels, either new buildings or second-hand tonnage, in accordance with long-term fleet renewal plans. The funds borrowed are paid back to the Government through the life of the vessel plus a small interest rate. It is through such voted loans that our two vessels under construction at Fergus and Marina are financed. The single exception to this is the vessel MV Lock C4 that was financed by Lloyd's Bank and delivered into service in 2014 under a leasing structure. Our third stream is grant in aid for harbours. We receive grants from the Government, which typically have an intervention rate of 75 per cent of the capital project value. The funding of 25 per cent comes from the CML revenue streams, mentioned previously. Grants are not paid back to the Government. We hope that this gives you a brief outline of our role and responsibilities, and we are now at your disposal to answer questions upon the investment by Government into Clyde and Hebride and ferry services. Thank you. Thank you, Kevin. Will we go into the first question? I mean, there are various members of the committee who have questions, and they will direct the question at the person they would like to answer the question, I think, is easiest way to do it. And if any committee member wants to make a declaration of interest before they ask questions, I'm sure they'll go ahead with that at the appropriate time. John, I think that you're the first question. Thank you, Kevin. In advance of asking questions, can I make two declarations, please? One of the subsequent witnesses, Mr Lloyd Peterson, is a personal friend, and I'm also a member of that empty parliamentary group, and I think that both of these are relevant deliberations today. Good morning, panel. Did you use the term, Mr Drummond, and that is about network resilience? Do you think that the current level of investment is being used effectively to ensure network resilience? I think probably what we have answered in that is to provide some evidence of where we are. The level of technical breakdowns across our fleet and how we manage that is something that we work on day on day. The challenge that we're facing now is that our ability to cope with those breakdowns and disruptions, whether they are technical or weather-related, is much harder than it was in the past because of the huge number of passengers we're carrying and also because of the additional sailings we're doing. So we're in the past, we had a bit of headroom either on sailings or with our spare vessels, we had an ability to cope with some of those disruptions. That is now much harder for us because we have no spare assets and our fleet is now working, and I say our fleet, I'm actually including our systems and our staff, are working at absolute capacity to manage the normal scheduled services. So the ability to cope with those breakdowns is much more difficult to manage than it has been in the past. Can I repeat again? Are you unhappy with the level of investment? I think that the challenge to us is that we are managing the service as best we can with assets that we are being provided with. If you look at those investments, there are two new vessels that were due to be put into service, A to 1 and A to 2, that were due to be in service this year. That would have provided enormous new capacity for us and would have really improved our resilience because what that would have done is put two new larger vessels in place that would be new, resilient and offer additional capacity, but that would have allowed us to do a cascade through the fleet that would potentially have freed up an additional vessel that could have been used as a spare vessel to be deployed in the event of any disruption. Clearly, that hasn't happened and we're as disappointed as our communities are that that's been delayed, but that investment, had it happened on time, would have made a significant difference. If you add into that, the new isle vessel that's due to come, those three new vessels together would have made a significant difference to the resilience on our fleet. I would also like to say that it's not just vessels, we also look at resilience on ports because some of the challenges that we're facing is that the ports were designed pre-RET and we are facing significant capacity problems in being able to manage normal timetable services but also when there's disruption, whether that's weather or technical, the ability to manage that disruption on the port, so marshalling cars and managing passengers is much more challenging than it has been in the past. Okay, Mr Hobbes, would you care to comment on the level of investment and whether it gives sufficient resilience at the moment? Yeah, I mean in our professional opinion there has been underinvestment and I will say that up front so having said that I think we have to balance that really and say I wouldn't like to be in the shoes of any government at the moment with limited funds because you know choices have to be made of course we live in the bubble of ferries and that's what we're employed to do, however that has to be balanced against you know justice and education and of course things like health, so you know we are in a quite difficult place. I mean the costs which are widely reported for running the services in the past 10 years are an investment of over a billion. Now if you actually look at SEMA itself in terms of vessel investment in a 10-year period we've had about 150 million pounds worth of investments that includes the current vessels that are under construction. We've also had harbour investments of about 50 million from the government in the last 10 years. That has been topped up as I mentioned earlier on by our own revenue streams of about another 35 million. So broadly there's about 200 million which is only 20% of the billion is actually invested in the infrastructure which we have responsibility for. There has been other investments with regard to trust ports and other assets but we have no visibility of that such. So there's 800 million goes on the subsidised services and there's been 200 million invested you know through through through CML. In terms of looking at the sort of asset base our vessels if we were to replace them all today the 31 plus the two coming on stream you will be looking at somewhere in the region of 850 million pounds. An average life of vessel is about 30 years so sorry not an average life the the full life of the vessels about 30 years. So that would indicate that overall there should be invested about 30 million pounds per year in vessels and we've received about half of that. We've also analysed our port infrastructure and if we look at that over a 10-year basis in our professional opinion we need about 200 million pounds. Now some of that would come from our own revenue streams of course and the other from government. Looking at the numbers that I expressed earlier on you have 50 million plus 35 is 85 million on average 8.5 per year and we're saying that moving forward that it should be 20. So in an overall sense if we add the vessel investment up that we have seen in the last 10 years with the port investment that is is significantly lower than we would than we would like. So on average 23.5 million pounds and our professional assessment is it should be about 50 million pounds a year. Okay thank you. John have you got a follow up? Yes indeed can I briefly ask you then please to touch on looking a bit further forward and what that means in terms of investment please and if I just wrap another question in there perhaps and how that would tie in and I know Mr Drummond you gave some input to this the Scottish Government's vision of the islands position as laid out in the islands Scotland act 2018 about you know vibrant sustaining communities. I think if I refer back to my opening statement I think what's important is that we work on what the future strategy looks like for both vessels and ports and we're absolutely prepared to to play a part in that and that strategy has to look at where those those much higher volumes are happening and also the islands aspirations for what they want for their their economies so it's a case of those communities coming together and working through what their future strategy needs look like to be able to secure the economic sustainability that the islands want. And that's a tension that you're highlighting there than this growth and capacity and the actual implications for island communities? I think that that is the tension because in the past we've been able to manage some of these both with weather disruptions and technical disruptions we've been able to manage those what's happening now is while the level of those disruptions isn't significantly different their impact is much greater than it has been in the past because the vessels that have been impacted are full and that means when they are cancelled it's much harder to deal with that level of disruption so it's that pressure on our systems our staff and vessels that's creating that rural drive to have a look at what is that future strategy needs to look like. Can I just ask a very quick question please to you Mr Drummond that is about the thousand people who are employed. You have responsibility for them Caledonia McBrain crewing? Yes so we well why is that company registered in Guernsey? So we employ about we actually employ 1,700 people across the day McBrain group of which the majority are delivering the CHIF service. The registered in Guernsey? Yes so it's part of the group that's registered in Guernsey because it saves on national insurance it is a government-sponsored scheme that allows British seafarers to or British seafaring companies to compete. Okay thank you very much. It's in the public domain it's been the same for a long number of years. Yes indeed okay thank you very much indeed. Briefly bring in Maureen and then I want to ask a quick question of Kevin and then go on to Stuart's next question Maureen if it's short please. Yes so in terms of you know record number of passengers and things obviously that's a good news story it would also presumably mean record profits. It would be interesting if we could have after this meeting a list of the ferries and their ages because you know it's obviously not just in the lifetime of this government that there's been under investment in ferries would be previous to that I mean if there are 32 ferries you would think you could space it out so that you were replacing a ferry a year if there's a 30 year lifespan. So I wondered if we could have that chair after the meeting that would be good. Can I just ask question just to view you said that there was under investment and you were quite clear on the level of under investment. When was the last time that was brought forward to the government and how often has that been brought forward to the government as your view in the last six years? I can only talk about the last two and a half years which is how long I've been employed but I'm sure my predecessors of the Broadcasting Attention as I mentioned in my opening statement we have our sponsoring body is Transport Scotland so we report through the ferry unit we have monthly meetings with the ferry unit and indeed with CalMac we have a tripartite meeting which lasts most most of the day and there is a full open and frank discussion every month about the type of level of investment it needs there needs to be what we're not 100% sure of course is how that then gets translated up to up to the minister or up to the upper echelons of Transport Scotland so I mean we we certainly bring it to the attention of Transport Scotland and we do meet with ministers from time to time but there you're probably talking two or three times a year so you will have done it monthly for the two and a half years and your predecessor has probably done it monthly prior to that okay we're pushed for time on this so I want to go to the next load of questions which is from Stuart. As we've covered some of the infrastructure already I do just oh sorry I must declare I'm honorary president this Scottish Association of Public Transport which is an unremunerated position. Just understand the capacity point on RET how does the actual growth in traffic map with the predictions that were made at the time RET was introduced and I just for completeness say I was the minister who introduced it and I don't remember the answer to my question. Either you or David is it? I can answer that. First of all we don't know how much growth is related to RET and how much is related to growth in economy and we go and talk to Visit Scotland. We are seeing huge numbers of more visitors coming to Scotland which can only be a good thing so we don't actually know how much of that growth is related to RET and how much is growth in economy. I would say that the level of growth that we experience is taking these two things together is way in excess of what was predicted perhaps three or