Sheriff considers whether report into fraud claims made by Edinburgh City Council whistleblower should be handed over - nearly two decades on

A sheriff is considering whether a report into fraud allegations made by a council whistleblower nearly two decades ago should be handed over to him by local authority chiefs.

John Travers wants to obtain the full commissioned report from specialist financial investigators PWC, which looked into his claims that £400,000 of public funds had been misspent at an arm’s length firm.

Only a redacted version of the report has ever been seen by Mr Travers, who experienced a ten-year campaign of abuse - including hate mail and a barrage of “weaponised” pornography - after he first made the claims in 2002.

Mr Travers claims a promise was made to him during a meeting in November 2015 by the council’s then monitoring officer, Alastair Maclean, that he would get a copy of the completed PWC report in exchange for providing documents relevant to their probe.

Mr Maclean was among the witnesses called to give evidence during a civil case heard by Sheriff Noble at Edinburgh Sheriff Court this week.

During his final submissions on Wednesday, Mr Travers’ lawyer Andrew Smith QC, told the court: “This is a very simple case… the pursuer (Mr Travers) says an agreement was reached that, in return for him providing documentation, he would get a copy of the report, and his position is that this was promised by Mr Maclean at a meeting in November 2015.”

Under cross examination, Mr Maclean, who left the council in 2016, said he did not recall making any promise to Mr Travers about delivering the report and said it was “very unlikely” he would have done so, given his understanding of potential legal constraints.

Council computer files containing correspondence on the matter disappeared in the week before Mr Travers served his first legal writ on City Chambers to publish the PWC report in December 2018. *

John Travers.

Mr Smith told the court that a previous council investigation into the fraud claims in 2006-07 was perceived to be a “bit of a cover up.”

Amid media pressure in 2015, Mr Maclean reopened the investigation and commissioned the PWC inquiry.

The court also heard from the council’s former head of legal, Carol Campbell, who had initially been in the November 2015 meeting with Mr Travers and Mr Maclean before Mr Maclean asked her to leave. In his evidence, Mr Maclean said she was asked to leave the room because Mr Travers appeared tense and that her departure might help calm the situation.

Ms Campbell said she was never told about any promise to provide a final copy of the report and recalled Mr Travers’ concerns being about the security of the material he was providing. She said she was asked to leave to take the tension away and to allow them to have a one to one discussion.

Mr Smith says the explanation for leaving this meeting is inadequate, given no record has been kept of the meeting and what was discussed.

‘No proof’ of contract

The lawyer acting for Edinburgh City Council (the defender), Craig Sandison QC, argues there is no proof that any agreement or contract was ever made between parties in this meeting - or on the part of the council - to deliver the full report to Mr Travers.

He said parts of the report were redacted to legally comply with the Data Protection Act, which also meant protecting individuals who could reasonably be identified through any other information obtained by Mr Travers.

But Mr Smith said: “GDPR provisions do not apply where there is a function to investigate to protect the public against malpractice and dishonesty. That’s what this report was about.

“We should be saying, ‘which parts of the report have to be removed and why,’ so we can engage in discussions of what exemption applies and if we can respond to plead it out of the Data Protection Act.”

Mr Sandison stressed the council offered the opportunity for their decision on redactions to be scrutinised by the statutory regulatory body on data protection, the Information Commissioner’s Office, to determine whether more details should be provided - but he said this offer was declined by Mr Travers.

Mr Sandison also argued that contemporaneous emails in the days following the November 2015 meeting between the pair had never mentioned any promise being made to deliver the full report to Mr Travers.

He said Mr Travers had “an investment” in getting to the bottom of matters at the meeting given the “unpleasant” past treatment of him and his family but added: “It is unfortunate because of the circumstances… he is prepared to add to and embroider what actually happened.”

Treatment ‘completely unacceptable’

The PWC report vindicated the actions taken by Mr Travers and is understood to have found both he and his associates were harassed - but it was unable to establish those responsible.

It also tracked hardcore pornographic images back to the council via an IP address but no individual has ever been identified as responsible.

As a result of the findings, the city council’s chief executive issued a full apology to Mr Travers for the “completely unacceptable” way he was treated.

While the PWC investigators did not find evidence of fraud, they also did not rule it out.

Mr Travers’ allegations related to Edinburgh Lifelong Learning Partnership (ELLP) and work carried out on City Connect, its IT and social inclusion project.

Donald Anderson, who was leader of Edinburgh City Council when the fraud allegations surfaced in the early 2000s, said on Thursday: “I obviously can’t comment on the court case, but as I have said before, I think it is tragic that such a decent and honest family have been subject to the most horrific abuse over such a long period.

“And this all happened because John raised perfectly valid concerns about fraud at Edinburgh Lifelong Learning partnership.”

In his final submissions, Mr Smith also said that Mr Maclean appeared to adopt a “very casual approach” while giving evidence on Tuesday. The lawyer pointed out he was drinking from a coffee mug and had not opted to wear a suit, leading him to query how seriously he was taking the matter, and that at times he was “combative” when questioned.

In response, Mr Sandison said: “I find it rather ridiculous that, because he was wearing a pullover and drinking from a sippy cup… is just not a matter that can be said to affect his credibility or reliability. We live in an informal age.”

*This article has been updated to make clear that Mr Maclean left the council in 2016 long before files disappeared from council computer systems

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription at https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/subscriptions.