Foula Ferry

[Njugle]

Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on with the Foula ferry!! Seems a bit suspect to me!

 

Anybody ken?

 

I have heard that it is to be run or owned by a former prominent fish farmer?

 

I get this kind of 'para-handy' image of the service now. Which may well be more fitting for a Foula service than officious SIC regulations.

 

 

Quote: "seems a bit suspect." Remember please, when discussing this to avoid conjecture or potentially libellous or offensive content. Facts and opinions are fine.

[Mia]

I just find it strange how the ferry service can be given to a fisher man which has had a how shall I put this an interesting career! Read the article about it in the Shetland News website and make your own judgement, I think it is slightly fishy (sorry the pun!) This is people life link we are talking about here it needs a strong standing!

[Njugle]

Shetland Marine News[/url]"]Mr Grains, who runs the company, was the managing director of SSG Seafoods, a consortium of Shetland fish farms which went bust in 2003 with the loss of around £8 million in public funds. He is still involved in the fish farming business.

 

I stand corrected, the front man of the operation is still involved in fish farming, according to Shetland Marine News.

[JustMe]

The first thing I find interesting is that there were six bids.......I suspect the islanders (and the SIC) expected just the one.......with perhaps the SIC putting in a seriously high bid to counter any complaints that the whole deal was done in advance.

 

Just about all local government contracts seem to have something in the invitation to tender setting out requirements for financial stability of the company or individual tendering.......when it is a company as in the case of the Foula ferry then the collapse of one or more previous companies run by the director/s should not bar that company from tendering.

 

If the boat is to be based on Foula as a condition of the contract that already throws up an interesting possibility. If the present ferry crew decide not to work for the new operator I wonder how they will manage to provide a service.

 

Seems that the SIC and the Foula ferry just has not worked over the years.....the fiasco with the new boat and more recently problems getting a crew. Some in the council will no doubt be glad to see an end to this.

[Evil Inky]

I just find it strange how the ferry service can be given to a fisher man which has had a how shall I put this an interesting career! Read the article about it in the Shetland News website and make your own judgement, I think it is slightly fishy (sorry the pun!) This is people life link we are talking about here it needs a strong standing!

 

Someone more cynical than myself might think that the Foula ferry contract going to the former SSG managing director, together with the highly-paid council job tailor-made for Willie Shannon, suggests that people are being rewarded for keeping their mouths shut during our Great Leader's recent legal difficulties, although I'm absolutely convinced that's not the case.

[Ghostrider]

Seems that the SIC and the Foula ferry just has not worked over the years.....the fiasco with the new boat and more recently problems getting a crew. Some in the council will no doubt be glad to see an end to this.

 

As best as I can recall the Foula boat was more than a bit fiasco-ish for some years pre-council invlovement, but that's by the by here.

 

What I'd really like to know is, how on earth didn't the Foula folks own bid succeed?!? They had a massive advantage from where I'm sitting, they didn't need to factor in crew wages, unless they had to recruit from outwith the island, everyone else did.

 

Or, did they get greedy and a bit cheeky and price in the going rate for the whole crew, and expect the council to pay them a wage to run their own bus service, the same as it's been for the last almost 30 years? Effectively the winning of the contract, as I understand it, would have given them the boat at their disposal to run in whatever way they chose to. To my way of thinking, effectively having a boat and pierside facilities given to them to use, with all maintenance, repairs and running costs met by the council, and then expect a wage out of it to sounds suspiciously like having your cake and eating it to me.

 

How many permanently occupied houses are there on Foula? And, of them, how many have someone living in them that's on the boat crew? I've never seen any figures for this, but my guess is there must be at least between 25 and 50% of the households currently benefitting from a boat crew wage. Paying the crew was fine and well as long as they were direct council employees, as this is how, in their "wisdom" the council does things, and in the case of the larger isle's ferry services it's only fair as those boats are full time jobs serving a significant number people. In Foula's case it's very much part time, and each crewman is effectively serving his own household and one or two neighbours, making getting paid any significant wage a mixture of greed and pure nonsense. If they lost this opportunity to run their own boat, through being greedy enough to expect to still get the same wage as they've been getting from the council, they deserve whatever and whoever they get.

 

Personally, I think the solution to Foula should have been to sell the boat and shoreside facilities on Foula to the Foula folk, they could have been given a Charitable Trust grant for an equal amount to meet the set cost, on the understanding that that was it to make a kirk or a mill of as they saw fit, and don't come back to the council for anything else until either boat or facilities were unservicable due to old age.

