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Complaint no. LA/G/800 concerning an alleged contravention of the Councillors’ Code of Conduct by Councillor George Ryan of Glasgow City Council

1. Complaint number LA/G/800 alleged a contravention of the Councillors’ Code of Conduct (“the Code”) by Councillor George Ryan (“the respondent”).

2. It was alleged that the respondent had contravened the Code, in particular, the key principle relating to Selflessness and paragraphs 3.2 and 3.3 which deal with Relations with Council Employees.

3. The person complaining (“the complainant”), alleged that the respondent had sent her two e-mail messages on a work related matter the contents and tone of which she had found inappropriate, intimidating, distressing and disrespectful. The complainant also complained about two other councillors. There was no evidence included to support the complaint against those other councillors.

4. The respondent alleged that he had written to the complainant after his partner, Ms C, a Council employee and work colleague of the complainant, had reported to him what she had regarded as a distressing meeting which she had had with the complainant. He said that he had written to the complainant in his capacity as a Councillor and had copied his first e-mail to the Director of Social Work Services and to Councillor John Mackenzie, the Executive Member for Social Care Services. He claimed that he had been seeking answers to three questions that had been concerning him, namely, 1 – why would the complainant react so disproportionately to him trying to solve a long standing problem in her section?, 2 – why did she blame Ms C for his actions and treat her in such an unprofessional manner? and 3 – why were Senior Social Work Management instructing the complainant to warn Ms C about the respondent’s actions? He denied that he had been intimidating and disrespectful to the complainant and claimed that the thrust of his first email had been to find out from her who in Social Work Senior Management had advised her so badly.

5. The complainant alleged that on 23 January 2007 she had received a telephone call from an employee in the Finance Department of the Council.  The caller had advised the complainant that he understood that the respondent had raised with the Director of Finance perceived problems relating to the quality of communication which existed between the Finance Department and the Social Work Department.  The complainant alleged that she had been asked if any link existed between her department and the respondent, and that she had replied that the respondent’s partner Ms C worked in the department.  The next day the complainant had received an e-mail from the same Finance Department employee.  This e-mail had been circulated within the complainant’s department and she had asked colleagues if they had been in contact with the respondent.  The complainant explained that she had been concerned that this development might prejudice ongoing negotiations between the two departments.

6. On 25 January 2007 Ms C, a part-time employee on her first working day of that week, had had a meeting with the complainant. The complainant explained that she had advised Ms C that she should keep office matters confidential and that Ms C had become upset and had claimed that she was being bullied by others in the department because of her relationship with the respondent.

7. On 29 January 2007 the complainant had received the first of two e-mails from the respondent.  The second e-mail had been received the next day.  These e-mails were in the following terms: -

“Dear Ms G

I refer to the events of Wednesday 24 January onwards and would be extremely grateful if you could furnish me with all particulars relating to the matter, including details of telephone conversations, e-mails, face-to-face discussions, etc. between yourself and any other Council employees. I shall also require names and dates. I am treating this with the utmost seriousness and when I have fully investigated the matter I shall report back to you.

You told my partner Ms C that you had consulted senior management in Centenary House about the situation and that they were very unhappy and they advised you to apprise Ms C of her 'position'. This was clearly a veiled threat to her employment and by definition a warning to myself, therefore, I need to clarify who exactly instructed you to take this course of action.           

Since your conversation with Ms C I am dismayed to hear you hold councillors in such low esteem. I can assure you that any input from myself into any aspect of Council business is done with good intentions and in my 12 years of elected office I can honestly say that my interjections have never before caused such anger and outrage from a Council manager, or anyone else.

Ms C has explained to me that she had to remind you several times that I am, in fact, just a human being because your attitudes towards me were so negative and grossly exaggerated that she could barely believe what she was hearing.

I understand that your ill-advised actions on Wednesday, and your equally ill- advised comments to Ms C and others, were said in uncontrolled anger on your part, but may I remind you that as an employee in a position of some responsibility you should temper your words and deeds accordingly.

Yours sincerely

Councillor George Ryan”

Second e-mail:

“Ms G

Yesterday I requested some information and answers to various points.

Can you please answer my letter as soon as possible.

Councillor George Ryan”

The complainant had found the contents of the first e-mail intimidating, distressing and disrespectful. She had considered that it gave a bad impression of her conduct and had been concerned that a matter such as this has been raised directly with her rather than, as would have been normal, via the Director of the department.

