Inquiry into Edinburgh Council's treatment of whistleblowers must be truly independent –John McLellan

For a large and complex organisation like a big city council, problems are inevitable and it’s not the absence of difficulties which is the mark of a good authority but the frequency and manner in which they are handled.

Donald Anderson, pictured in 2003 when he was council leader, said whistleblower John Travers was 'hunted down like a wild animal' (Picture: Neil Hanna)

Edinburgh Council has been no stranger to controversy in recent years, going back to 2002 and the case of whistleblower John Travers who first raised the alarm about malpractice in the Edinburgh Lifelong Learning Partnership and was then, according to ex-council leader Donald Anderson, “hunted down like a wild animal” by those involved. The case is still subject to legal proceedings.

Around the same time as the ELLP affair was unfolding, the statutory repairs scandal was getting up to full steam, with corrupt practices over four years up to 2010 resulting in four men going to jail and a bill for tax-payers of around £5.5m which still hadn’t been fully settled by the middle of last year.

The judicial inquiry into the tram fiasco which saw the cost of a shortened line spiral to £776m is still ongoing, as is a General Teaching Council probe into the behaviour of the former headteacher of Castlebrae high school, Derek Curran, who was suspended in 2014 over his handling of sex abuse claims.

And who can forget the anguish of the Mortonhall parents who were misled into believing there were no remains of their deceased babies for a decent funeral, revealed by this newspaper in 2013.

To this list can be added the case of late senior social work manager Sean Bell who faced sex crime allegations after complaints going back decades, now the subject of an internal inquiry by solicitors Pinsent Mason.

The common denominator in the new social work investigation, the ELLP and Castlebrae is the way in which whistleblowers’ concerns were handled amidst claims the council prioritised its own reputation. Last week, councillors spent two hours discussing the next steps and it could easily have lasted all day, such is the critical nature of the issues.

At the same time as the Sean Bell investigation takes place, a parallel inquiry into the whole culture and practices within the council is to be launched and an independent chair is now in the process of being selected, with the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates Roddy Dunlop called in to ensure there is a strong short-list of independent candidates.

Because the investigation relies largely on the evidence of whistleblowers, to have any chance of success it must not only be independent of the council but be seen to be independent, which means there should be no links between the authority and the chair and his or her secretariat, and there must a full commitment to make the inquiry’s findings public.

That might seem obvious, but one reason John Travers’ case is incomplete is a dispute over revealing details of the independent investigation which have remained confidential because it is effectively the council’s report.

It’s recognised if the new inquiry’s remit is too loose it could last years at great expense, which would be in no-one’s interests. But the first condition must be that the decision to publish rests with the chair and the chair alone. It must be a fully independent inquiry, not the council’s.

John McLellan is a Conservative councillor for Craigentinny/Duddingston

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