Comment posted Streamline challenge on Northern Ferries tender underlines paralysis of MacBrayne group by Keith McMillan.
Follow the money people
Recent comments by Keith McMillan
- First Minister’s choice not to condemn mob behaviour proves Farage point
H20 “Scotland is a nation and a country. The UK is not a county but a political state” are you having a laugh?
Scotland is a legal fiction, a procurement phantom or legal entity; it does not exist except in the minds of the people who buy into the idea of it. The same goes for your society crap.
As for the European Union what can be said about the unelected troika! That cost the people on this island 52Million pounds per day, what was it the Russian president guy said “it reminds him of the old Soviet Union”
The illegal wars are set by the Bilderberg and UN group so even if “Scotland” was independent the “Scottish” troops would be sent! (three countries which are not part of the central bank IMF system, Syria, Iran and north Korea, Still need to be bombed and given EU democracy) (lots more illegal wars)
As for the NHS well I know you are joking with that one - SNP tightens party grip on local councillors in further chaos
Well done Mr McCuish - First Minister’s choice not to condemn mob behaviour proves Farage point
H20: no raw nerve my friend! Just spelling out some truths to the whole multiculturalism subject, but guess in the PC world the corporation “Scotland” some people just don’t want to see the dark or down side of mass immigration.
Guess in your world there are no bad people or bad immigrants, I guess we should all make complaints about our new state police corporation, Their Oban department have just in the last week been totally racist by raiding several premises in Oban and rounding up some 17 immigrants
These 17 people were nice and productive members of the Oban community, but by the actions of the police these poor people have been discriminated against.
Now as for my comments about Kim Jung Fats Salmond I stand by them. Is it not funny this is the turd which brought in a ban on buying raw milk, the public smoking ban, the ban on displaying cigarettes? Yet he has done nothing about the quality of food on the market or the “growing” obesity problem in this corporation (or as you claim country)
You keep on about this Scotland crap can you tell me what this Scotland is? You also jump between people and citizens well which is it? Or are you trying to coerce me in to believing a people are citizens? Are you trying to con me into believing Scotland is a country? Can you prove it?
Yes I fully agree with you we are all people sharing a planet or land mass, all earthlings you could say! but is it not you who is supporting a divide between people with you claim of being “Scottish”
Are you not the racist with you implied “Scottish” superiority in compassion, I think my friend you have bought into the illusion of living in a society a citizen living on the citizenship spouting all the little labels and titles.
Are you letting a bit of your bigotry shine through with your reference to the origin of the name Farage? - First Minister’s choice not to condemn mob behaviour proves Farage point
h20: maybe you should spend some time in England and see how wonderful your love of gimmiegration works!
try moving about in areas like Birmingham with their non white area, area of the city that not even the police will go in to. What about the area of England with sharia law vigilante groups roaming the streets harassing British People?
Loony right wing let’s look at the all loving all hugging loony left with their multiculturalism
The NHS can’t cope with the increase in patients and their variety of languages the police are stretched not to mention the public schools, But we don’t talk about it because the tree hugging left will call us racists
At a certain point of bending over to accommodate immigration and accepting their culture, The people of the host country will be forced to lose their own culture - First Minister’s choice not to condemn mob behaviour proves Farage point
Fletcher the SNP is now the most Anti-Scottish Independece Party! Just look how fats salmond has embraced the marxist/globalist EU look at his one state police force! (we know the plans for that company)
the little turd won’t spell out his vision for Scotland but wants the sheeple in Scotland to vote for independence a Vote for SNP is a vote for the EU dictatorship
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There should be no reason on earth why any of the bidders for the contract should be prevented from challenging the outcome of the tendering process, if they consider themselves hard done by.
The specific offers for ‘extras’, and of any conditions imposed by bidders – beyond what’s specified in the tender – should be public knowledge, and if they’re not then surely that’s cause enough for any or all of the losing bidders to challenge the outcome; the whole process should be transparent, and that popular let-out ‘commercial confidentiality’ shouldn’t be used as an excuse to conceal any controversial aspects of the process.
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The MacBrayne group would certainly face some difficulty in challenging any contract award, and have been in such a position before on the Ballycastle-Rathlin route. One has to wonder why the Scottish government took such an “interest” in the way that particular contract was awarded.
” Judith Ainsley, Guy Platten of CMAL and Mike Berry (Scottish Government Ferries Division) are hoping to meet with representatives of DRD (Department for Regional Development) Northern Ireland to discuss the tendering of the Rathlin-Ballycastle ferry service, this will be followed by a visit to the ferry operator”
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/935/0087905.doc
Perhaps Streamline have done MacBrayne a favour in opening the process up to legal scrutiny.
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I don’t understand why ‘the MacBrayne group would certainly face some difficulty in challenging any contract award’ – Why? Surely the tendering process has by law to be a level playing field, and if Northlink (which is surely more than just MacBrayne) were to find fault with the contract award they’d be just as free as any other tenderer to object. This is a government tender involving public money and must be organised fairly, or the media will have a field day and the Transport Minister will have some explaining to do. That’s quite apart from what the European authorities might see fit to do.
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I think you will find streamline credit card machines has nothing to do with streamline shipping!
