Jersey’s government didn’t carry out a formal risk assessment when it decided not to include an inter-island service in its contract with DFDS.
A report carried out by Jersey’s Comptroller and Auditor General also revealed that no documented review of the risks or benefits of awarding a longer 20-year, rather than a 15-year, contract to DFDS was carried out.
Lynn Pamment’s report noted that the agreement to award the contract to DFDS after the pan-island tender process collapsed didn’t include an inter-island ferry agreement between Guernsey and Jersey.
“While this was understood, there is no documented impact assessment against risk appetite to underpin this decision,” she said.
“Instead, the significant reduction in inter-island provision was accepted in the short term without the ‘value added’ being fully evaluated.”
But Ms Pamment acknowledged that “steps have since been taken to establish an increase in ferry connectivity between Jersey and Guernsey”.
However, the winter schedules recently published by DFDS have left residents in both islands in the dark over what level of inter-island ferry services will be provided in future.
Brittany Ferries, which won the contract in Guernsey, is continuing with its once a week service between St Peter Port and St Helier, which operates on Wednesdays.
The firm has published timetables for the route up to the end of August 2026, but no such publicly-accessible timetable exists for DFDS and the last date available to book for Guernsey services is Monday 27 October.
In June, DFDS began inter-island sailings to Guernsey, offering a roundtrip on Mondays, after months of speculation over the level of connectivity that would be available this year.
Brittany Ferries has been running weekly high-speed crossings between the islands, while Guernsey-based Islands Unlimited operates daily foot passenger sailings between the islands.
The renewal of ferry contracts began as a pan-island process in May last year but fell apart in October, when Guernsey revealed that it had decided to appoint Brittany Ferries – Condor Ferries’ majority owner – as its preferred bidder.
DFDS won the subsequent Jersey-only tender and signed a 20-year contract to provide passenger and freight services to the UK and France, which began at the end of March.
But this was five years longer than what was being sought in the pan-island tender.
“In the single-island tender, the Government of Jersey made a decision to award a longer term concession agreement than had been specified for the joint exercise,” Ms Pamment said in her report.
“However, no formal assessment of the impact, benefits and risks was documented. The decision to award a 20-year contract has committed the States to an exclusive provider for a period a third longer than was originally specified.”