[petergear]

they didn't need to factor in crew wages

 

I understand that each of the tenderers were obliged to take on the existing crews under TUPE regulations, continuing equal pay, terms and conditions, so I don't believe "greed" was a determining factor in the outcome.

 

I'm sure the Foula folk are essentially just pleased that the boat will be running, full stop.

 

each crewman is effectively serving his own household and one or two neighbours, making getting paid any significant wage a mixture of greed and pure nonsense

 

Any ferry crew, from Skipper to Deckhand, must be skilled at their jobs, else you have a very unsafe situation developing! Are you seriously proposing that a service such as this should be run by whatever random passengers happen to turn up on the day? If so, I bags first shot at driving the "Daggri"! Maybe this could become a new "extreme-sport" tourist attraction for the isles?

 

Seriously though, all the inter-island services are, I understand, being examined under the scope of Best Value, with competitive tendering being one possible outcome. It would almost certainly be possible for unscrupulous but "successful" contractors to, at some stage, replace local labour with cheap labour from outwith the UK? Hm, where have I heard this one before

 

I guess that tendering the Foula service will undoubtedly have been a useful opportunity for the SIC to "test the water", with regard the possibility of tendering-out the entrireity of the inter-island ferry services.

[shy skylark]

everybody is shocked to see that the same people who used to run salmon companies that never repaid all the millions in loans from da cooncil, have now been chosen to run the foula ferry. but maybe losing a lot of money is relevant experience for running a ferry with public money? i think we should see the reports that compared all the bids. where is the best value review now?

[Ghostrider]

they didn't need to factor in crew wages

 

I understand that each of the tenderers were obliged to take on the existing crews under TUPE regulations, continuing equal pay, terms and conditions, so I don't believe "greed" was a determining factor in the outcome.

 

As I understand TUPE regulations, while a new contractor is obliged to employ former personnel on at least equal terms and conditions as the previous operator did, the personel are not obliged to accept them, they could, if they so chose, accept ones of lesser value.

 

Any detailed information on this issue seems to be hard come by in the public domain, however being as the current Foula population is variously stated as anything from 25 ot 32, I think it's not unreasonable to suppose that in light of such a small pool to draw from, it is very likely that most, if not all of the current boat crew are also members of the co-op bidding to win the contract. It is my understanding from the limited information I have seen, that, the successful contractor will effectively lease the current boat from the council, and the council will pay an agreed sum to that contractor to provide the specified ferry service to Foula. Assuming this to be the case, one would suppose that that agreed sum included portions adequate to cover all running costs, maintenance and repairs to the boat and ancilliary facilities, crewing costs and any other miscellaneous expenses during the lifetime of the contract, plus an element of profit for the contract holder, or it wouldn't be worth their trouble in the first place.

 

Assuming that the crew are all also co-op members, they are going to have one income stream coming in to them from the profits of the contract. When held but an outside contractor, that profits go right to him, and of course the crew need and deserve paying the going rate. Secondly, unless the boat is supplied by the SIC on a very restrictive lease, the co-op are effectively being handed a boat that they can do anything they like with outwith running the specified ferry service, what's to stop them using her for fishing (within her limitations), or taking tourist parties for trips around the isle, to name but two. They're in the ideal position to organise and profit from that having the boat based on the isle and running it themselves, a contract holder based elsewhere would find getting in to that quite difficult, and there's no guarantee he'd find the crew obliging, seeing as he'd have to hire them first and foremost as ferry operators. Thirdly, there's fares/freight charges, which without access to the contract documents it is impossible to know for sure, but one would be tempted to suppose that while the council may have already set the fare structure which can be charged on the route and to whom they are ultimately payable, equally, they may not have, which leaves yet one more potential income stream, which may or may not be in their control to manipulate, to bring income to the co-op, and one must at this stage assume, also the crew.

 

If indeed the council tender specifications stipulated that the boat and facilities could only be used for the specified ferry work, and also set fare/freight levels and/or which were to paid direct to the council only, then point taken, the Foula co-op had every right to factor in crew wages in their tender. However, in light of the "simplified" contract details which can be found in the local press, the option of believing that the council are leasing the boat, no strings attached, to the eventual contract holder to do with as he pleases 24/7, provided he also maintains the ferry service specified in the contract, is not, I don't think, an absurd belief to hold, until at least information to the contrary is available.

