Seòmar agus comataidhean

I might have picked up what he said incorrectly, but I have a technical question for Kevin Hobbs. You said that you attribute a lot of the cost overruns to the fact that vessel 801 was put into the water, which meant that costs were more expensive. Are you implying that the vessel was launched too early?

Mr McColl said:

“Had we not launched 801, it would have impaired the work on 802, so it was the proper logistical thing to do.”—[Official Report, Public Audit Committee, 16 June 2022; c 28.]

Could it be that another photo shoot with the First Minister, to great fanfare, might have ended up costing the taxpayer millions of pounds?

Could there have been a political imperative in that? That was the second time the First Minister turned up when you seemed uneasy about the process.

Okay.

Good morning. Could you expand on the present governance arrangements for roads and rail projects, including possibly a little bit of an illustration on the interactions between the Scottish Government and Transport Scotland?

Mr Østergaard, you have a reputation as being quite a tough cookie in this industry—somebody who understands the industry and somebody who would fight his corner. When he came before us, I asked Roy Brannen from Transport Scotland about the correspondence that he had had. I asked him:

“If I advise you not to do something in pretty strong terms and you then proceed to do it, I am either being ignored or overruled, am I not?”

The response that we had from Mr Brannen was:

“Are you referring to the letter from the chair at the end of September and to the subsequent exchanges that went to the minister? As I understand it, from the moment that the chair expressed concern to the point at which the advice went up to the minister, quite a bit of negotiation had taken place between CMAL and FMEL on getting the contract to a place where both parties were content. At that point, CMAL was content to award the contract and was seeking approval from the minister to do so. That approval was sought and given, CMAL was responded to, and the board accepted that and then signed the contract on 19 October”. —[Official Report, Public Audit Committee, 26 May 2022; c 13-14.]

Was Mr Brannen giving a misleading account there? You were saying that you—

Did you ask to see ministers in the closing phases of the negotiation? Did you ask to sit down with ministers and express your concerns to them face to face?

Did you feel that, by announcing that with such fanfare, the ministers were in effect forcing your hand?

In relation to the issue of the contract, if you did not ask to speak to a minister and you did not have further negotiations with Transport Scotland, what were those last 24 hours like? Talk me through them. What was the dynamic internally in the organisation?

Why would Derek Mackay have that impression and communicate that to Stuart McMillan?