four years ago. I think that's safe to say. If you look at growth rates now across six years in excess of 40 percent across the whole network if you look at some islands the growth is actually getting way over 50 percent 55 percent so you look at those kind of growth rates essentially we're operating we've had one additional ferry in that over that period lost seaforth but essentially we're operating the same number of assets running more sailings but carrying that much higher level of volumes. Okay let me just move on to some other matters and I think this is again for CalMac. One of the issues that has arisen is integrating various transport modes because clearly many of the mainland ports in particular into which CalMac sail passengers in particular will have to integrate with buses and trains and so on. How are you seeking to improve that? I know that there's work going on to provide through ticketing to a greater extent than is currently the case. Are you satisfied that we're doing all that we need to do on that? Are there other things that require other people to do things? I think there's two aspects there the first one is the unintegrated transport so we have appointed as that was one of our bid commitments to appoint a transport integration manager and is their role to work with with communities but also work with with ScotRail and the bus companies to try and ensure that tight tables are properly aligned so where there is a railhead interfere that those times are properly aligned and that there's buses on the other end that are again more aligned that's easier on the mainland than is perhaps in the islands where they're that's more difficult so we are working very hard with to make sure that happens on the integrated ticketing side I think the evidence I gave last time to the committee was our ticket system is past the end of life and again that is one of the challenges on trying to manage that level of capacity is our ticketing system is not no longer doing what we needed to do if we had a new modern ticket system that would enable us to do smart tickets to have new channels for passengers but also make to make them smart and integrated so it allows us to integrate properly with trains and properly with buses but our ticket system at the moment just cannot facilitate that can I just take you back to timetables and I hear what you said about the co-ordination of the timetables but I think for many passengers the issue often arises when there are delays on either side of whatever the mode is how are you ensuring that it is still possible for people to have a reasonable through journey in conditions of operational difficulties that might be the rail company might with bus company or might be CalMac or or indeed northern ferries would come into the northern islands would come into this as well so the way we manage that is we've got operating protocols with the bus companies and with the rail companies and those protocols work through what happens when either the ferries late or the buses or trains are late so this communication goes between us and then we've got operating protocols as how we manage that during the day that's actually very challenging because if we delay a sailing by 20 minutes that means the next sailing is 20 minutes late which means a whole lot of new customers may then miss their connections so we try and manage it through and we particularly focus on the end of day sailings to make sure that those end of day sailings if there's buses or trains are connecting with those end of day sailings that the ferry will absolutely wait for those those connections and then we've got protocols as to how we try and manage that during the day to to make the best we can do for customers but without disadvantageing future customers on that that day sailings so do you have adequate knowledge of your passengers travel plans just for the sake of argument people coming into obon might be getting on the sleeper do you know they have to get in the sleeper no we don't know that information so we know it because we're in contact with the rail company or the bus company and on some routes we do have that information so we are told the bus is left and it's this number of passengers are connecting but on other routes we don't have that information because we don't have smart and integrated ticketing that might give you some of that welcome back to having a more up-to-date computer system and better knowledge of the passengers travel journey and the role that you play a part in deliver it I think that's right but it's a significant amount we've already done through having protocols and having communications communication protocols again with bus and train companies as to when they're leaving and when services might be running late right let me just move on and I think this is fairly brief one of the things that respondents to committee inquiry on the islands in particular have said that they are being discriminated against I'm not entirely clear what that might mean we've heard some of the numbers is that something that you're hearing and if so what what was it maybe starting with sea mile although I think sea miles relationship with individuals is perhaps less so it might be the operator perhaps pick that up first of all our contract that we have a transport Scotland explicitly states that all passengers are given equal access to our services so to run on an absolutely first come first serve basis if you're booking or turning up and that is the way our contract runs I think the communication you've had is some islanders are now finding it difficult to be able to get on the sailings of their choice and be able to make medical appointments hospital appointments whatever else it is and that's perhaps where that conversation is coming from that islanders are now finding it harder to get to have regular travel yeah if I may I think it's it's more an emergency journey you know possibly to a funeral etc etc how do you deal with that because I think that is the source of this particular discontent so I say if our contract says explicitly we we have to deal first come first serve so when there is an emergency absolutely we'll do all we can do to facilitate that in particular we can look at moving and what we do is try and move commercial traffic to different sailings so we do try and create space if the ferry is full for those emergency sailings and and we do nearly always manage to accommodate those by by the sensible managing of traffic just before we move on Kevin do you want to comment on the investment and and that that specific point made by people to the to the committee was just let me make sure I get this is outright that in terms of investment priorities respondents to the committee's survey the islanders are being discriminated against by their their location do you think they they're getting good value for their investment in the ferries well with the backdrop of what I said before and under investment then you know obviously it would be nice if we have more money um I'm not aware that people are being discriminated against other than what Robbie has said which is you know access to ferries in emergency situations because you know a little bit like an easy jet flight when it's full it's full so you know there is there is a bit of a problem there um no doubt um but you know we we basically going back to my original um statement um we can only spend what we're allowed to spend uh so so from our perspective you know yes we would like to spend more we would like to deliver more but all of our funding by the lot seaforth has always come from the government of whichever colour it's been um for for the whole of our existence so you know we we put in compelling bids for funding um for ships and for ports and you know sometimes we're successful sometimes we're not it goes back to this balance of of you know where the priorities lie you know in terms of you know ferries within transport Scotland all within the greater range of of Scottish governments spend next question is Richard Lyle Richard yes good morning gentlemen um you've got 32 vessels we're an average age of 22 years so by my counting the first vessel was built in 1996 well before the establishment of this parliament and under another parliament um but okay there's been under investment for last 20 years I would like a list as my colleague asked a list name of the vessel age of build where it operates of those vessels and then we could look at it so but you've also highlighted um usage has grown significantly surely you're tracking growth over the last number of years and know that local communities need to use ferries daily so can I ask what engagement was undertaken with local communities and decisions over procurement of new ferries and how are these views taken into account Richard is that to Kevin as well to ever Kevin mainly Robbie is he operates him I'll take that first I suppose I mean when it comes to new ferries or new port infrastructure then we are duty bound for all sorts of reasons to communicate with communities so you know in terms of ports there might be harbour revision orders and it is a statutory obligation to consult it's exactly the same with with ferries so we have to consult we undertake stag assessments etc so you know I think the level of consultation is is high if we take our our most recent series of consultations is in regard to the Sky Triangle which is Euglok, Maddi and Tarbot Harris and you know we've been out on the network on three separate occasions now literally for a road trip for a week to consult and hear what people's views are and that then informs us as to what is required however we we fundamentally have to go back to the fact that we have no borrowing powers what we would like to do in an ideal world doesn't always come to fruition you know we if we sat down with a blank sheet of paper you know yes we would like to do many many things however unless the government of whatever nature it is now and in the future funds us to do that then we can't deliver anything and that is that is just a fact would you agree a comment I'm going to make I think in some ways you have hoisted your own petard year you know I've also if I answer the noise bank 2011 that cost you 42 million but existing port infrastructure was unable to accommodate the larger vehicle requiring upgrades at a cost of 32 million so why have procurement decisions favoured fewer larger vehicles that require upgrades in port infrastructures rather than smaller vehicles which would give you more flexibility to operate across a wider network and would save you spending a fortune in upgrading the the hardware I think my recommendation moving forward given that there is a lack of money is that what you're describing is correct so if we're looking at the new vessel for Islay which Mr Yousaf announced on the 4th of April of 2018 we're actually looking at replic not replicating the current fin laggan because time has moved on however the displacement the length the draft the beam etc etc is broadly going to be the same so from our perspective in Seymal if we find it there is not enough money to do everything I think it is fair to say that if you build a bigger vessel inevitably that means that you have to do major port work where we're moving to at the moment is not to do that major port work but to have vessels that are broadly similar to those that are currently operating we can't turn back the clock on what's happened before and I also think there is one other aspect to this which people tend to miss is that if you look at the sky triangle which I mentioned earlier on if you look at the facilities at Iwig or Tarbot Harris or Lokmadi all of those are nearing life expiry they are absolutely safe we make sure that that is the case and so does Kalmat we would not safety is our number one priority however you know people seem seem to believe that because there is a new bigger ship coming work absolutely have had to be done that's a bit of an urban myth actually what what needed to be done is all three of those facilities were nearing life expiry anyway so whether they had a new ship or they didn't have a new ship work would needed to have been done before you go on I think Robbie wants to come in on that could we could be here from Robbie on that it's covered the technical process around consultation I think my response would be this you've raised some very good points there and what I would like to see is a longer term strategy that actually addresses what is the shape of the ferry service that we want in the next 30 years whether that's small vessels or or something different what is that strategy going to look like and then you then place that investment programme within that broader strategy yeah I think the last time someone came to this committee and they said they were trying to secure a vessels in the wider world these vessels couldn't cope with our