 

If the "no strings" concept is indeed correct, and the presumption that the crew are also co-op members is also correct, then we are looking at a situation where the crew are going to be paid, as co-op members, from the profits of the sum the council pay them to run the ferry service, plus from the fares/freight charges collected, plus from any other profitable use they can put the boat to when it is not committed to ferry duties. If that is the case, and they expect a full wage on top of all, then I most certainly stand my my assertion of greed.

 

I'm sure the Foula folk are essentially just pleased that the boat will be running, full stop.

 

Perhaps....However, it should be borne in mind that the concept of giving the boat to the Foula folk to run more or less as they saw fit was first mooted around 2 years ago, when they themselves were admant that they were not prepared to accept the service the council felt able to offer them, and the council were equally adamant that they could not provide the service the Foula folk deemed was an absolute mimimum requirement. It only became an issue of tendering and issuing contracts when some council legal eagle pointed out the the council coudn't just go around giving the operating of any service to whomever they pleased due to EU competition regulations.

 

If the preferred bidder is confirmed as the successful bidder the Foula folk have not gotten all of their minumum requirements met, only running it themselves could achieve that. They are simply trading one evil for another as regards control, the only thing that has really changed is that the crew now take their orders from a private company instead of the council.

 

If indeed local control of the service is as important to them as they would have us believe, they had ways and means open to them to make savings in their tender price to ensure that it would be the lowest, that outside entities did not have. One would think that to achieve that local control, which they deem so important, they woud have willingly made some sacrifices to ensure they achieved it, the crew already had, after all, it has to be assumed at this stage, the unique additional income streams mentioned above. I'm not necessarily suggesting the crew worked for gratis, rather I am suggesting that to achive something which they themsleves deemed important, local control, they might have seen a wage cut as a fair trade to achieve it, thus allowing their tender to be somewhat reduced, which, if the other unique income streams mentioned were also realistic, would be reduced further. If they held out for their previous wage, and it was that factor that allowed their bid to (assumedly) be undercut, then one must assume that either local control is not as important as they keep repeating it is, or greed to retain their present income, plus add to it, if applicable, the other streams mentioned was more important.

 

each crewman is effectively serving his own household and one or two neighbours, making getting paid any significant wage a mixture of greed and pure nonsense

 

Any ferry crew, from Skipper to Deckhand, must be skilled at their jobs, else you have a very unsafe situation developing! Are you seriously proposing that a service such as this should be run by whatever random passengers happen to turn up on the day? If so, I bags first shot at driving the "Daggri"! Maybe this could become a new "extreme-sport" tourist attraction for the isles?

 

Seems to me being skilled at their jobs is little insurance against unsafe and fiasco-ish situations arising, given some of the incidents of the recent past involving the Foula boat and several others in the council ferry fleet.

 

That aside, I definitey wasn't suggesting a DIY service run by the passengers, rather I was suggesting that perhaps, were the boat to be returned to local control, there was grounds for the Foula folk to treat it as they treated it up until it was taken over by the council in the late 70's. That the crew were, as I understand and recall it anyway, "paid" for their work out of what was left of the fare/freight take after running costs/maintenance/repairs were covered, plus "in kind" through being able to have "free" access to the Shetland mainland and have goods and supplies for themselves and their families transported in/out of the isle as required.

 

Foula in it's current situation is unique, it is virtually a chicken and egg situation. I don't think I'd be wrong to assume the greatest amount of income coming in to the isle comes from the council and/or government one way or the other, a large part of it in wages. The only reason those wages need paying is because there are people their to serve, yet with the small numbers involved it has to have reached the situation of being a somewhat incestous self perpetuating circle. A ferry, a school, medical services etc are required, as there are people there who need them, yet it is the income from public funds which pays them that allows the place to survive, the current population could not sustain if all were taking their income from within the isle itself. The public purse is keeping the place alive artificially, the right-ness or wrong-ness of that is a matter of personal opinion, however it has to be wondered, if a few families comprising a similar number decided to move on to one of Shetland's currently uninhabited isles, would the public purse as readily supply boats, piers, schools, medical services etc to them? I suspect not, yet, the only difference between the two is when the popuation settled there. If there is a willingness to artificially prolong the life of a settlement that naturally would have been unsustainable and defunct by now, why not the same willingness to support another in the same situation to become established.

