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Note Of Decision Web Version

Complaint no. LA/R/63 concerning an alleged contravention of the Councillors' Code of Conduct by Councillor Jean Goldie of Renfrewshire Council

1. Complaint number LA/R/63 alleged a contravention of the Councillors' Code of Conduct by Councillor Jean Goldie ("the respondent"), an elected member and Depute Provost of Renfrewshire Council ("the Council").

2. It was alleged that the respondent had contravened the Code, in particular the key principles on Leadership and paragraph 3.16 on Confidentiality.

3. The person complaining ("the complainant") alleged that the respondent breached the Data Protection Act and principles of confidentiality by passing information about the complainant and her family to a neighbour ("Mr A") without permission and over-reacted to a "trivial" complaint by Mr A.

4. The respondent admitted writing to the complainant saying that the information had been sent to Mr A but said in the interview that it was not in fact sent. Her inconsistency was unsatisfactory but should be capable of being reconciled by reference to the official file. On examination of that file, no evidence was found of a covering letter to Mr A which might have enclosed the information. Nor was any evidence found to suggest that the information may have been sent in any other way eg under cover of a compliment slip. I concluded that I could not be satisfied that the information was actually sent.

5. The secondary complaint against Councillor Goldie was that she "over-reacted" to Mr A's complaint ie that the complaint was of a nature which could and should, have been dealt with without recourse to Council officers but been dealt with informally between neighbours. The available evidence was that Mr A chose not to adopt such an approach and went to Councillor Goldie who told him that she did not investigate complaints herself but referred them to officers. I agreed with this but would have expected, in a "sensitive" case like this, that a councillor would want to be more informed of and sensitive to, the consequences of such a referral. However in all the circumstances, I concluded that the respondent did not over-react.

6. This case raised an issue relating to the disclosure of personal information. In order to assist councillors and officers, I recommended that the Council consider reviewing its procedures to ensure that in appropriate cases recipients of personal information are advised that such information should not be disclosed to a third party without proper authority.

7. Having considered the information that arose from my investigation, I concluded that Councillor Goldie had not contravened the Councillors' Code of Conduct.

D Stuart Allan,
Chief Investigating Officer.
Forsyth House
Innova Campus
Rosyth Europarc
Rosyth
Fife
KY11 2UU
22 December 2004