infrastructure and couldn't you know weren't suited for your harbours or slipways or whatever so you have to you know at the end of the year I think you need to tell us what you need so that we can press other people to get what you want lastly through you can be that where the cost of port infrastructure upgrades and harbour dues associated with new vessels fully accounted for in the ferry procurement decisions go with that probably Kevin is it I think the answer is yes okay thank you very much Colin you've got a follow-up for the next question it's just so we're clear though you seem to be implying that overall it's worked out more expensive given that the improvements to harbours and ports it's worked out more expensive by going down a route of larger vessels than it would have been had you procured for example to smaller vessels because you wouldn't have required that work so is it being more expensive to go down that route of going for the larger vessel than it would have been had you gone for smaller vessels the answer is it could be what I've described with the sky triangle I think is is fairly clear whether there was a new ship or not or whether there was a second hand ship that went on there or whether the service frequency increased those particular ports were in need of upgrade an investment in any event so however if we look at it in a broad sense what we seem to be seeing is that if you have a vessel such as the Glen Sanex or its sister 802 that that's 48.5 million pounds and broadly to upgrade Brodick and Ardrossan is a similar amount of money so you know going back to my original comment the recommendation and what we're discussing at the moment it our network strategy group meetings which is a monthly meetings I've mentioned before is actually looking at what does get you the best value for money and certainly having a 50 million pound ferry and then having to do work to upgrade ports of 50 million pounds very simply equals 100 million pounds my personal opinion is at the moment given the average age of the fleet which I can bore you with in a minute if you wish me to it would be better to buy two new ferries and not do the work on ports you're certainly not going to bore us on the age of the fleet and everything you're going to submit that on a on a written bit of paper so we've all got it I want to bring in Peter first and then John sorry and it's not boring it is an interesting fact it's just we haven't got the time to go through it Peter thanks unit I mean I think we've we've all been speaking to some extent about the all upholster on a wave situation why why it would appear that the public opinion the public view was that two smaller vessels would have been a better investment would have given you more flexibility rather than what you have done is invest in a big big new vessel and then invested in the port facilities because you had to it seems that you've disregarded the the views of the travelling public when you made that decision is that it's not our decision at the end of the day we are the advisors and we can say what we feel stag reports were done I know that people in the islands I wasn't actually employed at that time it's way way before my time so Robbie has been employed for a lot longer but I suppose at the end of the day it all comes down to funding so yes people on the islands may have wished to have two smaller vessels the loxie fourth cost 42 million pounds to build it was financed as we said by Lloyd's bank and not in the the normal voted loan way the decision was made to go with that because at the time they believed that the capacity would be met by that vessel it was designed to operate 24 hours a day so there are two passenger services through the daylight hours we'll call it and then there's the night freight run but if you would have had two vessels on that route you would have probably ended up with a capital cost of at the time two lots of 35 million pounds so it would have been 70 versus 42 and then you look at the ongoing revenue support or subsidy to run ferries of that nature if you look at say the the crewing element which is not my responsibility but two lots of crews for the lifetime of a vessel or lifetime of two vessels versus one again is a huge amount of money and you know we're living in a world day to day at the moment where you know there isn't enough money to do what everybody wants to be done but then you wouldn't have had to spend the money upgrading the port if you had stuck stuck with the two similar sized vessels you'd have saved that whatever it was 40 million in the port to be honest with you I can't I can't comment I don't know exactly how much other pool and and the stone away cost but can I can I make it I wasn't at the time the stag appraisal was done you're talking about stonery allipool the communities were consulted at the time and I remember there's quite a lengthy debate and two exercises were done there was a feasibility study done on the one vessel option which is what we've ended up with and there was the same feasibility study and figures done on the two vessels the two smaller ones to which you're referring I think the decision could have gone either way but the decision that was made at the time by the government was to go for the large vessel that was their decision had the decision been to go for two smaller vessels we would have operated it but that was the decision at the time I was technically responsible for the design and build of the the log seaforth and if you're looking at from a naval architecture point of view a longer more slender vessel it's not just the crew cost that we have to consider here for two vessels it's much more fuel efficient as well so there's great savings in having larger more slender hydrodynamically designed vessels and that's another aspect that was taken into consideration and we do have all those numbers of the committee want to see any of the numbers that make the comparison against large vessels small vessels you know crewing and we have to take that into consideration with the costs of the upgrades to the ports it's very very important so can I just see if I can wrap up a question here is that if I remember rightly there was a transport and infrastructure and climate change committee review of ferries carried out in 2008 and then there was a ferries review carried out by the government and we still seem to be arguing about what should be delivered where when and how and in what shape or form so well discussing rather than arguing but maybe better to say so I have a question for you probably to you Kevin is given taking into account those two bits of work and obviously the ongoing problems that we're having at the moment and we're seeing with Ferguson Marine and the issues of the procurement for the vessels there and perhaps the cost overruns that are mentioned in the papers do you believe that the procurement decisions that have been taken provide good value in money in terms of increasing long-term and capacity and resilience for the ferries in Scotland the simple answer is yes I mean you've referred to cost overruns with regard to the current ferries that are being purchased so our comment with regard to that is that I'll hand over to Jim to explain to you very briefly the tendering process but you know very very simply there is a tendering process we then contract and then we build but if I can give you some background to that it was a the end of 2014 when we actually went out to tender for these two new vessels and we received actually seven bits in fact two bits from one one yard so six yards with seven bits in total and of those seven bits Ferguson's bid was the outstanding bid of them all you know when we do the evaluation based upon quality and cost it was the outstanding that clearly demonstrated that that Ferguson's completely understood what they were to deliver from this design and build contract so certainly at the time of placing the contract Ferguson's demonstrated they knew exactly what was required and they knew the time scales okay so I just want to push back slightly on the first bit that you know in 2008 the current committee then looking at ferries decided on on a way forward the government did a ferries review and consequently you're now saying that we've probably got the wrong vessels I'm commenting not on Ferguson marine I'm commenting whether it's bigger or smaller vessels and we might have been better with smaller vessels it seems to be a bit of confusion here Kevin would you like to comment I don't think it's confusing I mean the decision was made to build two bigger vessels on a cost basis you know there are some extra costs if you're looking at climate change of doing what we do we were the first company in the world to have electric diesel hybrid vessels you know and the vessels that are being built at Ferguson's are the first lng vessels that are being built in the UK although it is not new technology there are many many vessels we did some analysis recently and you know there's 2000 engine sets for dual fuel vessels have been bought throughout the whole wide world so you know we we again we report to transport Scotland who in turn report our reports to to the Scottish government and there is an absolute desire to reduce carbon footprint so that is a that is an element that we have to take into account when when we're making decisions hence hence the dual fuel okay common on that though there has been criticism that when you did procure those ferries the design has changed significantly since that processor you absolutely clear that what you procured is exactly what is effectively being delivered why has there been a need for such a significant change in design there has been no significant changes in design that's quite clear so what you're reading is untrue so why has the cost increased and why are the delays in your interpretation that's really one you would have really have to ask Ferguson's you know we have a clear clear contract you don't actually know though well i think we can all look at it and say that a project which was supposed to be delivered in 31 months hasn't been delivered in 31 months the second ship is much later we've got a delivery date of 2020 so if any project which was had a timescale of 31 months and 33 months is now being extended to 44 months and 52 months of course there's going to be cost overruns it's quite clear isn't it if a project takes almost twice as long as it was envidaged there'll be cost overruns and none of those overruns have got anything to do with the design none whatsoever John Finnie followed by Jeremy Greene and then we must move on thank you a question for mr Anderson i think and it's followed us on from the convener's one about procurement and it also aligns with the if you like vessel design process why are the trade unions not involved in either the vessel design process or the procurement process well maybe i ask Robbie to maybe give his assistance to answer that certainly how we work along with CalMac as we define a set of operational requirements so we don't have the direct you know link with the unions but perhaps Robbie might be able to say something about that i can't see why they shouldn't be i can't comment on procurement that's clearly something that sits with with CML and there's a you know more legalistic impact but i can't see why the unions shouldn't be involved in determining what is our future strategy going forward i mean if i can just just answer a little bit of that as well there are very defined international regulations under the ILO rules which define exactly what type of accommodation and what quality it has to be and we absolutely follow that because if we didn't follow it we would not be certified to operate a vessel yeah well for the violence that you thank you for that Mr Hobbs for the violence it out i wasn't exclusively referring to that but i think perhaps yourself mr drummer i may stand to be corrected if it's not have answered similarly previous to a question when i've asked that the minister indeed cabinet secretary has answered that so can i just take it at the next time that there's a vehicle design or procurement process you will invite the RMT and other unions along i think we should invite consultations from all our communities and that would include our unions so yes very much in a brief question and then we're going to move on to Colin thank you convener can i ask a good morning panel mr Hobbs when were CML first advised by freggs and marine that they were experiencing difficulties with the delivery of halls 801 802 and specifically that they might go over the 97 million pound budget that you had allocated in the contract and do you know what the final cost of the delivery of these two vessels might be as the customer and who's liable for the overruns uh yeah i can be very explicit on that we were we were advised in july of 2017 so some 15 months ago um that