Should someones version of events be less believable if they are made by a so-called 'junior' member of staff; as opposed to another persons version of events just because they are made by a more 'senior' member of staff?Think about it.
It's clearly a pretty outrageous thing to say.
But that is exactly what has been said today by the Leadership of the City of Edinburgh Council - see paragraph 11 here.
I've always thought the truth was the truth, no matter who voiced it.
And as for all the nonsense about the supposed political bias of the Committee - I'd encourage a quick glance here, which confirms that the Scottish Parliament Public Audit Committee has 8 MSP Members - 3 Labour, 3 SNP, 1 Conservative and 1 Lib-Dem.
And, yes you guessed it, the 3 SNP and 1 Lib-Dem MSPs all supported the findings of the Public Audit Committee report on 'The Gathering' - there was no division on the final report.
As I said yesterday - and as we attempted to have implemented back in September 2010 (see page 12) - the Council's own Audit Committee should now urgently undertake an investigation to ensure that the appropriate lessons are learned from this whole fiasco and that proper procedures are in place to prevent such a situation from ever occurring again.
Anything less will now - rightly - be seen as a complete whitewash.
2 comments:
As someone who has followed many a political scandal over the years I find this is intriguing. It's not quite Watergate but thank you for posting Andrew.
Given that Miss Dawe was "horrified" that this press statement was issued, I'd be interested to know what she did about it when she saw it.
Surely if an inaccurate statement is made you would correct it right away?
Anonymous
Thanks for the comment. I agree it's not Watergate!
Indeed, I reckon very few beyond the Edinburgh political-class are really interested in the details ...
... but, that said, there is a very important point of principle at stake here and that's why we're continuing to push for the issue to be looked at by the Council's own Audit Committee so this type of damaging episode is a lot less likely to happen again.
As to the News Release being rectified ... you make a very valid point and, as far as I understand, it wasn't actually 'withdrawn' formally but only verbally contradicted once the Press and Opposition Groups made a noise about the subject.
It's a right old mess!
Andrew
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