MSPs condemn Government handling of Salmond case

The Scottish Government’s handling of harassment complaints, and the subsequent judicial review, was "seriously flawed", according to the report by the MSPs investigating the issue, published today.

The Holyrood committee also agreed that the separate inquiry under former Irish prosecutor James Hamilton was the appropriate place to address the question of whether or not First Minister Nicola Sturgeon breached the Scottish Ministerial Code in statements to the Parliament about the affair.

Mr Hamilton's report, published yesterday, concluded that although she had given an inaccurate account of the dates of meetings with her predecessor Alex Salmond concerning the complaints, she had had a "genuine failure of recollection" and that there had been no breach of the code in this respect, nor had she behaved improperly in other respects alleged.

However the committee in today's report was strongly critical of the complaints procedure put in place by the Government ahead of the investigation into Mr Salmond, which was developed too fast and lacked safeguards to ensure an independent investigation; critical of the investigation itself, including the multiple roles played by the Permanent Secretary; and particularly critical of the conduct of the subsequent judicial review challenge by Mr Salmond, in which a "catastrophic failure" to disclose documents led to the former First Minister being awarded enhanced legal costs of more than half a million pounds.

"The committee concludes that the Scottish Government was responsible from an early stage for a serious, substantial and entirely avoidable situation that resulted in a prolonged, expensive and unsuccessful defence of the petition. The committee finds that this state of affairs is unacceptable by an organisation such as the Scottish Government and that those responsible should be held accountable", the report concludes.

There was further condemnation of the Government's repeated failure to provide full and timeous information to the committee, as promised by Ms Sturgeon, which had handicapped the committee in carrying out its inquiry and delayed its report.

The nine MSPs were unanimous on all these points, but split between the four SNP members and the five from the other four parties on whether to include a paragraph stating that it was "hard to believe that [Ms Sturgeon] had no knowledge of any concerns about inappropriate behaviour on the part of Mr Salmond prior to November 2017. If she did have such knowledge, then she should have acted upon it. If she did have such knowledge, then she has misled the committee".

Dissenting members took the view that this paragraph failed to distinguish between bullying behaviour and sexual harassment.

There was also a split along party lines on paragraphs concluding that:

• The committee was not in a position to take a view on whether Mr Salmond’s or the Ms Sturgeon’s version of events at a meeting on 29 March 2018 was the more persuasive, although it noted "that the former First Minister’s version has the benefit of being confirmed by others".
• There was a "fundamental contradiction in the evidence" in relation to whether, at the meeting on 2 April 2018, Ms Sturgeon did or did not agree to intervene, but that she at least left Mr Salmond with the impression that she would do so if necessary, and her written evidence therefore misled the committee and was "a potential breach of the Ministerial Code".
• Although it was accepted that it was inappropriate for Ms Sturgeon to continue to meet and have discussions with Mr Salmond, she should have made the Permanent Secretary aware of her state of knowledge of the complaints and the facts of the meetings at the earliest opportunity, and confirmed that she would cease to have any further contact with Mr Salmond on that subject.

The committee has made a series of recommendations to ensure that there is no similar occurrence in future and that there can be confidence in future complaints processes.

Committee convener Linda Fabiani MSP commented: "Throughout this inquiry there has been speculation and rumour around the work of our committee.

"I have always been clear that at the heart of this inquiry are two women who made complaints of sexual harassment.

"These women were badly let down by the Scottish Government, but they have also been let down by some members of our committee.  I am truly dismayed by the hurt some of the committee leaks will have caused them. I apologise to them unreservedly. This is not who we should be as a committee of this Parliament."

She added: "There are undoubtedly some extremely serious findings in our report and it was clear to the committee that there were serious flaws made in the Government’s application of its own process. The Government must address these to ensure anyone who experiences sexual harassment has the confidence to come forward."

Click here to view the report.