8. The complainant had been concerned that the contents of the first e-mail suggested that she might become the subject of a complaint. Accordingly, she had brought matters to the attention of her line managers and a meeting with the line managers had been convened at the end of January 2007.  The complainant explained that she had been asked at that meeting to defer taking any further action in respect of the e-mails until after the elections, which were to be held in May 2007, thus allowing the department to investigate the matter.  The complainant somewhat surprisingly had agreed to this.  She explained that she had thought that the department would write to the respondent, advising him that he should not write directly to officers. The complainant and Ms C had both been on sick leave for lengthy periods.  In Ms C’s case, since July 2007, and in the complainant’s case, since April 2008.  The complainant had raised this complaint on 11 November 2008.

9. The respondent’s evidence as to the background to his e-mails was that his partner Ms C had mentioned to him an apparent communication difficulty between the Finance Department and the Social Work Department, which had led him, in a spirit of helpfulness, to raise this with the Convener of Finance and the Director of the Finance Department.  He stated that his partner had told him that an officer from the Finance Department had contacted her office and he had assumed that this contact had been made following his discussion with the Director of Finance.  The respondent claimed that he had not been aware that his partner was going to have a meeting with the complainant, but that after the meeting his partner had been distressed and “I felt that I needed to get to the bottom of this situation”.

10. The respondent accepted that he had sent the e-mails complained of to the complainant and claimed his actions had been prompted by concern that his partner was being bullied and that his name had featured so much in his partner’s discussion with the complainant. The respondent did not consider that it had been inappropriate for him to write to the complainant as he felt that his name had been raised by the complainant at her meeting with Ms C and he had been concerned about a reference to unhappiness of other senior officers whose identities he had not known.  He did not consider that there was a clear conflict of interest because of his personal relationship with Ms C.  When it was pointed out to the respondent that the last paragraph of his e-mail dated 29 January 2007 could be regarded as being rather pointed, he explained that it had been written because of the frustration which he had felt about the situation which had arisen.

11. The respondent explained that he had copied his first e-mail to the Executive Member for Social Care Services and to the then Director of Social Work Services.  The Director had contacted the respondent following receipt of the copy e-mail and had advised him that he, the Director, would deal with the matter.  The respondent had accepted this and had neither made further enquiries regarding the matter nor attempted to investigate it further.  The respondent stated that he believed that the matter he had been attempting to investigate was policy rather than operational.  He stated that he does not like writing to Directors of departments for information as he prefers to operate informally and speak to local officers.  Accordingly, his position was that he had been following his normal procedure in sending the e-mails complained of directly to the complainant.  The respondent believed that it was significant that this complaint had been made 22 months after the e-mails were sent, but only one month after a grievance by Ms C against the complainant had been upheld. (The complainant was subsequently advised that no disciplinary action was to be taken against her in respect of her management of Ms C)

12. As it was not in dispute, I had no difficulty in finding that the respondent had sent the e-mails complained of.  I noted that the complainant had found the contents and tone of the e-mails to be inappropriate, intimidating, distressing and disrespectful, whereas the respondent claimed that the sending of the e-mails had been well intentioned in that he had been seeking to investigate what he considered to be a matter of difficulty and misunderstanding.

13. I considered firstly the appropriateness or otherwise of sending the e-mails to the complainant. I was satisfied that by sending the emails the respondent had acted in an inappropriate manner.  He had chosen to write in his capacity as a councillor, despite his relationship with one of the main parties involved, namely Ms C.  I considered that there had been a clear and obvious conflict of interest which should have prevented him from writing the e-mails.  Also he had chosen to write directly to the complainant, a Council employee at junior manager level.  Once again, I was satisfied that so doing had been entirely inappropriate and that any enquiries which he had wished to make should have been directed to the senior officer in charge of the Social Work Department.  I regard making contact with the Director of a department on this type of issue as the normal and widely accepted method of operating, and consider direct contact with junior officers to be appropriate only in exceptional circumstances. 

14. I then turned to consider the contents of the e-mails, in particular the first e-mail (the second e-mail was no more than a somewhat premature reminder).  I noted that the respondent claimed that the matter which he had been seeking to investigate involved determining Council policy.  I did not consider that this was as obvious as the respondent believed and he appeared to have come close to engaging in an inappropriate manner in direct operational management of Council services.  I considered that the contents of the e-mail were inappropriate and that the action of sending it had been ill-advised. I also observed that the complaint had been lodged some 22 months after the e-mail had been received (normally complaints have to be submitted within 12 months of the alleged misconduct) and there was, in my view, no justifiable reason for the delay. However, I did not consider that the tone of the e-mail was impolite or disrespectful to a Council employee in a manner or to the extent which could reasonably have been taken to constitute a breach of the Councillors’ Code of Conduct and I found accordingly. 

15. Having considered the information that arose from my investigation, I concluded that, Councillor George Ryan had not contravened the Councillors’ Code of Conduct.

D Stuart Allan

Chief Investigating Officer

Forsyth House

Innova Campus

Rosyth Europarc

Rosyth

KY11 2UU

24 March 2009