Scottish Government Archives - Page 170 of 170

New CalMac Islay ferries will not be built in Scotland – STV news

14 September 2021/in Scottish Government, STV News, Transport Matters /by sm_admin

Please click the link below to read more:

Two new ferries for Islay will not be made in Scotland after four shipyards from elsewhere were invited to tender for the contract.

More than 30 organisations expressed an interest in taking on the job and 11 entered submissions that Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL) said were “rigorously” assessed.

But only four companies, one from Romania, another from Poland and two in Turkey, reached the final stage of the procurement process.

A decision on which shipyard will win the job will be made before the end of March 2022, CMAL said.

The Islay route is one of the busiest services for freight on the Clyde and Hebrides network, and it was decided to contract two new ferries after discussions with Transport Scotland, ferry operator CalMac and communities on the island.

This week CMAL announced that the new vessels will be built at either Damen Shipyard in Romania, Remontowa Shipbuilding in Poland, or one of the Turkish shipyards Sefine Denizcilik Tersanecilik Turizm or Cemre Marin Endustri.

The procurement process for new ferries has come under scrutiny recently because of issues with two vessels from the publicly-owned Ferguson Marine shipyard in Inverclyde.

Holyrood’s rural economy and connectivity committee described the process as a “catastrophic failure”.

New CalMac Islay ferries will not be built in Scotland

For more transport news click here: https://www.scotlandmatters.co.uk/transport-matters/

The ‘unhackable’ phones given to prisoners by Scottish Government – which were hacked to buy drugs – ITV news

14 September 2021/in Drugs, Glasgow Matters, Scotland Under the SNP, Scottish devolution, Scottish Government /by sm_admin

Please click the image below to read more:

So-called ‘unhackable’ mobile phones given to prisoners in Scotland during lockdown by the Scottish Government at a cost of £3 million are now being used for drug deals and other criminal activity, ITV News has learned.

During lockdown when prison visits were restricted, 7,600 inmates in Scotland were issued with their own mobile phone by the Scottish government.

But these supposedly tamper-proof phones were almost immediately hacked by inmates, and, according to the Scottish Prison Service, 728 have been found since August 2020 to operate with illegal SIM cards, used for drug deals and other criminal activity.

ITV News has been given exclusive access to Scotland’s largest prison, Barlinnie, where addiction is described as “worse than ever before.”

John McTavish, Prison Officer at HMP Barlinnie told ITV News: “You give a prisoner a phone, and they’re very, very ingenious. If they put their mind to something, they can do anything at all. Within hours, the tamper proof was gone.”

The prison officier estimates about a third of phones have been tampered with.

“I checked the phones in one of the halls here in March time, and of the 300 prisoners that were there, it was probably about 100 phones tampered with altogether.”The drugs bought with these phones are often simply thrown over the prison walls, but inmates are finding ever more complex and covert methods to smuggle in drugs, including legal letters soaked in drugs that the prisoner then dissolves in water and drinks.

Scottish Government warned about race row comic Janey Godley’s offensive tweets months before hiring her for Covid ads – The Sun

14 September 2021/in Scotland Under the SNP, Scottish Government, The Sun /by sm_admin

Please click the image below to read more:

THE Scottish Government hired race row comic Janey Godley for a TV health campaign despite being alerted to offensive tweets about Asian people in June, it has emerged.

Four Twitter posts were flagged up in a complaint three months ago, including two calling for people to “speak English”.

It came after Godley, 60, was booked for an anti-litter push between the Nats administration and the Zero Waste Scotland agency in May.

But the Scottish Government told a woman who complained that “due diligence” checks were carried out on the comedian and pro-indy activist — and that ministers could not “intervene” in her role.

An official added the complainer should contact cops if she had a hate crime to report.

Godley was later paid £12,000 of taxpayer cash to front the “Stop the Spike” Covid ads but was axed when posts about the disabled and black celebs came to light.

Tory MSP Russell Findlay called the latest revelation “staggering”.

He said: “The Scottish Government decided to hand an SNP- supporting comedian a large sum of public cash despite these vile posts being flagged directly with officials.

“This confirms the suspicion that there’s one rule for protected SNP cronies and another for the rest of us.

“Nicola Sturgeon must apologise immediately. Why were racist tweets ignored when awarding a lucrative contract for a crucial public health message in the fight against Covid?”

Labour MSP Foysol Choudhury said the tweets were “deeply troubling”.

But he added: “What raises more serious questions is the government’s response to this. The public deserve answers.”