Come on, poor research
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This would make more sense – over energetic research on our part?
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Hmm, don’t you mean “no research on our part”, but instead a classic case of jumping to a false conclusion?
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NORTHERN ISLES FERRY TENDER
Back
13 May 2012
“NorthLink Ferries Ltd today confirms that it is in continuing discussions with the Scottish Government to clarify certain aspects of the procurement process which eight days ago saw Scottish Ministers announce that the six-year contract to operate lifeline ferry services for Orkney and Shetland was to be awarded to Serco Ltd. NorthLink’s current contract to operate the services is due to expire on July 5″ http://www.northlinkferries.co.uk/default.aspx.locid-00gnew3eu.Lang-EN.htm
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Many thanks for this update.
Good to see signs of independence.
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Independence? Hardly independence, as NorthLink is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Macbrayne Group (i.e. the Scottish Government) and who are they currently running the service for? Oh yes, the Scottish Government! Perhaps not so much independence as nepotism?
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“they’d be just as free as any other tenderer to object. This is a government tender involving public money and must be organised fairly, or the media will have a field day and the Transport Minister will have some explaining to do.”
Do you think? Having read their responses to an “independent” investigation into the awarding of the Rathlin contract, it’s very clear that Calmac/Rathlin Ferries Ltd were unhappy at the way in which that tendering process had been operated. Yet, no legal challenge? http://www.scribd.com/doc/9618691/CalmacRFL-Addendum-Note-to-DRD-investigations-body
http://www.scribd.com/doc/9592687/CalmacRFL-Note-to-the-DRD-investigations-body
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I hope we’re not getting into some sort of Scottish public sector giant pile of sleaze centred on inadequately defined process in tendering for large public transport contracts. It could be stretching from the megabungling of the Edinburgh tram system procurument disaster at one end of the scale to the microbungling of the Gourock – Kilcreggan – Helensburgh ferry links at the other, taking in the Gourock – Dunoon affair and the ongoing saga of Calmac routes retendering on the way. Not sure about the quality of the second Forth Road Bridge contract, but time will tell.
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I stay on Orkney and we are just sick of the mess the Government is making of our lifeline ferry service. The contract with Serco, if it lasts, is undesirable -they can only make money by cutting services and the crew’s pay and numbers and their reputation as a cutter of pay and numbers is clear from their control of NHS contracts in England. As well as the developing contract fiasco, this year we had the mess the Government made of the dry dock timetable where they went behind Orkney’s back to get Shetland council to pay extra for an extended charter of the Hebridean Isles (I think); we’ve the attempt to cut service standards by slowing down the boats and reducing services; there is the continuing saga of the alternating denial and promise of RET which, if it comes has receded to the next Parliament.
This is heading for a grand all purpose mess.
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Are you sure you’re not over-egging the pudding? With two separate Northlink services (Stromness – Scrabster and Kirkwall – Aberdeen / Lerwick, the Pentland Ferries route from St Margaret’s Hope to Gills Bay, and the freight ferry between Kirkwall and Aberdeen / Lerwick, to the outside observer it looks as if Orkney enjoys good lifeline ferry services.
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I agree that we do well with the service we get – the service from the Hope to Gills Bay is completely private with no subsidy nor does it count as a life line service. Our bind is not so much about the service as the secretive and underhanded behaviour of the Government – for example we don’t know about what the new contract says about ferry frequencies or times; there looks to be a cut back in the freight boats for both sets of islands; the possibility of RET for Orkney ferries- including the internal services has receded to beyond 2015.
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Of course they enjoy good services, just like Dunoon has a reliable service. Unless you are local to the route and use it regularly you really don’t know all the ins and outs.
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Transport Scotland do not seem particularly competent at writing contracts – read yours carefully.
In theory CalMac can take legal action, it practice I imagine it not possible because CalMac is run by the Scottish Government so people are hardly likely to try to take Court action against a decision made by their own bosses.
There was no logic to the Dunoon Gourock route decision. A linkspan had been built a promise of vehicle ferries had been made, then all of a sudden there was a U-turn. Now with the CalMac losing Northlink it is starting to look as if there is an agenda to break up CalMac.
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i think the snp agenda is get rid of calmac ,alex salmond stated yesterday the basf factory in stornoways would create 9 jobs (equal to thousands in the glasgow/edinburgh). when they give northlink and calmac away ,i fear hundreds of jobs will be lost (mostly in rural areas ).
how will he explain that !!!!
this isnt scaremongering it will happen .
snp …only interested in big business ….get these clowns out
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It does look like they want to break up CalMac, but why is not clear. Private companies will snap up the profitable routes. The Government will be left subsidising the unprofitable routes. Everybody will lose because there will be no ability to move relief boats around during maintenance periods.
This is exactly the position in Dunoon. The vehicle part of the old CalMac service was making a profit every year from 2002 until it ended in 2011. Now the Government has to subsidise a dismal passenger service that cannot cope with the weather and has to run a half service for four weeks each year because there are no relief boats. Meanwhile Western gain 60,000 vehicle crossings per year with no control on prices and profit.
This seems set to spread throughout the ferry routes in Scotland – not good news.
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Follow the money people
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