there were cost overruns um we because we have a a team embedded in the yard anyway we we knew well in advance of that that things were not going according to plan um i think we need to be very very clear on the type of contract which we we tendered for and we eventually signed um it is a design and build contract number one uh number two is a fixed price which is out in the public domain of 97 million pounds um and it has some fixed dates for delivery and if it is not delivered on time then there are liquidated damages now those liquidated damages go beyond lateness um they extend to excessive fuel use when it comes to sea trials um deficiency of dead weight and deficiency of speed so there are a number of things at the end of the contract which we we will have to weigh up um i would reiterate um it was known from stage one when we went to the european journal and the pqq and the it and the contract it was a fixed price contract now furguson marine along with everybody else that we're actually bidding for that contract at the time their private companies and with a private company there is a risk and reward they signed up to that contract knowingly and willingly and as far as we're concerned 97 million is what we have to pay we can of course um estimate with our own knowledge myself and gym between us of unfortunately given our age probably got 60 70 years of experience so we we can judge that it will be costing an awful lot more um our assertion at this particular point in time is that is not our problem that is the problem of a private company that knowingly and willingly bid for these vessels and we feel that we've been extremely honorable we haven't gone to the press we haven't moaned and groaned so you know we we are we are keeping quiet on it because we we've got nothing really to say but definitely 15 months ago was when we were officially informed that these ships were going to cost more to park that one there and move on to the next question with with colon and then we'll take a question we'll take two further questions now absolutely warn you at this stage we're not going to get through all the questions for which i'm very sorry but we'll have to write to you and we'd ask you to respond promptly or the clerks will write to you with the question so Colin if you could keep your question simple that would be helpful very very briefly it's just on the issues of the budgets for harbour improvements Mr Hobbs in your opening comments you made reference to the fact you'd received 50 million pounds of government funding towards harbour improvements has received any commitment from transport scotland of any further investment within the ferries budget for harbour improvements and mr drummond you mentioned in your opening comments the importance of trust local authority and privately on harbours being involved in any future strategy can you explain to the committee at the moment what you mean by that and what basically to what currently involved in discussions with them in terms of harbour improvement works if that was a short question i'm never going to ask for a long one so if i could have a short answer please because i have two questions which i would like to get in so who's going to start with that robby is that you okay i mean it's an ongoing iterative process in terms of port investment so as i said earlier we put in compelling bids in terms of for funding for both vessels and and for ports and sometimes we're successful sometimes we're not so the most recent funding letter with which we received related to the replacement of the common tribe and rebutt slipways and some ancillary work they needed to be done anything that you do in a marine sense whether it ships or whether it's port become very expensive you know two concrete slipways believe it or not six million quid you know it is it is an expensive thing to do and it takes a long time and we are discussing with transport Scotland at the moment a number of further bids we have a number of ports which are nearing life expiry um target harris is one on the sky triangle guruk is another armadale is another i can go on so we have 26 ports we've got seven or eight which are within five years of having to be replaced so you know that that is that is the world that we live in um and that's the sort of sort of money that you know is involved our biggest project project was broadic um that cost 31 million pounds you know these are these are big numbers supporting the island communities Robbie briefly please yeah i'll answer very very shortly from an operator's perspective and the reason i mentioned other ports in my opening statement is the challenge we face on running to ports that are all of very different designs and if we had a consistency of those ports whether they seem our ports or local authority then that would make our job much more efficient it's probably all the worse stating that those ports have got a requirement to be fit for purpose we pay 33 million pounds a year in birthing and trafing juice to these variety of different ports and it's up to them to keep those facilities fit for purpose for our our services Colin yeah you talk about being fit for purpose and Mr Hobbs you mentioned the broadic terminal so how do you respond to concerns that we've had that the broadic terminal isn't fit for purpose um we we have had feedback um certainly um we we consulted widely prior to to sending out to tender and building it um the vast majority of the comments relate to the passenger access system which is 210 meters long uh versus the previous one which was about 60 meters long um the nature of the build and the way that the ship ties up now um with the new finger pier um that there is nothing more that we can do um not worth wishing to strain to operational areas if people with accessibility needs require assistance then calmac is there to help so i mean that there was there was really no other way than having um quite a long passenger access system in in a relative sense however um being gatwick a couple of weeks ago you know please take 15 to 20 minutes to get to your gate so 200 210 meters is is is not 15 minutes worth of walking however i think we all have to appreciate if you have accessibility needs then you know 210 meters is is a long way bring in the deputy convener just to ask a quick question on that yeah thanks convener um good morning panel it fits in quite nicely with what i was going to ask calmac in your submission you said that um the issue of ageing populations and with it an increase in people facing mobility challenges already being felt um and i'm quite willing for you to follow this up and write into the committee if you can answer it immediately at the moment do you have any numbers of the increase in passengers with mobility issues what consultation have you had with disability groups and what improvements given that we're doing budget scrutiny do you think need to be made across the fleet both in ports and ferries and how much do you think extra you would need to fund this i've got a feeling you might want to write to us that was quite a long series of questions if i can make a couple of brief comments that um you know we do work very hard to support that those customers have got um a need additional assistance and that is growing we are seeing more of that we are working with disability equality scotland on an assisted travel policy that's been very well accepted and regarded in the industry we're also working with transfer scotland and other bodies on regional regional access groups that are going to create some short-term action plans that are going to address collectively what we all can do in the transport industry to make those make those traveling public have a better experience but that's something i can expand on a bit in writing if that would be helpful thank you on new vessels for all new vessels projects when we carry out our stakeholder engagement we are having engagement with all the accessibility panels from all the areas and we're building in everything we possibly can do within the constraints of vessels you know we're putting in additional lifts changing room toilets access through all the areas of the vessel so we're really we're really trying to accommodate everything we possibly can do thank you jim and again the class will clarify the questions that we'd like answers for i'm going to briefly and finally bring in john and then i'm afraid i'm gonna have to uh give my excuses to the members i haven't been able to bring in and say that we'll submit written questions so john right going back to demand a and a road equivalent tariff has it's been hugely successful successful as far as i can see it has boosted demand has it just been too generous do we need to curtail it and that would bring demand back down and make all of your lives a bit easier yeah i think you're getting into to matters of policy there and clearly it has been very successful and that has had a huge impact on on island communities but we are facing into those pressures and how we manage that on on vessels and there is options to look at managing that demand so there's options to look at around pricing perhaps there's options to look at which traffic you allow on different vessels but that's getting into real policy issues that will certainly be challenging for some some areas of community and and might be attracted by others so it's trying to balance off islands balance off um those traveling for tourism reasons and there's a things we could do to manage that demand better so there is options that we can discuss with with communities if that's that's going to be an attractive option could i add something yeah David um the final there is no doubt that's been a great success and that's that's great for the communities it's great for the islands it's great for tourism it's great for the economy it has caused pressures but again i think Robbie referred to the point earlier the two new vessels that Kevin talked about were scheduled to be in in service this year that we've been a huge help to us in terms of the size of the fleet flexibility being able to cascade down and to give you a simple example when when the seaforth came in the island of Lewis became available we had discussions with transport Scotland they wisely took the decision to retain the vessel that could have sold it and that vessel was then deployed to give a dedicated service to the island of Barra and having been in Barra a couple of times since then if you talked to the locals up there having its own service daily has been a huge boost to the island so if we get the capacity we can help and we can work with the islands I think if I could just just make one final comment the um there is no doubt it has been a success but from an infrastructure and asset point of view incrementally every lorry that goes over a link span every car every passenger that goes up a passenger access system it does put greater pressure on the system and things are are wearing out quicker than they ordinarily would have done and that is just the nature of what we're doing it's it's like putting more miles on a car you know you expect to have to you know maintain it more regularly etc etc so you know that is a it's something which we're having to deal with it is costing us more money um but you know to support the islands our view within sea mile and I'm sure calmac is it's worth it and I'm afraid we are going to have to stop there there will be a list of questions that will be circulated by the clerks and I'm afraid they will give you a very tight timescale as far as responses to those are concerned but that is to fit in with our timescale for post our pre-project scrutiny so I apologise for that in advance but look forward to see receiving your responses and I'd like to thank you for coming to the meeting today and giving evidence I'm now briefly going to suspend the meeting to allow witnesses to change over but I would ask committee members to stay present in the room so we can move straight on thank you very much again and I welcome the second panel of our for our pre-project scrutiny item I welcome Angus Campbell chair of CalMac community board rhanald Robertson partnership director Highlands and Islands transport partnership Roy Pedderson author and consultant and Rob McKinnon chief executive outer hebrides tourism we are have got a lot of questions and I pan on the committee members will ask questions and will direct them at the person they would like to answer it to if anyone else wants to answer would they try and catch my eye I apologize in advance if I don't get everyone to answer every question it's more a question of trying to get every question on the table so the first questions are from John Finnie John and for members present thank you for your contributions your written contributions I'm going to roll this all on into one because we're pressed for time but it is about the current