Former employee of ferry operator Caledonian MacBrayne and seemingly a man obsessed, Gordon Ross, now Managing Director of independent Western Ferries, is at it again. He has launched yet another sally in his multifaceted – and frankly tedious – crusade against Scotland’s state owned ferry service provider.
Mr Ross has lodged an official complaint with Audit Scotland, claiming that CalMac’s accounts disguise a covert subsidising of vehicular journey costs on the Gourock-Dunoon route. His contention is that CalMac has misapplied state subsidy granted for foot-passenger services in an anti-competitive action.
Western Ferries achieves a 90% share of the vehicular traffic on the route from Dunoon to the west coast mainland because the state-owned CalMac’s subsidy sees it shackled to providing only one service per hour. This fact rather puts Mr Ross’s latest action in a frame where it could be argued to result from loss of perspective.
CalMac has hit the bouncer for six, pointing out that its accounts are fully compliant with established accountancy procedures and have been audited variously by Audit Scotland and by top accountants, KPMG and PWC – all of whom signed them off.
It also notes that an EU investigation which Mr Ross has claimed was into CalMac was actually concerned with state aid to ferry services and not with the company about whose accounting it raised no issues.
CalMac is inviting Audit Scotland to revisit its accounts if it wishes and says that it is now considering legal action against Mr Ross.
The public as well as the state – and, one would hope, Mr Ross – should consider that what seems little more than incessant mischief making is steadily diverting public money to the overpaid pockets of the legal profession. This is not what we pay our taxes for.
Will there be a point where Mr Ross is stopped in his tracks through use of the Vexatious Actions (Scotland) Act of 1898?
There are some cases, including here in Scotland, where there have been concerns that administrations have favoured particular legal firms and have given them effective protection from prosecution by naming some of their pursuers ‘vexatious litigants’.
Mr Ross’s case would not, though, fall into that category.
The legal professions and the jurisdictions of various countries across the world agree that it is important to identify at an early stage vexatious or obsessed litigants and to find a procedure simultaneously to give them a fair hearing and put an end to their persistence.
Perhaps Mr Ross and CalMac would each care to place in the public domain the total of legal fees they have paid in the various disputes that have occurred between them; and note which of them initiated each complaint or action?
This is fast becoming a matter of public concern.
Well said, For Argyll
You would think that Western Feries, having been presented with an absolute goldmine by the possibly illegal and certainly unreasonable shackling of the CalMac operation by successive Tory and Labour Governments, would have the decency to shut up and quietly bank their huge profits.
The sooner WF is subjected to energetic competition the better it will be for everybody else.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Western Ferries are prudent to watch the antics of State owned MacBraynes. It has been alleged that Western Ferries were perhaps forced off the Islay route by what was ‘some very questionable competitive tactics’ by the state owned Caledonian MacBrayne who were given public money to compete. Pundits argue that it was this public money that allowed CalMac to introduce a new ro-ro ferry, the MV Pioneer, onto the Islay route in 1975. It has been alleged by http://www.islayinfo.com/islay_ferry_history.html that CalMac essentially lured the freight traffic away by ‘presenting the haulers with an offer they could not refuse’ thus undercutting the private operator on price using their colossal public subsidies. A report from the Monopolies and Mergers Commission said, “the least cost effective of the competitors on the route survived – to the detriment of public funds” because, inevitably, the Government refused to support the private operator against its own CalMac, and Western Ferries were forced to pull out of Islay.
The Scottish Government, and Argyll and Bute Administration, in particular, soak up extraordinary amount of the public purse; therefore it is imperative that Western ferries operate a commercially viable service for all of Cowal and the Argyll hinterland. MacBraynes and the Scottish Government have made a real mess of the subsidised Dunoon run for which we all pay for in taxes. The operation and funding of this run is so complex that only those with the grasp of EU law now understand its convoluted structure – which probably precludes those that run MacBraynes and Edinburgh’s Politicians. Western Ferries are probably being prudent with their challenges – as in once bitten twice shy.
I guess with articles like this one, as well as the ill informed long running saga about Loch Striven’s shipping lay-ups, it really should be of no surprise to anyone that your website dishes any form of independent commercial enterprise. Argyll’s newspapers have little to fear with your poor efforts. By the way where do you get the bulk of your funding – It wouldn’t be from the State – would it?
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
We receive no funding from any source for our online news service.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
@Hamish Beaton. Any sort of commercial enterprise? Ho-hum. I think you’ll find that in the long running Loch Striven saga ForArgyll has been overwhelmingly complimentary regarding Maersk. Not of course about Clydeport, but is that any wonder? I’ve see positive articles on the Majestic Line, Machrinhanish Golf Course and Bruichladdich Distillery. I suspect the common line is that those businesses which are socially responsible get the thumbs up, and those that aren’t don’t. And as for for your assertion that the articles here are poor efforts, the length and detail of your comment underlines how seriously you take the reach and readership of the website. Incidentally, why would the papers worry, it seems the site often points readers to the papers or their websites.
@newsroom Presume you get revenue from the Google Adverts?
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Hamish Beaton obviously does not understand the issue nor the fact that the CalMac Dunoon -Gourock ferry does not and never has received any subsidy for its vehicle carrying service . Despite continuous vexatious complaints from WF this situation had been audited fiecely and continuously by the Audit Commision and a number of other bodies with locus in this area.
The fact of the matter is that at a period at which the traffic on this route was expanding rapidly the CalMac service was deliberately crippled by the then Tory government and restricted to one sailing per hour and no late sailings while WF were allowed to do as many sailings as it wanted. This was a favour to the then private proprietors of WF by private-mad Mrs Thatcher and was arguably illegal.
