For Argyll has taken serious issue on many occasions with Transport Minster, Derek Mackay but fairness dictates his defence in the current chaotic cluster of errors and fudges around the state of the Forth Road Bridge.
Derek Mackay was not even in the Scottish Parliament when the critical actions around this failure of the bridge were taken political, financial and administrative.
Mackay was elected MSP for Renfrewshire North and West in 2011; and, after other sub-ministerial and then ministerial responsibilities, was appointed Transport Minister by Nicola Sturgeon in November 2014, just over a year ago.
Looking at the chronology of exactly who was at the Transport Ministry and at the senior Cabinet post of Secretary for Infrastructure and Investment to which Transport answers at what stage is instructive and we do so below.
Remember too that it is not always the Minister who takes the real decisions. Senior departmental civil servants are the actual executives, with the minister of the day signing off on what they recommend and carrying the can for it.
Would Mackay s officials have briefed him fully and accurately on the saga of who did what when in relation to the Forth Road Bridge before he became Transport Minister? And particularly if they themselves were implicated in ignorant or irresponsible decision taking?
The civil service modus operandi is to tell Ministers only what they need to know at any moment.
It is quite possible that Mackay did not knowingly deceive Parliament on facts in the chronology of the Forth Bridge dereliction.
This scenario is rather supported by an exchange in an interview with Mr Mackay on BBC Scotland on Wednesday morning, 9th December. The Transport Minster was asked in respect of a major repair contract tendered in 2010 and then scrapped: So, this work planned in 2010, which was subsequently cancelled, would not have seen the replacement of this particular area whee the fault has occured? Ed: the newly discovered cracks in different truss-ends.
He replied with unequivocal honesty: Well, it would have seen the replacement of that area and much more.
This is much more indicative of a man newly in possession of facts that predated by four years his own occupation of his post, than it is of someone minded to deceive.
Then there is the question of the total horlicks Transport Scotland made of the plan for traffic management for the first working day without the commuter and transport industry having the use of the Forth Road Bridge.
The First Minister grandly made it known where the authority lay in underlining her own chairing of the meetings of the Resilience Group in charge of this task. Interestingly she has since said no more about that role.
Being associated with failure is not Ms Sturgeon s bag.
Then there was the new CEO of Transport Scotland its senior civil servant, Roy Brannan, who added to the chaos that morning by tweeting a reversal of the decision already taken and communicated to motorists that only local traffic, HGVs and buses could use the Kincardine Bridge the nearest upriver to the Forth Road Bridge.
Had Mr Brannan been overridden at the Resilience Group in the taking of this specific decision and, when he saw the endless logjams developing with cars queing to get to the further upstream again Clackmannanshire Bridge, decided to follow his own earlier wisdom and open the Kincardine Bridge to all traffic forthwith?
Was Mr Mackay caught between the rock of the First Minister, his political supremo who cannot be gainsaid and the hard place of deferring to his new CEO, who is after all, the responsible official on the job?
The mess has all the hallmarks of headless chickens with high levels of circulating testosterone.
Derek Mackay has never seemed like someone given to throwing his weight around but has seemed more naturally consultative, more quietly strategic. It is hard to imagine him engaging in displays of chest thumping supremacy.
Everything, of course, was made infinitely worse by the lack of communication to police on the ground that the plan had been summmarily changed. Several motorists spoke of hearing on their car radios that the Kincardine Bridge had been opened to all vehicles, heading for it and being refused access by officers who knew only that cars had to go via the Clackmannanshire Bridge.
And signage seems to have been completely unmanaged continuing to direct car traffic to the Clackmannanshire Bridge long after the Kincardine Bridge was open to all who knew.
Throughout all of this pantomime, there was no evidence of the presence of a single authoritative source of competent leadership guiding the physical management of this unanticipated crisis.
Another curiosity in the chain of events to the present moment is that there has been not a squeak out of Mr Mackay s direct line manager and former Transport Minister, Keith Brown.
Currently Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities, Keith Brown has Derek Mackay as Transport Minister in his department, with the Cabinet Secretary the direct senior authority and apparently a markedly unengaged one. He too, of course, was gazumped by the First Minister taking the Chair of the Resilience Group.
M Brown s direct predecessor at Infrastructure, Investment and Cities was of course, Nicola Sturgeon.
Responsible Ministers
Cabinet Secretaries responsible for Infrastructure and Capital Investment
- May 2007 May 2011: John Swinney Included these responsibilities witin his portfolio as Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth.
- May 2011 September 2012: Alex Neil. The portfolio was renamed Infrastructure, Capital Investment and Cities.
- September 2o12 November 2014: Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon.
- November 2014 present: Keith Brown
Transport Ministers
- 2003 May 2005: Nicol Stephen.
- May 2005 -May 2007: Tavish Scott.
- May 2007 December 2010: Stewart Stevenson Resigned in roads chaos of Deccember snow storms..
- December 2010 November 2014: Keith Brown.
- November 2014 present: Derek Mackay.
The critical chronology in the dereliction of the Forth Road Bridge
1990s: The Scottish Office, in a consultation, Setting Forth , proposed a second bridge to Queensferry to relieve traffic pressure on the Forth Road Bridge. In 1997; after the Labour victory in the UK General Election of that year, these proposals were mothballed.
1993: Tolls had paid for the construction cost and accrued interest, but were retained to pay for maintenance with the legislation allowing tolling approved by first UK and then Scottish parliaments in 1998, 2003 and 2006.
1997: Decision to double the North Bound toll on the Bridge and remove the Southbound toll taken to ease congestion with vast majority of users making return crossings daily from the north.