level of investment in the Clyde and Hebrides ferry service and whether it's being used effectively what implications that has in the future for the impact it may have on the resilience for the islands for the future and it is indeed that in line with the Scottish Government's position on the islands but the islands well no the islands act so who'd like to head off with that Angus why don't you start well can I first of all say that the community board's been existing for less than a year but we've done an awful lot of work along we have membership from 14 members right across from Adam to to Lewis the most common feedback we've had in our year in existence is that the level of investment is not adequate to maintain or indeed improve service and that has been quite loud I will qualify that by saying there is an appreciation of the large sums that have gone into particular projects if we could put it that way what communities do question is has that been used wisely and effectively and I listened with interest to the talk of the Stornoway to Ellipoll route for instance I attended all the public meetings that took place with another hat on I think the the option of the two ferries was certainly not on the table in the way it was suggested I remember one slide going up saying those two options and 37 going up saying the large vessel is the option communities really do question whether what they can bring to the table is included in in the planning and they would like the opportunity to be part of that there is a place there I think for the views from the communities and the users I would say very clearly that the strategy going ahead is one thing that people question very often when you engage with communities what is the long-term plan how do we build on a very successful RET how do we then maximise the the benefits that have come with RET and there's no doubt that in terms of the islands act people are asking equality question and the island proofing question and I have no doubt that will come back at some point Roy you may have a a different opinion when you compare the investment recent and future potential in the current Calmax email system it compares very unfavourably with best practice elsewhere and by elsewhere I mean in particular Scandinavia where there's a model of operation which it is very much more cost effective than what we have but also within Scotland itself there are operators that provide services at much less cost better services at less cost than the Calmax operation now to give you examples of those is western ferries across the Clyde that operates without any subsidy at all which is a good profit in fact on on its routes it has invested in its own terminals and it carries so far as I can recall more traffic in terms of cars and lorries than all the other Clyde routes put together now might that might be worth checking but it's pretty close if it's not exactly so then there's Pentland ferries whose vessel Pentalina and a new one a larger catamaran ferry about to be delivered costing 14 million pounds as opposed to the not much less capacity than the Glen Sannocks at close on 50 million pounds now Pentland ferries again operates without subsidy it's the emissions are half those of the competing north link service the fuel consumption of course is half that also it's clean diesel fuel not not a heavy heavy fuel very polluting heavy fuel and it's carrying the majority of cars passengers and trucks across the Pentland Firth so one operator is is winning the business without any public subsidy whatsoever including capital costs and terminal costs and the competing operation and that's not CalMac of course it's north link but similar style of operation is costing something like 10 million pounds a year the key reasons for that is the catamaran design in that case which is operating I say in in rough waters the Pentland Firth is notorious for being a rough water area the hull design is such it's less draft it's narrow hulls so it's got a low what's called a low block coefficient which means you need much less power to drive it through the water which means less fuel consumption which means less co2 she also has half the crew less than half the crew of the north link alternative now that catamaran technology is maybe slightly different from the norm in norway for for vehicle ferries but but that aside the comparison is very stark and that the Norwegian approach is keep the crewing down you have the passenger capacity a ratio of about three or four to one whereas the calmac norm is seven to one which means you carry a large and unnecessary crew because the passenger capacity is rarely if ever used on most of the most of the routes maybe just a further sentence or so the terminal designs another aspect if you take western ferries for example it requires one person to berth the vessel because the link span locks onto onto the vessel and that's operated from the ship same in norway large ferries in norway the the birthing is done by one hand on the boat for calmac operation it takes nine people three for it three aft and three on the shore so crewing is a major major cost now as we go on in the in our presentation i'm not saying that there are going to be redundancies because if we use a more efficient medium-sized ships we can have more ships more frequency on routes and be employing roughly the same number of people certainly more than a sentence rhoi uh rhanald would you like to come in and and robs you want to come in on that as well that's fine if i may then it's just to start by saying i was enormously encouraged by the evidence we've heard already this morning i think there's an awful lot of agreement in positions in terms of our own our own stance on the way we see ferry service deployment going in the future i do think that some of the more recent decision making which has followed a lengthy period of under investment and it's not a political thing it's you know we went 10 years with a major vessel from the mb hybrid is entering service in 2001 to the fin laggan entering service in 2011 and that's a significant part of the the issues that we've been seeing i think in particularly evidently this year are stemming from that i do think that some of the recent decisions were not ones that we would have welcomed the decision to go for a single large ferry on stourney elliple was not in alignment with the stag appraisal that was undertaken on that route i i did he note the reference to a further technical piece of work that i don't think has been made public so um that perhaps came along after the the stag appraisal but that was what you know the community wanted that was the message that came from a wide way the stakeholders there was no such exercise for hall 802 indeed nor was it for hall 801 the bigger ferries for aran and the shared operation of the two routes across the little minch the consequence of that in looking at transfer scotland's own forecasting and the network strategy group that we heard references on forecasting is that we have had the welcome announcement of the new ferry for ailey with ailey having serious constraints at the moment and 2021 has a forecast of an 85 constrained demand on the route to ailey but after the introduction of the new the new ship that's in build at fergusons and following the introduction of luxe forth the routes to the western aisles will all be in the high 70s so that means that and the the rdp sets out what above 70 percent means and it means get another ferry you may frequently not be able to get only one you want and that's over a whole given day and it means that the alternative ferries so for malig lachboy stale for uig to lachmadi uig to tarbert and store new tillable that's some 26 and a half thousand people you can look for an alternative ferry but it's highly likely that it will not be available and that's following a very substantial investment so i think that the case for more ferries in the network more frequency opening up the the opportunities that that accessibility brings to these communities is what we need to see moving forward i think it's a message that communities will would be giving unfortunately for the little mention investment that opportunity wasn't there there has been substantial consultation after the big decision was taken about the solution we need to move away from that i'm confident that the island scotland act and the community empowerment act will which have both come along since that these decisions were taken will mean that we wouldn't end up there again and also i'm confident that the the the agencies involved transport scotland sea mal calmac are all committed to to that sort of consultation and that sort of openness as well so sorry if i've been a bit long-winded with that i'm just mindful that rob may not like you as if i had to cut down his answer rob lots of the points have been covered the ferries to the western isles or out hebrides whichever you want to use are already over transport scotland's recommended capacity um the actual new ferry will enter service above its transport scotland's recommended capacity and you've already heard about additional growth going forward we won't have any additional capacity for another two years that causes concern both amongst businesses and communities both in terms of their business and how to grow it there's no incentive for growth at the moment because we can't get people there 80 percent of our visitors come on the ferries and if we can't get them there you're just taking share from your neighbour you're not growing you're not growing demand we want to grow business there's a lots of enthusiasm there it was good to hear i think angus covered it there is lots of community support for a small two boat service i think the consultation in both cases in the last two exercises was strongly in support of a two boat service and in both cases we've ended up with one larger vessel which has resulted in significant investment in port facilities um it's good to hear that that's beginning to change it's unfortunate that it's happening now john do you want to just very briefly i mean and it's to pick up on some of mr peterson's comments there and indeed others that are in the statement about i don't know if you're present when i asked about the involvement of the trade union movement in the ferry deployment plan and procurement um clearly they would have some concerns particularly about terminology like building hotels on top of ferries and the like would you see that it would be important that they were involved if there was any discussion about future ferry design yes i think so um it's important that the terms and conditions of work are are up to a standard that obtains across the industry at the very least um i'm not sure how expert trade unions are in the in the actual design of ferries you know appropriate design for for key routes and so on but they certainly should be consulted as to the operating methods that's not to say that operating methods should not change because one of the recommendations in my own paper is that we should move gradually to shore based crews and placing the crews on the island communities served by the ferries now that would answer the Scottish government's priorities for islands of increasing population and improving economic activity would increase school roles and so on so i think change is necessary but that change can be done in consultation very very quickly and Roy's slightly covered it but i was just going to say that that incremental change is not going to happen overnight if we're going to move to new fleets of ferries you know we're talking about a 30 year strategy here um it would be very good to see an increased local employment as part of that we absolutely get that that requires um education establishments locally to step up to the mark more than they maybe have been in the past we need to offer the ability to train people in marine jobs more local to the ports but at the moment there are in my opinion not enough people in the western islands as an example who are actually employed in the delivery of the ferry services that are their you know their their bread and water essentially and it would be good to see that increase and it would also help address what has become the the concerning demographic shift towards the aging population and the lack of well i'm a i'm a native of north us and i don't live there any longer and there are very few of my classmates who do as well and it would be good to retain people like me in the islands um not that i'm necessarily offering to relocate i might have to clear some domestics for that um angus i know you want to come in but we are pushed let's see if i can get you in on the next one Stuart you you i i i just want to move straight to a very simple question that you heard the other panel about integration of transport links um you i think you all heard the answers that we got is