Since WF came onto this route trafiic has increased by over 600% so any notion that there was not a need for an expansion of the Calmac Service is utter nonsense and the behavioiur of succesive Tory and Labour Scottish governments is nothing short of a disgrace.
The Scottish Government along with Calmac and WF hired Deloite Touche to do an appraisal into the Dunoon /Gourock crossing. This reported unambiguously that CalMac running an unrestricted vehicle carrying service in competition to WF was by far the best option and it also pointed out very firmly that a proper CalMac service would require no subsidy whatsoever. The moderate subsidy it fields is a direct result of the way it has been crucified. It presently has a subsidy on foot passengers (for foot passengers) which is accompanied by a PSO (Public Sevice Obligation) which caps the fares.
This report suited neither WF nor the Scottish Executive so it was quietly buried. In fact its conclusions are entirely vindicated by the continuing growth of traffic on this crossing and the very high fares that WF can get away with ,particularly on commercial traffic much of which is now thundering round by road.
A passenger only ferry cannot run without a huge subsidy. A properly run vehicle/passenger ferry wpould run at a profit and costs the public purse nothiing.
In fact the disgraceful restriction put on CalMac by Tory and Labour destroyed the only really profitable Calmac route and left the public purse subsidising a service which should in fact have been putting money back in to the Calmac network.
Any suggestion that the town centre to town centre Calmac Service should be terminated will be fiercely resisted in Dunoon which would struggle even more than it presently does if the valuable vehicular tourist traffic it gets from Dunoon Pier is cut off.
There is no doubt that competition on this route would be of benefit to everybody (except perhaps Western Ferries) and it is no part of a governments function to cripple competition and favour hugely a private and hugely profitable company.
I am continually surprised by the number of people in Cowal who have taken leave of their senses and confuse what is good for Western Ferries with what is in the community interest.
As a matter of interest the present MD of WF was the Operations Manager of Calmac while his family were and are major shareholders in WF and the suggestioin that Calmac should become passenger only (which would have been to the enormous benefit of WF) sems to have originated then. He then transferred directy to WF which is in fact probably illegal but was conveniently overlooked by the Scottish office.
The fact that Lord George Robertson spoke out in favour of a Western Ferries’ monoply a couple of weeks ago was perhaps encouraged by the fact he gets a very very large sum of money from them annually as a non executive director.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
‘I am continually surprised by the number of people in Cowal who have taken leave of their senses and confuse what is good for Western Ferries with what is in the community interest.’
How very true.
However Dave, I don’t think Gordon Ross was operations manager at Calmac. I can’t remember his exact role but I’m pretty certain it was in finance, and he had some involvement with Europe and the Northlink tender.
The Dunoon Observer was – amazingly, given the controversial nature of the story – the first to break the news of Mr Ross’ previous employment when he took up the post of MD at Western.
When I spoke to him at the time he was adamant that any knowledge he gained while working for Calmac was of no commercial benefit in his new role of MD at Western.
You can make of that what you like, but I suggest that, given that Calmac were well aware of Mr Ross’ connections with a rival company, by employing him they displayed a level of naivete which even the most impartial observer would consider mind-boggling.
There’s little doubt that they must now be bitterly regretting the day that they ever let Mr Ross through the door.
However, there are other issues arising from this thread. It’s perfectly true to say that the restriction was placed on Calmac by Malcolm Rifkind back in 1982 and was sustained by successive Tory and Labour governments – not to mention the Lib/Lab coalition at Holyrood..
If that’s the problem – and not an EU ruling which has often been used as an excuse – why didn’t the present government simply lift the restriction when it came into power?
Hamish Beaton raises the issue of subsidy. and – despite the notion that Calmac’s subsidy is supposedly for passengers only – he may well have a point.
Back in the mid-nineties, I lived in Rothesay and commuted to Dunoon. I could not believe the imbalance between the cost of travel on the two routes.
Both routes used streakers, which were interchangeable.
On the Wemyss Bay – Rothesay route the cost of a car was dependent on its length. On the Dunoon route all cars were the same price.
The cost of a ten-journey ticket for a large Volvo estate on the Dunoon run was £32. For the same car on the Rothesay run the cost was a staggering £104.
When I asked Calmac’s then operations manager why there was such a huge disparity he said first that the journey was 50 percent longer – which it was in time, but not distance – and then he supplemented this response by citing ‘special circumstances’.
The situation has changed, but I suspect only because the previous incumbents of Mr Ross’s seat were so happy with the profits that they were creaming off on the route that they felt no need to rock the boat (if you’ll pardon the pun).
It certainly seemed to me that there could be no other explanation but a heavy cross-subsidy on the Dunoon route to the detriment of the other routes on the upper firth.
It’s also worth pointing out that in recent years Calmac has hardly fought its corner on Dunoon-Gourock; it’s certainly shown little inclination to return to the days when Dunoon-Gourock was the jewel in its crown on the Clyde.
So if there is to be a continued passenger- vehicle service between the two town centres you’ll have to look elsewhere for someone to provide it.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Useful insight, Bill.
I think the case was that when the SNP came into power the situation on the Calmac Dunoon-Gourock route vis a vis implied EU “restrictions”, subsidy etc and so on was so deliberately confused that no action was immediately appropriate.
This was undoubtedly exacerbated by the appointment of a Transport Minister who at that point did not understand the issue, a situation which may have been useful to the elements of the Scottish Civil service and others who had been involved in the long term plot to do away with the CalMac Service.
However if the Transport Minister does not understand the issue now it is not for the want of furious and continuous canvassing by some very well informed activists but the question is now why are the services still running to a restricted timetable.
Present economic woes sadly further muddy the waters.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0