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Complaint no. LA/Fi/394 concerning an alleged contravention of the Councillors' Code of Conduct by Councillor Peter Grant of Fife Council

1. The complainant alleged that Councillor Peter Grant had contravened the Councillors' Code of Conduct. He alleged that, in issuing a press release, the respondent breached the key principle of Leadership contained in section 2.1 of the Code.

2. Councillor Grant's press release stated:

"The Chairman of Fife Council's Standards & Audit Committee has called for a complete culture change within the Council to embrace the public's right of access to information.

SNP councillor Peter Grant said he was disappointed when he heard that Fife Council's first ever appeal under the Freedom of Information Act had resulted in strong criticism of the Council, but said he was deeply concerned that the appeal, and the lessons to be learned, have still not been reported to councillors.

He said, "Shortly after I learned that the Scottish Information Commissioner had delivered such a damning verdict on Fife Council I asked for a report on the case to be brought to the next meeting of the Standards & Audit Committee. Council officials assured me that the case would instead be reported to the Policy & Resources Committee, and I accepted these promises. You can imagine how I felt when I saw the agenda for the Policy & Resources meeting and there was no mention of Freedom of Information anywhere. The best we can hope for now is that councillors will get the chance to discuss the Commissioner's verdict more than three months after it was delivered. The Commissioner ruled that Fife Council had committed no fewer than three separate breaches of the Freedom of Information Act, but the Administration seems to think it's ok to wait more than fourteen weeks before they bother to let councillors even discuss this. If this is an example of how seriously Fife Council treats its legal obligations under Freedom of Information, we should all be worried.

Councillor Grant said he had tabled a number of questions for the next Council meeting to ask the leader of the Labour administration to explain why it had taken so long for this decision to be reported to councillors. He added, "I have also asked the Chief Executive for details of every Freedom of Information request that the Council refuses to disclose. There are still some kinds of information that the Council is perfectly entitled to withhold, but the Council needs to wake up to the fact that the world has changed. A fifteen year trend of election reverses for Labour's ruling elite should have been enough to warn them that their old style of closet government was no longer acceptable. In 2005, the Freedom of Information Act, for the first time ever, gave legal force to the SNP's belief in the public's right to know. Almost overnight, Fife's citizens have the legal right to see all sorts of information that generations of Labour led Councils wanted to keep secret.

Councillor Grant concluded by saying that front line council staff should not be made the scapegoats for failures higher up in the organisation. He said, "It would be grossly unfair if the Commissioner's decision was seen as a criticism of front line staff in the Service concerned. They were understaffed and under-resourced, and the Commissioner has acknowledged that they simply didn't understand how the new rules applied to them. Responsibility for this has to lie much higher up the tree. It would be nice to think Fife Council has learned its lesson from this case, but the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. The Commissioner is currently investigating nine other complaints that Fife Council acted contrary to the Freedom of Information Act. I'll be very interested to see the results of these appeals, as will an awful lot of people in Fife."

3. The press release expresses Councillor Grant's concerns about the Council's handling and reporting of FOI requests and plainly does so in the name of the Chair of the Standards & Audit Committee. Its contents were not discussed with senior officers and although not inaccurate, they did not present a wholly accurate statement of what Councillor Grant had been told about the Freedom of Information matter by the Committee Manager. The press release contained comments of a party political nature and was issued to the press just before a Council by-election, indeed the local daily paper published it on the day of the by-election.

4. I considered, however, that a Councillor is entitled to issue a press statement on matters of concern if he or she so chooses. Such a right must remain largely unfettered because there can be no question about a Councillor's right to freedom of expression under article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (other than in limited and prescribed circumstances which do not apply here). The complainant had been concerned that the respondent issued the press release in his capacity has Chair of the Standards & Audit Committee, and that he might have breached the authority's Media Policy and Inter-Party Protocol. It was indeed a matter of fact that Councillor Grant is the Chair of the Standards & Audit Committee. He chose to use the title in his press release and there was nothing in the Council's Media Policy which prevented this. I did not consider that the terms of the Inter-Party Protocol applied to his use of the title or issuing of the press release. Any reference in the Protocol to constraints on the actions of Chairs required them, when chairing meetings of a Committee or Sub-Committee, to apply all Standing Orders and refrain from actions or statements that might bring their impartiality into question.

5. It would not be unreasonable to expect the Chair of the Standards & Audit Committee to make efforts to avoid actions which might give rise to questions over conduct and there were, indeed, disappointing features of Councillor Grant's actions. It was true to say that the press release with party political comments was issued just before the by-election. Regardless of Councillor Grant's views on when would be the best time to submit a press statement for publication, the timing of it was such that there was likely to be a strong possibility it would appear the following day; and indeed, it was published on the day of the by-election. I also felt that Councillors owe it to staff to be even-handed in their dealings with them. Councillor Grant's press release was not entirely accurate in stating what he had been told about the proposed reporting of Freedom of Information cases, and had he accepted the Committee Manager's invitation to enquire for further information, some of his concerns could have been allayed. In this case, however, I did not think it could be said that Councillor Grant sought to take unfair advantage of his position in regard to any staff.

6. Notwithstanding these comments, I did not consider that Councillor Grant's actions amounted to - or could reasonably have been taken to amount to - a breach of the Code of Conduct. There were no specified constraints on him under the Council's policies referred to in the complaint and I did not consider that any breach of the Code of Conduct had occurred.

7. In relation to complaint number LA/Fi/394, I came to the conclusion that Councillor Peter Grant had not contravened the Councillors' Code of Conduct.

D Stuart Allan,
Chief Investigating Officer.
Forsyth House
Innova Campus
Rosyth Europarc
Rosyth
Fife
KY11 2UU
28 April 2006