there anything more you could say on that subject perhaps starting with angus in particular who i think it is a common feedback that we get that um the onward links from the ferries don't always match and you hear different stories about buses leaving three minutes before a ferry comes in um the ability to to hold other forms of transport back um i think there's been improvements in that and certainly in some areas but there is still room for improvement and it ties in also i think with um from the disability point of view and for people needing to access um a lot of our facilities are um because they are old facilities both in terms of vessels and making it difficult and the newer ones we seem to be coping for it um but there is constantly an ask for better connection and better tie-up between the different forms of transport i say personal experience some time ago i put my case in the hold of the bussen and binas and got it in the pier at Stornoway and i thought that was really good anyway anyone else i don't think that facility is available any longer but um anyway the the point i was going to make is that the the nature of the current ferries means that there is um a lot of passenger accommodation on them there is no constraint to traveling to and from our islands as a food passenger there absolutely is a constraint in terms of cardics but we should and could and should be doing an awful lot more to improve the integration of um other modes of travel from the ports um that that is something that you know organization like high trans could do a lot more about as well um we we have taken some steps forward in that respect but there's often steps back as well um and the the recent example of the that one of the two new routes that kalmack have introduced was a Maligloch Boy Steel route which failed to connect with trains and you know getting these basics right they've addressed it they've i think three days of the week now the the connection is available or four so that is that is good sir ogris just just just to be clear what you're saying is we could if we get this right help more people to use public transport rather than private transport with all the benefits that might derive from that public transport um we need to make other options available like car clubs and um you know easy to get remote car hire um you know we just need to to make sure that our facilities in place at airports that make it much easier for people to travel to and from them without their car i'm going to actually bring jamie in to see if i can widen it out a bit and then we're going to have to move on to the next question jamie thank you convener good morning panel just falling on from the the scenario you said where there is availability for passengers but not for cars i think that's probably commonplace across much of the network a huge sense of frustration amongst drivers and businesses do you think there's a space for discussion around easing pressure on the vessels by removing some of the cargo or commercial vehicles off of passenger services on to for for example dedicated cargo or commercial services but be that publicly or privately operated is another discussion but would that free up much needed space on some of these car max services right i'll bring you in briefly i know of two private operators who would be very keen to operate between isla and the mainland on a freight only basis and an unsubsidised basis as well so the opportunities there is the third biggest freight a capacity freight volume of any island group in in scotland and and the opportunities are there private operators will be willing to do it so long as they were not undermined in the process so my question is why why isn't that not happening what would need to happen to to enable that to to go forward encourage private operators to do it i actually we talked a lot about vessels but there are actually quite a few things roi's just mentioned one there are lots of operational constraints on the vessels which limit capacity both operating practices and schedules i think cow mack would say that they don't have the budget to operate some of those facilities there is more capacity on swan away on the pool it runs a freight service overnight which often isn't full and maybe of use but it's not actually allowed people aren't allowed to use it so there are capacities in the system and there are lots of constraints around that the harris south harris service which runs at 97% is supposedly to run at 97% only is allowed to run during daytime hours because constraints on on safety so there are things that we could do in addition to services i would just mention bikes as well lots of growth in cycle use on the islands and it's actually one of the areas where we can be more sustainable lots of demand from both visitors and uh and islanders and the use of service and the the ferries are not necessarily all set up to actually take the bikes and we're getting problems with people not being able to actually move bikes around the network we're going to move on i'm sorry rannel we're going to move on to the next question which is richardile i'll see if i can bring in yeah good morning gentlemen um hindsight's a wonderful thing uh i have to say i don't want a deregulated ferry service i want uh the service we've got okay and i've got none against private i've been on western ferries but unfortunately a ferry is not like a dingy you can't just take it off the wall blow up and stick it in the water you've got to build it and you know what was built in the past maybe is not suitable for today so what you know and i saw actually one or two you shaking your head when i asked this question earlier when you were in the audience are you satisfied with the progress or process of engagement with island communities over ferry procurement and if not why not i think it was nodding her heads i think maybe you got and i think my earlier answer really reflected in part the question that you'd asked earlier on that in the past i don't think consultation with island communities has been as good as it should have been or other key stakeholders including the halliers as well who are important customer in the mix but um i hope that i hope things will be different in the future so i think that was the point yes i think i would have been nodding my head in agreement for you bringing that point up because i think it's uh it is absolutely critical that we improve that input into the process i think a lot of communities would ask can you evidence where we have actually changed any of the decision making in the past and it's difficult to see where we have so if we're going to be real about this i think they have a much more obvious upfront part to play in the design of services and they should be including that from the beginning so basically um Angus Euron the Calmark community board do the chair so is that you know if you don't take calmark and say no don't do that or my uh our member say that it added that we've finding our feet if you like in the first year but our remit is to feed into the calmark board and i go into the calmark board by invitation but we have recently done a piece of work which might be of interest to the committee by one of our sub committees looking at the operational constraints and the planning issues by one of our sub groups a three month piece of work where it became apparent that we are now facing not just calmax transport scotland input to transport scotland into seamal and i was going to offer to pass that on to the committee maybe after this meeting as i think you should do that because we all i think everybody wants to work together to solve this problem i'll move on recent procurement decisions have favoured larger vehicles vessels over more medium-sized vehicles are you content content these decisions and do you think the procurement decisions have provided good value for money or not with royal matter content i i i i think it has been a mistake i think there are ways around this um if we take for example the um what was being called the sky triangle it's not of course a triangle it's a it's a v uh there's not the other part of the the triangle is missing um it's not too late i think to move to a two ship uh scenario there which would oedd iddyn ni'n cael eu nhw yw gwneud o'r ffordd o'r drafodau i Gw holdsiaethau rydych chi'n serffaith iawn. Rwy'n rhaid quemryd y gwymunig newid. Y cyfnodol yn gweithio y cyster aeth Glensauryd yn gyflym â'n eich gwlad i ysgadeu ac mae'n amlwyconiadau yn deall. Rwy'n gweithio'r LNG, wrth hynny'n hynny'n gweithio'r LNG yn golygau i gyfle cyst-bylwyr. By that by lorry, that requires a round trip of over a thousand miles of a lorry burning diesel to bring this supposedly green fuel to run this ship. Orteney has a supply of LNG, so the ship would be suitable for Scrabster Storm Ness. It's not suitable for Uighlachmadi and Tarbert because the one-ship solution has always been no good because the timetable varies each day, is that unusar-friendly timetable. Two ships would provide a far superior service, would double the capacity of the present, which the new ship will not. The new ship will bring a marginal increase in capacity, and it can be done at a cost no more than the large ship and major upgrades to terminals, but will generate more revenue. Therefore, hopefully, cost less money overall. Does anyone like to offer a different view on the panel to that? Not a different view, but just to expand on it. For reasons that I've said earlier, the big single vessel replacing another vessel doesn't look like the right solution. I don't think that it's adding in terms of accessibility and frequency, which will drive the economy. I think that we need to now plan ahead, we need to understand where the next problems are on the network. Unfortunately, some of those problems are where the most recent investment has been, but we still need to understand. Transport Scotland have made great strides forward in forecasting ahead and understanding what the issues are going to be on the network. We now need to plan for the next 20 or 30 years, and that would be, for me, Mull, Islay and the Little Minch. We need to look at the vessel age elsewhere as well, because there are some that need to be replaced. I just don't get this. I need to get a bigger vessel because more vehicles want to come to my island, but you're now saying, no, it should be a smaller one. Are you basically saying, two smaller ones, which will then go back and forward, back and forward? Sorry, if I may, as an example of that, you cannot do a day trip from the Western Isles to the mainland. To put that population into perspective, it's the inability, and I'm looking at the convener for this, to make a day trip from Elgin to Aberdeen or Inverness. So that's what the current timetabling that we have for the Western Isles, that's just picking that example. We'll drive frequency, we'll open up new markets. That's what I wanted to know. I'm not sure it's a good ploid to put the convener on the spot, but he always likes to be brought into the conversation. Jamie Greene, yours is the next question. We have a lot of expertise on the panel here, and I would like to ask in your professional opinion what you think should have happened over the past 10 years. But more importantly, and I think that we all want to look forward, is what should we be doing now, what should the Scottish Government be doing now to improve the situation, specifically on the CHIFS network, to alleviate the situation, given that we know that we're operating at maximum capacity with little to no resilience at the moment? I guess you're all going to have a view on this. I'm not sure who wants to come in first. You're all looking the other way at the moment. No, you're all volunteering. Angus will start with you, and then we'll work along the line. If I could ask you to keep your answers to sync, I'd be grateful. I will keep it short, because I think it's quite a sensible approach is to sit down and say, how are we going to plan this into the 5, 10, 15-year future for ferry services, and do we want these ferry services to be part of growing the economies of these islands, or do we not? I think then it takes you back to looking at how do we finance that, how do we put the finance behind that, and that might mean that we have to look at new ways of raising finance. We can look at other countries where you have publicly owned ferry services that actually go to the market to get finance, for instance. There are options there, and I think it would be good if Government had a look at what's our ambition for the islands, for the places that these ferry services have a new baseline and start working up a long-term plan. No long-term plan is any use if you don't have the finance behind that, and that is a challenge that we recognise, but there are other ways of looking at that as well. Just to perhaps build on that, I would look