Island communities could be better served by shorter crossings, simpler ships and locally based crews.
“The Islands Act themes were increasing population levels,” he says. “Well, the first way of doing that is to base the crews on the island. Live ashore crews based on the islands, and that's what was proposed for Mull, so they're contributing to the local economy.”
Pedersen further claims CalMac are being run like a secret society, shielded from scrutiny and blocking cheaper, more flexible alternatives that are standard elsewhere and advising ministers "for the benefit of the CalMac and CMAL personnel".
The Ernst & Young report highlighted problems such as confusion over roles and responsibilities, additional costs and difficulty in holding the various bodies to account when things went wrong.
Asked how long such a transformation might take
“I wouldn't be looking at 40 years, I would be looking at a sort of 5 year timescale. If the will was there to change it, it could be done very quickly. It really could. But it would need to be a different tendering system. You can't leave it to this cumbersome, highly bueauatised, inefficient CalMac/CMAL system – it's just not working.”