2001: Creation of the Forth Estuary Transport Authority FETA, replacing the Forth Road Bridge Joint Board
2003: Nicol Stephen, then Transport Minister in the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition administration, commissioned a study which priced a new bridge tp Queensferry at 300 million at 2003 prices.
2003 2005: a 1.2 million structural inspection was commissioned by FETA as a safety precaution following the discovery in America of high levels of corrosion in the main suspension cables of bridge there built around the same time.
This inspection found serious corrosion that had lost the main cables 8-10% strength. Accelerated corrosion was predicted, with the worst case projected scenario seeing the bridge closed to HGVs in 2014 and fully closed in 2019 if structural repairs to the cables were not successful.
2005-2006: This discovery accelerated the plans for a second crossing to Queensferry. In 2005 FETA gave its support to the 2003 commissioned study proposal for a second bridge to Queensferry; and in 2006 Alastair Darling MP spoke in favour of it.
2006: The Scottish Parliament approved again the legislation to allow tolling.
Under the Labour-Liberal Democrat administration, a plan for variable tolling on the Forth Road Bridge to come into play in October 2007 caused a political storm. The SNP majored on the Forty Road Bridge issue, with the total abolition of the tolls a manifesto commitment for the 2007 Scottish Election.
2006: Problems were identified with the truss-end links at the four tower structures. Consultants said that the stiffening truss is currently theoretically under strength and will require some major strengthening soon .
Work to replace these has been delayed four times and began earlier this year 2015, almost a decade later.
2007: SNP emerged from the Scottish Election as the largest party but without a majority and chose to operate as a minority government. In December 2007, Finance Secretary, John Swinney also responsible for the Infrastructure and Investment portfolio until May 2011- introduced the Bill to abolish the Forth Road Bridge tolls. The responsible Transport Minisite was Stewart Stevenson.
2007: Transport Scotland, under then Transport Minister, Stewart Stevenson, commissioned yet another study into a new Forth road bridge.
2007: In December 2007 Finance, Infrastructure and Investment Secretary, John Swinney, announced that a decision had been taken to go ahead with a replacement Forth road bridge, a cable bridge, also to cross to Queensferry.
2008: on 11th February 2008 the Forth Road Bridge tolls were abolished.
The revenue from the tolls at that time was 16 million. This revenue was lost to the Forth Estuary Transport Authority who had used it responsibly for major maintenance projects on the bridge and was not specifically replaced by Government funding. Modelling tests had shown that dropping the tolls would increase traffic by 21% producing congestion and environmental damage far beyond that already experienced .
With the abolition of tolls coinciding with the greater repairs needed with the age and heavy usage of the bodge, the Forth Estuary Transport Authority incurred a larger deficit and, inevitably, repairs began to be put into limbo.
2008: It was announced that the current Forth Road Bridge was to be retained in service after all and, after the new bridge was in operation, would be used for transport vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians.
2008: In December 2008 Finance Secretary, John Swinney, announced that public finds would be used to build the new Forth road bridge, rather than the earlier suggestion that it would be a hybrid funding managed by the Scottish Futures Trust.
2010: The strengthening of the truss-end links identified as under strength in 2006 and in need of major strengthening soon , had been slated for actual repair in 2008-09 but not undertaken in what was the start of the global financial crisis. In 2010, this was put out to tender in a 10.3 million contract to strengthen the existing truss-end link connection . The tender was suddenly cancelled.
This sequence was done under then Transport Minister, Stewart Stevenson and with Finance Secretary, John Swinney, still in charge of Infrastructure and Imvestment.
2011: Finance Secretary John Swinney, in an unannounced and barely noticed move, cut 65% from the three year 2012/13 to 2014/15 budget of the Forth Estuary Transport Authority FETA; and slated it for shut down in the summer of 2015. At that stage it was to hand over to a private sector contractor. The Transport Minister was then Keith Brown who took over from Stewart Stevenson in the infamous snow storms of December 2010.
2013: In October 2013, Audit Scotland, in an approbatory audit of FETA s 2012/13 accounts, noted, under 25 Significant financial risks: As with 2011/12, the economic downturn has impacted heavily on public sector expenditure and constraints on spending have continued to increase significantly with FETA experiencing a 65% reduction in its three year capital grant to 2014/15.
FETA is facing a major change with the dissolution of the body, to be replaced by one contractor to manage and maintain the Queensferry Crossing, the existing Forth Road Bridge and the adjoining road network in its new capacity as a dedicated public transport corridor. Audit Scotland also noted that: As FETA is due to be dissolved in June 2015, the level of funding for the final three months of existence in 2015/16 is yet to be confirmed by Transport Scotland.
2015: Work began to replace the truss-end links at one of the four bridge towers the defect identified in 2006 as requiring repair soon , tendered in 2010, and suddenly cancelled. Work to replace these was delayed four times and while repair is complete now on one tower, the other three towers remain unrepaired.
2015: Private sector contractor Amey was awarded the contract to operate the two Forth Road Bridge, the new Queensferry crossing and their approach roads on behalf of the Scottish Government.
Amey therefore took over from the Forth Estuary Transport Authority on 1st June 2015.
Staff were TUPEed over to Amey but some expert engineers familiar with the bridge, have gone.
2015: On 1st December, one carriageway on the Forth Road Bridge was closed for engineering asessments of newly discovered cracks in another set of truss-end links.
On 4th December, the bridge was closed completely for repairs to srengthen eight cracked truss-end links, and due to see the bridge closed into the New Year.
2015: on 9th December, Transport Ministerm Derek Mackay who was neither in office nor even an MSP at the time, told BBC Scotland that the contract cancelled in 2010
Note: The 2002 image above of the Forth Road Bridge, by Klaus, is reproduced here under the Creative Commons Licence.
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