[petergear]

It seems to me that within this Foula Ferry discussion, we are now debating self-sustainability within small community structures?

 

Perhaps we could extend the geographical spread of this debate beyond Foula, to cover the whole of the West Side? Apart from subsidised sheep-production, I wonder what's left there, besides Mussels? Or perhaps it should cover all of Shetland - surely everyone knows that the SIC's incestuous money-go-round, post-oil-boom, is all that keeps Shetland propped-up? Perhaps a logical progression would be that the Scottish Executive should pull the plug on the millions it provides us to run Northlink, give us the boat, and let us make a kirk-or-a-mill of it?

 

It is difficult to keep young families in rural areas. There have been a number of efforts to bring life back into Foula recently. These have met with some success, and there has been a return of young blood to the isle. The population has rallied a little. I don't think that expecting skilled crew members to work for a meagre nothing is a good way to encourage this trend - they will simply move away again.

 

I am all for a wholesome existence, with less dependence on central governing bodies. I would love to lead a more fulfilling and self-sustaining lifestyle, "away from the ratrace", and Foula is the kind of "romantic" landscape which inspires such notions. In this day and age, though, no matter where you are, red tape surrounds everything. If you were trying to lead the Good Life, would you dive enthusiastically into the bureacratic tangle which, I imagine, would be involved in running a passenger-freight service in this modern day and age? Hazardous waters, perhaps?

 

To be honest I know little of the Foula Co-op's involvement in bidding to run the service, so I'm havering a little, and making some assumptions myself, but I guess that none of them will ever have been involved in tendering for any "big-business" before. I'd guess they would have bid cautiously and sensibly, in order not to threaten their own life-savings if they'd mis-calculated. It is perhaps harsh and insulting of you to suggest that they were greedy?

 

Just to add, while I'm on; there's already a "de-populate Foula now" thread somewhere else in here, if anyone wants a look.

[petergear]

In fact, here it is:

 

http://www.shetlink.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=287&highlight=depopulate+foula

[Ghostrider]

It seems to me that within this Foula Ferry discussion, we are now debating self-sustainability within small community structures?

 

Perhaps we could extend the geographical spread of this debate beyond Foula, to cover the whole of the West Side? Apart from subsidised sheep-production, I wonder what's left there, besides Mussels? Or perhaps it should cover all of Shetland - surely everyone knows that the SIC's incestuous money-go-round, post-oil-boom, is all that keeps Shetland propped-up?

 

It's where it's headed, a natural progression. Little over 100 years ago most small isles in Shetland were populated, some with thriving, if very small communities. One by one they were abandoned, due to what was on offer elsewhere enticing many out of them and those left finding survival increasingly difficult to impossible.

 

Nothing has changed, the products producable from the natural resources of, and in most of the remoter areas of Shetland are now unviable, unwanted, or prohibited. Life is getting continually harder to live in most of them, people will only stay there if they really like the place and consider paying any cost to do so worthwhile, or they are paid to stay. Of the former type, there aren't usually many in number willing, and of the latter type, they can only exist as long as everyone else pays for them to do so.

 

At the moment it may just be Foula who by all accounts IMHO is due to join the very long list of abandoned Shetland islands, but there are one or two others in very close second place who will be in a few years where Foula is today, and give it another 25, 50 or 100 years or whatever some of the larger isles will be joining them too.

 

As things stand the issue is largely restricted to how long are the other 20, 000+ folk in Shetland going to pay the 20 odd on Foula to stay there. However, unless something is discovered and/or created that can be produced and exported from Shetland that has minimal, or at least low import costs, or some of the former traditional industries can be resurrected, the whole of Shetland will ultimately go the same way as all the abandoned small isles have done in the past, and Foula is teetering on the brink of today. At the moment we are coasting along in the afterglow of oil, but at the rate the council is throwing their kitty to the wind it won't do us much good in another 25 years, and it can only be a matter of time before Sullom is superfluous to requirements. What then? It'll be the turn of the Scottish Parliament and/or Westminster to decide if they want to pay folk to live anywhere in Shetland, as I can't see many people being able to raise a wage out of this place to keep themselves here by then. I can't say I rate our chances of not being abandoned come that stage, Westminster may be more of an unknown quantity on the issue, but in my opinion I think the only lesson to be learned from history concerning us and the Scots is that they do nothing for Shetland unless they're wanting something from us.