Who's guarding public's guards?

[epidemiologist2010]

A question that needs an action rather than contemplation!

http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/martin-hannan/Martin-Hannan-Who39s-guarding-public39s.6402304.jp

ONE of the bigger growth industries in Scottish public life in recent years has been formal inquiries into the conduct of MSPs, councillors, and members of quangos.
Ever since the Ethical Standards in Public Life Act 2000 brought the Standards Commission and office of the Chief Investigating Officer into being, followed shortly afterwards by the Scottish Parliamentary Standards Commission, complaints and inquirADVERTISEMENT

ies have mushroomed.

Here's how it works: any person who thinks a councillor or any other person in public life has broken the code of conduct can make a complaint to the Chief Investigating Officer (CIO), whose department is separate from the Standards Commission but makes recommendations to them. The present CIO is Stuart Allan, a solicitor who was previously the chief legal eagle at Fife Council.

In the years 2007-08 and 2008-09, the CIO received 484 complaints, of which 268 were deemed fit to investigate. After the CIO's investigation, the number of hearings by the Commission in those two years was five.

Of those five, only one ended in a verdict against a councillor. The sentence was that the councillor should be censured. In other words, in the past two years, the CIO and Standards Commission has spent a total of £1,157,949 in order to give one Shetland councillor a ticking off. Of course, it's not as simple as that. Most investigations never come close to a hearing, as the person complained about either apologises and puts things right, or more usually is cleared of any breach, which happens in the vast majority of cases.

A lot of complaints are just plain wrong. Last year, 250 complaints were investigated by the CIO. The findings were that breaches of the code took place in just four per cent of the cases - that's just ten people in public life who broke the code.

So either we have saints and angels in public service in Scotland, or they just don't get caught, or - as I suspect - ordinary people neither understand nor can be bothered to make properly framed complaints.

All those complaints yet so little action needed - and then you learn the real reason why so much money has been spent. The fact is, the whole Ethical Standards in Public Life legislation and the various authorities set up to regulate these matters have been hijacked by the same politicians that the law was brought in to keep under control.

Here's a direct quote from Stuart Allan's latest annual CIO report: "It is regrettable that complaints relating to respect for councillors and officers rose again during 2008/09, especially as a significant number involved councillors complaining about fellow councillors." In other words, complaints are made by councillors trying to score political points off each other. That was absolutely not why the law came in. It was supposed to give members of the public the chance to make complaints.

It's a trend that's both disturbing and disgusting, and it goes to the heart of Scottish public life - Holyrood.

Just so you get confused, there's also the Scottish Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, whose job is to investigate alleged breaches of the Code of Conduct by MSPs.

This office is presently held by the same Stuart Allan who is also the CIO reporting to the Standards Commission.

His most famous recent decision was in relation to the laughable 'Lunchgate' complaints, over which he cleared First Minister Alex Salmond - leader of my party, the SNP - and Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. Coming from the Labour Party which has long defined corruption in Scottish politics, at first I thought that complaint was an example of ironic humour

There are occasions when complaints by politicians about other politicians are justifiable. Last week the Standards Commission cleared East Kilbride Labour Councillor Jim Docherty of any breach of the code. The SNP locally had complained that Docherty was a close friend of James Kean, the well-known property developer and Labour Party donor, and that Docherty had failed to declare this when he sat on committees deciding Kean's planning applications.

The Commission said there was 'no evidence' of any relationship between Docherty and Kean. Oops - the day after the Commission cleared Docherty, BBC Scotland's excellent investigations correspondent Mark Daly revealed that Kean acted as godfather to Docherty's daughter when she was baptised a year ago. Was that an offer he couldn't refuse? Funnily enough, there are no reporters on the Commission.

We have a system including the Parliamentary Commission which costs taxpayers more than £600,000 a year, yet for various reasons it cannot do its job properly.

Who is guarding these guards? That's right - politicians. Having built an industry that allows them to snipe at each other, they are not going to stop it.