to undertake the right appraisal. By saying that, I'm not going to say what all the answers are to it, but I think that the Government is making the good step of undertaking a stag study that looks at all the services to the Outer Hebrides, to and from and within the Outer Hebrides. I would roll that process on to a similar piece of work looking at the services that the communities currently serve from woven and understand what those communities want, what the long-term planning is for those areas. I think that Ily with the new second vessel will actually be addressed and it's based around the principles that were developed through a stag analysis anyway of two vessel services for Ily. It looks as if Arran is going to be pretty well there, so I think that we're making some good progress, but I think that we need to undertake some appraisal and then understand what that tells us about the most appropriate steps, also maybe bringing in some of these other software measures that we can do to manage demand. Roy. One of the papers that I submitted to the expert ferry group was called West Coast Ferry Scoping Study. That really sets out the scenario. It's medium-sized vessels, simpler vessels, shore-based crewing. Using shorter routes and land bridges such as Mall for Colin Tyree, Ily, Jura, short routes, it's all set out in the paper if it can be distributed to you. I think that's better than a long answer from me. Thank you. Rob. A long-term plan is necessary. There's a review under way, which is absolutely crucial for the Outer Aberdeys services in combination. I think there is broad support for smaller, more frequent services that open up new markets and a ferry plan that links into the overall economic plan for the islands and is not disjointed from it. I have to ask. I'm now totally confused. I thought we had a ferry's plan that we all agreed, but it seems that everyone who has been here this morning said that no one agrees with it. Is that a fair assumption or is that not a fair assumption? It's been superseded, and I think that events have gone ahead of that ferry's plan. The challenge that I was talking about is how we develop a new ferry's plan that reflects the ambitions of the islands that are served. None of us has disagreed with that job. As this session has progressed, we have heard a reference, and I wonder if both frequent references to Transport Scotland should be on and have been at the end of the table, too. Can you explain the role that they play? It seems that they are pivotal, and I'm not entirely sure that I understand where they fit in the scheme of things. To be tactful on that topic, but I think that there is a case for a new management structure to address the issue of ferries in Scotland. That's a bit by bringing Maureen in, and then asking anyone else if they want a question. Thank you, convener. Gentleman, as this session has gone on, it strikes me that we keep talking about that we need a replacement vessel on this route in that route. Is surely we should be looking at what Scotland needs in terms of ferries, including Northlink, because I would have thought that there was some crossover between Aberdeen to Orney and Shetland and Alapol to Stornoway. Surely we should be looking at the range of type of vessels so that you get more ability to swap vessels around on routes when required. I don't get that feeling coming from any of the answers so far. When I bring Rannill in, I say that everyone else nodded to the OMAs. Yes, they all did nod Rannill. I think that at the moment there is a vessel replacement deployment plan that just looks at the Clyde and Hebrides ferry services. That should also take in the Northern Hebrides ferry services. I think that it seems absolutely right and proper that the ferry services that the Scottish Government has funded are looking at in the whole. I do think that in terms of Transport Scotland's position in all of this, I think that they are working. I think that Siemall and Kalmac did a good job of presenting what their role is, which is essentially to be Government's agency to take the responsibility for the ferry services. It is a very, very challenging one as well. I think that I took a lot of heart, as I said, from the fact that we are recognising that the demand that we are dealing with is very, very different and we now have to perhaps pivot and change the way that we are looking to cope with that demand. I don't think that we will all work together on that as well. I think that there is a real shared sense of purpose. I will briefly bring in Jamie and then we will move on to the next subject. I think that Moran makes an excellent point about looking at the bigger picture. It is something fundamentally flawed in the way that the whole thing is operating at the moment. We know that we need around £850 million, that was said in the previous panel, to replace the current fleet notwithstanding any future growth. They are getting around half of that at the moment in terms of investment. We know that there are private operators out there who could perhaps operate unsubsidised on routes, delivering environmentally friendly, efficient and reliable services. Is there something fundamentally wrong in the way that Transport Scotland is approaching the tender processes, the franchise model, the ownership model, the operational routes and the licences that they operate? Is there another way of looking—should there be another way of looking at this? That seems like a huge question. I think that there has been a tendency to do things as they always have been done and changing them a little bit on the margins, rather than looking at the system as a whole. As Scandinavians have done, coming up with a plan that really does address the needs of the islands, but provides the required services in a cost-efficient manner. I will bring Angus in, and then I am afraid that we have got to move on to the next question. Very briefly, I think that there is a need to look at the model and how it works, but I think that we also have to realise that CalMac employees are part of the communities that they serve, and there would be from the communities a protection, if you like, on making sure that the value that they have given into the system is maintained. We have seen other operators coming on the Stornoway route to run a freight ferry before, and that has not been long-term successful. I think that there is no doubt that there is a need to have a complete look at how we supply those services, but the growing economy of the islands that they serve should sit alongside that as part of that discussion, so that we do not inadvertently cause any harm. Thank you. Colin, your next question. Thank you, convener. So far, we have focused on the issues around replacement ferries by and large, but can I ask the panel to consider the issue around port infrastructure itself? Are there any specific ports that you believe are in need of significant investment? Do you want to go on that? We have a particular strategy to build in-island traffic down the western aisles of the out-Hebrides, the particular service that has been very successful. We have everything called Hebride and Way, where you can walk and cycle it, but we have lots of other things that you can do on the way down. Certainly, the service across South of Harris is between, well, Burner and South Harris, is really under pressure both in terms of volume, but also it is just about hanging in there in these investment in all sorts of ways on port, on the boat and actually on the route between the two. That is a particular concern for our industry, because it holds the whole thing together. As well as getting people to the islands, there is also moving people around once they are on the islands. That is a particular concern for us. In terms of other areas, you have already heard that there has been quite a big investment in the out-Hebrides, both planned and future in terms of Storyport and Tarbot and Llock Maddie being upgraded with the new vessels. When the committee went out to Mull, there were comments about and we certainly saw more camper vans going out to the islands and the pressure that that put on infrastructure. Do you want to comment on that? Who would like to go next? It is just something through Roy. In my paper, I feel that camper vans ought not to be given the advantage of road equivalent tariff, because the mostly tourist vehicles, the camper van users tend not to use local accommodation. They often tend to bring their own food with them from their own supermarkets, so they contribute very little, very often, to the island economies. I do not think that they should benefit from subsidised travel. I am not sure that Angus agrees. Angus? I do not agree from an island economy that needs everything that it can get to start refusing to carry. I know businesses that have built up on the back of camper vans coming to the islands. I know individual businesses that do get spend. I do not think that we are in a position where we can say that we do not want any form of input into our economy at this moment with the population challenges that we have with the challenge of finding work for young people to stay there. It goes back to one of the questions earlier about RET, because something is successful. Let us not look at finding a financial penalty to stop it growing. Let us look at how we can maximise that, because if you go down that route, it is the poorest people who will suffer in terms of losing access to these services. There are people on our islands who go and travel in camper vans to get their holiday on the mainland, and I know some people who just couldn't afford to do that before. Let's not just take a broad brush to this, but we have to maximise what we've got. Angus, we're definitely going to get a chance to look at RET in a minute. Jamie, you had a specific question on a specific area. On the issue of ports, we've had a lot of discussions this morning around whether two smaller vessels are better than one big vessel, but a by-product of making those decisions is the effect that it has on the port infrastructure and whether or not those ports at present are currently suitable for larger vessels. The example being the Addrossan-Borwick route. Obviously, Borwick has had its investment, but the decision to put a larger vessel on that route also means that Addrossan will require significant investment and potentially temporary relocation to a competitive port in the interim. Do you think that enough goes into the decision making process around looking at the bigger picture when choosing which vessel needs to be built around the consequences that it will have on the cost of improving the ports in which those vessels have to serve? In the earlier question, it is acknowledged that in Audit Scotland's work on ferries that there should be an infrastructure investment plan in a similar way as we have a vessel replacement and deployment plan. I'm not qualified to say where the investment is needed in the infrastructure, but I do feel that the two cannot work apart. They need to happen together. We need to understand the full implications of the infrastructure. We've heard evidence already today around the storm-available one, which actually saw a significant investment in the storm out where a new pier was built for the previous ferry in the mid to late 90s. We've almost invested in the infrastructure where it was the freshest in the network. There absolutely are challenges. I think that the quality of facilities at terminals is important as well, because that's pretty variable. You've got Brodic on the one hand, but if you have travelled through Craig Newer to go to Mull, you'll have seen a dearth of facility, a large weighting shelter that Hydrans funded in 2002 as a main passenger facility, which I think that we've had people become unwell standing on that in the fine summer that we've had. There needs to be some consistency and some basics that each port should have as well, but I do think that that would help. I'm going to bring Gail Ross in now just on this sort of area of investment imports. Thanks, convener. Good morning, panel, again. Just to go back to the question that I asked the first panel about accessibility for people with mobility issues, do you think that sufficient consideration is given to people with extra mobility needs when designing ports come in? I know that Rob in your written evidence said basically what was said before that the newer vessels are good, but there's an issue with the older vessels as well, so maybe if you want to expand on that too. I would commend the operation procedures. I'm a personal user of that service, and certainly for mobility assistance, it depends if it's visually impaired or there's hearing issues, I can't comment on those. The operating procedures and the attitude of the people on the vessel is great. I think it's better if you're in a vehicle because you