Scotland’s ferry procurement agency has confirmed that no social value scoring was included in the recent £160 million contract award for seven new CalMac ferries—despite mounting political pressure and questions over support for domestic shipbuilding.
Ferguson Loses Out on Price—Not Performance
The state-owned Ferguson Marine shipyard in Port Glasgow lost the bid to Polish yard Remontowa, which undercut rivals with an offer of just over £21 million per vessel. BBC Scotland understands Ferguson performed well on technical criteria but fell short on cost, which accounted for 35% of the evaluation.
The result dealt a blow to Ferguson’s hopes of securing repeat work with CalMac, even as the shipyard approaches completion of the MV Glen Rosa, the second of two long-delayed dual-fuel ferries.
Legal Constraints on Scoring ‘Social Value’
Critics have called for Scotland’s ferry procurement to give greater weight to “social value”—a broad set of benefits including local employment, skills development, and environmental sustainability.
But Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd (CMAL), the Scottish government-owned body overseeing ferry procurement, said that including social value scoring could have risked a legal challenge under international procurement rules.
“While Scottish public authorities can include social value considerations, they cannot impose requirements that unlawfully discriminate against foreign shipyards,” a CMAL spokesperson said.
Scotland has no legal obligation to apply social value scoring in public procurement. In contrast, UK central government departments are required to include a 10% weighting for social value where appropriate under the Procurement Act 2023. However, that act does not apply to Scottish bodies like CMAL.
Social Value—In Practice, Not Evaluation
Despite the absence of social value in bid scoring, CMAL said some community benefits were agreed post-award.
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21 apprentices from Scotland will participate in sea trials when the ferries arrive from Poland, starting in 2027.
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Remontowa will contribute to a community fund managed by CMAL, which has previously supported initiatives like local IT education.
But these voluntary measures fall short of formal scoring systems used in other sectors, such as offshore wind, where UK content requirements are increasingly applied.
Industry Frustration Mounts
Shipbuilding advocates say that without formal social value criteria, UK yards remain at a disadvantage—even in taxpayer-funded contracts.
“We’re seeing nearly all non-naval contracts go abroad because the UK and Scotland aren’t competing aggressively enough on finance,” said Paul Sweeney, Labour MSP and chair of Holyrood’s maritime and shipbuilding group.
The loss is a strategic setback for Ferguson Marine, which had hoped to secure a pipeline of smaller, electric ferry contracts to stabilise operations after years of delays and cost overruns on its earlier CalMac orders.
Strategic Shift to Poland
The Remontowa shipyard in Gdansk described the deal as the largest multi-vessel contract in its 79-year history. It has previous experience building CalMac vessels, including the MV Bute, MV Argyle, and MV Finlaggan between 2005 and 2011.
The new contract is valued at £147.5 million, with a further £12.5 million allocated by CMAL for logistics, supervision, and contingency costs—bringing the total to around £160 million.
A Repeat of Past Battles?
In 2015, Remontowa was runner-up to Ferguson Marine in the controversial tender for the MV Glen Sannox and MV Glen Rosa—a contract later plagued by construction delays and political fallout.
A BBC documentary alleged that procurement may have been “rigged” in Ferguson’s favour, though a subsequent investigation by a KC found no evidence of criminal corruption.
This time, the Gdansk yard won cleanly on price—prompting new calls for greater strategic direction in public procurement to safeguard UK industrial capacity.
A Changing Legal Landscape
Procurement law specialist Duncan Osler of Morton Fraser MacRoberts says that despite Brexit, UK procurement remains bound by international trade agreements designed to prevent unfair competition.
“Trying to tip the scales in favour of a domestic bidder purely for being local would open the door to legal challenge,” Osler said.
In practice, social value scoring may dilute price as the dominant factor—but in highly cost-sensitive tenders like this one, the overall impact is marginal.
