You wait eight-and-a-half years for someone to lose their job over the SNP’s ferries fiasco, then two sackings come at once. So which Scottish government minister has finally paid the price for a scandal that has left islanders without reliable ferry services, brought the Scottish government and its agencies into disrepute, and cost Scottish taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds and counting?

Not Derek Mackay, the junior minister responsible for transport when the contract was awarded in October 2015 – in a typically boosterish fashion at the SNP’s conference. He resigned in February 2020 after it emerged he had sent to a teenage boy.

The first minister at the time the ferry contract was awarded, Nicola Sturgeon, has also washed her hands of the crisis. While still on the political scene, she has kept a relatively low profile since stepping down not long before the SNP’s finances became a major story. This week marks the one-year anniversary of Police Scotland raiding her home as part of its Operation Branchform investigation.

Similarly, the current first minister, Humza Yousaf, gives no hint of accepting any responsibility for the debacle, even though he took over from Mackay as Minister for Transport and the Islands in 2016. Yousaf held that portfolio until June 2018, when he was moved over to the justice brief. That means he was the minister responsible for ferries throughout a critical period of the scandal, including the preposterous and very costly ‘launch’ of the Glen Sannox, the boat first in line to be completed.

None of this lot, or any other SNP representative, has ever properly accepted culpability for Scotland’s ferries fiasco, although Yousaf admitted last March that all of the Scottish government’s transport ministers and finance secretaries had shared responsibility of the scandal. Instead, this week saw Robbie Drummond, the chief executive of CalMac, Scotland’s state-owned ferry operator, removed from his post. The surprise move came just over a week after the sacking of David Tydeman, the boss of Ferguson Marine, the nationalised shipyard that is building the troubled ferries. In its statement on Drummond, CalMac said its board recognised island communities served by its ferries had ‘faced real challenges over this past year’, adding that these challenges are likely set to continue until new vessels are introduced to the fleet over the coming years. Drummond had held the top job at CalMac for six years.

Tydeman took the helm at Ferguson Marine in February 2022. His departure is perhaps the more interesting. He appears to be notably capable and respected within the industry, and has at least managed to finally get the Glen Sannox into the water for its sea trials. He has also, however, been forthright in pointing out the design and construction flaws that have made the ferries so late and over budget. ‘We’ve had lots of mistakes,’ he wearily informed a Holyrood committee last October after giving examples of basic costly blunders, including the use of the wrong type of steel in certain critical areas, which then had to be ripped out and replaced.

Tydeman was also successful in diversifying the yard’s work programme by securing a contract with BAE Systems to be a subcontractor on its Type 26 frigates, securing £2 million-worth of work to build three units for HMS Belfast, which is under construction at BAE’s Govan shipyard. His business plan for Ferguson was to greatly expand this type of work while also targeting Babcock, another big supplier to Britain’s military, for subcontractor work on its Type 31 warship programme at Rosyth, near Edinburgh.

On the face of it, then, Tydeman appears to have been performing well in his job, given the chaos he inherited. When questioned at Holyrood about Tydeman’s dismissal, Scotland’s economy secretary, Mairi McAllan, said the sacking decision was a matter for the state-owned shipyard’s board and that they had been considering addressing ‘performance-related issues’ since February. Tydeman had informed the board that further delays on the handover of the Glen Sannox were likely.

Are the sackings a case of the government cracking the whip? Humza Yousaf insists SNP ministers had nothing to do with the dismissal of Drummond or Tydeman. However, the decision making remains murky, and in the case of Tydeman at least, it does appear that the one person prepared to deal with the hard realities of the crisis has been scapegoated.

Ferguson Marine and CalMac have appointed temporary chief executives while they look for new permanent heads. The ferries are now six years late and are set to cost around three times the original budget of £97 million. Meanwhile, the political games and secrecy surrounding the scandal continues.

True accountability remains elusive. SNP government ministers continue to pass the blame, while those outside their bubble become fall guys. It’s a shoddy scandal that gets uglier at every turn.