get access directly on to the thing. If you're a foot passenger, you probably have to go through more steps and that's probably more challenging in those things, so I think as the replacements are coming on, those considerations are being fully borne into account. Certainly I'm not an expert on accessibility, but as a user, my file has mobility concerns and it seems to be reflected. It is the legacy system that is particularly important on vessels. It's just running through that we have this age of vessels. I'll bring Ronald in, and then I'm afraid we are going to have to go on to our ET, which I know is an issue around. As brief as possible, I think that the operator does an absolutely excellent job of managing their people with reduced mobility. I think that they have a good track record. The new investment has always placed the accessibility needs of different stakeholders as a priority. I've been involved in the accessible travel framework and I've worked closely with CalMac and Northlink on how they've been taking forward the needs of PRMs, including some test runs on ferries. Actually, ferries perform very well compared to some other modes, if I'm perfectly honest. I think that it's like everything. Dealing with older vessels, but even some of the older major vessels will still have lifts to at least one part of the ship as well, so that's going back to the Isle of Arran from era 1984. They've been doing a good job in this respect for at least 30 years. We're going to move on to the next section, John. That's here. We already had mention of RET, a road-equivalent tariff. I hasten to add that I'm not—I don't use a campervan, I use a tent when I'm visiting, so I suppose my input into island economies is limited, as I don't stay in a hotel. Clearly, there's a lot of hopes for RET. It appears to have had a big impact. Have there been both pluses and minuses, would you say? Good luck, Roy. The original architect of RET in 1974, when I was a very young transport research officer with the Highlands Islands Development Board, I would say that the RET idea was of its time. It seems to have been a considerable success in generating traffic, but I think that there's scope for improvement. It doesn't reflect modern yield management techniques. In other words, you charge more at peaks, and I think that there's scope for that. I think that there's scope for giving islanders, island residents, including campervan owners, more moderate fares than visitors. We've had a lot of talk recently about tourist taxes, and yet we are heavily subsidising tourists to go to islands at the same time. I think that the balance has to be struck somewhere along the way. I think that I probably won't say any more than that other than there's scope for more flexibility to generate more revenue, to regulate capacity and to still benefit the island communities. I would hope that we're not in danger of treating the symptoms instead of the disease here as well. RET has had as significant an impact on island economies as anything else I can think of in my memory, which was actually since 1974. I think that RET has done a tremendous job of delivering new people and increasing the profile and demand and the desire for people to travel to the islands. It's also clearly grown and propensity to travel for islanders, but that's a good thing as well. I do think that it's not absolutely consistent, because some islanders have more access to RET, as it were, than others because they have more ferry services because of distance from mainland or other factors. Whether that leaves some scope for some ways of managing demand, Mr Greene mentioned the possibility that you could incentivise travel for haulers on lower demand sailings because you make it a bit cheaper for them without breaking RET itself. There's lots of things that could be done within it, but as a concept I think we should try and manage the success that RET has given. Mr Peterson seemed to be suggesting that we hadn't maybe got the balance right. I went to the silly aisles in the summer without a car and it cost me £100 return. Are the fares just too cheap? Is that part of the problem? We could raise the fares a bit and that would also help the management. I think that people living on the islands would not say that they were too cheap. If you are going to differentiate with tourism, where do you stop in terms of what classifications you put on people's travel? I have really worries that the tourism ministry is hugely important to the islands and I wouldn't like to see that taking a backward step. We are still in a position on the islands where many economies are going backwards. We are not keeping young people and we are not providing employment. If we as a country want to put investment into islands, RET is a good vehicle for that, I would say. I also think that if we are evaluating RET, it should be done in a very holistic way and look at all the benefits that come back in against the costs of it. There is no doubt that there has been a huge improvement in people being able to live a more equal life in the islands in terms of accessibility. You look at your health services, you look at what comes into the exchequer in terms of tax paid on those activities that are now taking place on the island. If we are evaluating RET, please let's not do it in a vacuum in terms of just the cost that puts in. Let's have a look at the outcome as well. Clarification. I mean, I understand that Transport Scotland is going to do a review of RET in 2019. Do you understand that it will cover all those issues or will it not cover all those issues? I haven't got the detail on just how wide it's going to look, but I've already expressed on behalf of the community board to Transport Scotland how to fear that it will be less than a holistic look, so I would certainly encourage us to look at all aspects when we do that evaluation. From an islander's perspective, this is an amazing thing, and the principle of people not being discriminated for choosing to live on an island is great. It has been a big boom for the tourism industry. It's not the only thing that's happened in the tourism industry in the last six years. On the islands, there has been a significant amount of demand, so we have tried to grow the industry ourselves as well, but RET has been a big help to it. Roy mentioned yield management. There is no difference in fare for a tourist, whether you go in December or in July in those things. I thought that there were different levels of fares for CalMac. If you think of the visitor as an investment in generating demand and looking at yield management techniques, even without price, we could use yield management much more effectively across the network, but it would help the community significantly if we can stimulate traffic outside of the peak weeks. All this conversation has been about a four-month peak in the summer. At the other end of the season, we have to reverse. You are all welcome to join me on the ferry in November, and we are pretty sure that we could get on it assuming the weather could work. On the tourist side, there are things that could be done to help ensure that the islands get a more visitor income from the same amount of investment. Thank you. The final two questions are from Jamie Greene. I hear what Mr Campbell is saying about the differentiation of users of ferries, but surely I could cite numerous examples of islanders from Arran that weren't able to get to the mainland to access hospital appointments. One constituent contacted me and recently could get a funeral on the mainland because the ferries are full. Whatever redesign happens, there must be a way of ensuring that islanders themselves are given some sort of priority on services in the face of such numbers. Would that merit consideration? I would certainly agree that there has to be a method, particularly in those routes that are heavily used and short-crossed. Arran is a perfect example of that. We were aware of what you said, and finding some way of making it easy for people to live on the island to make sure that they do access these things. Maybe what the point I was trying to make was that we should not punish things to make that happen. We should be ambitious and say, how do we grow the capacity on these routes to allow people to access that? It is not a perfect world. You will not get anything. There is tweaking that can be done to do that. I agree with what others said. For instance, a schooled minibus to go to a sports event is on the same level as some of the commercial vehicles. Those little things can be altered if we have the will. However, what I was trying to say was that let us not use a hammer to sort out problems that might have unknown consequences. However, I would certainly agree that the basic right to access to services and to get to and from the mainland is something that should be available to islanders, otherwise you are doing the opposite of what you have set out to do. Do you want to ask your final question on tendering to the panel? Oh, I do have a final question. Apologies. No, no, it's fine. I just wasn't aware. I had another follow-up, so bear with me. Obviously, there is a Government strategy at the moment to want to direct award contracts to CalMac, and there is a process on going in it. I believe that we would probably do some update on that. What are the panels that views on the current wider tender process, who should be able to bid, whether a contract should be directed awarded, or whether, as we discussed earlier, there is potential for other operators to enter some of these markets and relieve some of those pressure points, especially during the peak seasons? I would love to give you each a very short opportunity to answer that. Roy, why don't you start and then I'll work along that way and then come back to Rob at the end? The present tendering system is quite restrictive in that the incoming operator for the whole bundle is expected to have the same cruise, same ship, same fare, same A conditions, etc. There's no scope for innovation in that. I think that the tender has to be made rather more open to invite innovation. I believe that there is scope for smaller bundles, which would make it easier for incoming operators to handle. We've been pretty agnostic about the position around to tender or not to tender and how things move forward. We can see posits of tendering and engagement. We managed to administer the ferry stakeholder groups for the chips network, and we've heard evidence that the tendering has been demonstrated to provide savings. At the same time, it is clear that there would be savings in not having to tender in terms of some of the costs that are built in. The feeling being that there is a net saving from that. We've been broadly agnostic as an organisation and allowing that review to go forward. However, it seems to get mixed views from the communities as well when we've been at the different sessions on consultation around the review, but we're really agnostic. Angus, briefly. I can bring no expertise at tendering to the table. As a board, we haven't discussed that, but there is a feeling that some form of benchmarking against the performance of the company would be helpful. There is a worry about breaking up into different bundles. There always has been when we've discussed that across the network that you then let private companies cherry-peak the best routes and you end up with the public purse taking the more difficult routes to manage. That, again, is a discussion that I've been well involved in. I would suggest a bit of caution towards that approach. Rob, do you want to add anything to that? No tendering expertise. The community, all opinions are expressed in the community. I think that there's a strong affinity with CalMac in the communities that came out, but equally there's a frustration with the ferry service and a desire to make things done. Angus said in terms of there's different ways of getting to a better performance pick, whichever one you think is appropriate. I do think that we talked about operation staff. This is a very remote debate from the communities in which we operate. It's large national organisations talking to other large national organisations in remote places. None of the management live in the communities in which they serve. They talk about things very emotively, but if more of them were based there, it's not just people running the boats, it's actually people taking the decisions there. I think that that might have a bigger impact than your tendering process. Thank you very much. I'd like to thank all members of the panel for the answers that they've given. It's been very helpful. I'm pleased that we've managed to get through all of the questions. Thank you very much. I'm now briefly going to suspend the meeting. I'm now going to move the meeting into private session and I'll allow the witnesses to depart as quickly as possible.