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All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
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Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 16 June 2022
Colin Beattie
What I am saying is that, from the committee’s point of view, we can only look at evidence that we receive that we are able to scrutinise.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 16 June 2022
Colin Beattie
I want to turn to a specific area—that of the milestone payments that totalled about £83.25 million. Paragraph 160 of the report that the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee published back in December 2020 says:
“there is strong evidence that the contractor deliberately proceeded to construct specific sections of the vessel either out of sequence or not according to the proper specification purely as a means of triggering milestone payments on the contract.”
Paragraph 157 talks about
“the contractor progressing certain work on the vessels either incorrectly or out of sequence purely in order to trigger payments against the contract”.
10:15Commodore Luke van Beek also gave evidence to the committee that Ferguson’s deliberately slowed down some of the subcontracting. I am a layman, so I do not understand naval contracts, but if there are milestones at A, B and C, and the work between A and B has not been carried out and only the work at the milestone has been done in order to trigger a payment, that does not seem to me to be right.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 16 June 2022
Colin Beattie
Given your statement that the milestone payments were payments for large equipment and so on, for example—
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 16 June 2022
Colin Beattie
Obviously, the dispute between FMEL and CMAL was significant. Was FMEL advised by the CMAL board at any point that it would resign if there was any intervention in the dispute? If so, who advised that?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 16 June 2022
Colin Beattie
How was the £128.25 million of public money that was invested in the yard and in the construction of the ships spent?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 16 June 2022
Colin Beattie
The committee really needs to understand that. From looking at what the REC Committee produced, its view seemed to be that the way in which the milestone payments had been done was extraordinary, because the sections were constructed out of sequence and so on. That implies to me that what I have read out was the case. Did the work between A and B take place to allow the milestone payment at B to be triggered?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 16 June 2022
Colin Beattie
So there are large discrepancies—
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 16 June 2022
Colin Beattie
Is there any—
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 16 June 2022
Colin Beattie
Yes.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 16 June 2022
Colin Beattie
So why did you accept them?
