James Hamilton completed an independent inqury, with the full support of Nicola Sturgeon, to establish if she had breached the Ministerial Code. His conlusion was that the code had been breached but not intentionally by her. The Inquiry accepted his findings. She was off the hook.
But there was a play on words which allowed which allowed Hamilton to reach his conclusion and they were put in place at the time the parameters of his remit was decided by John Swinney who was fully aware of all the actions of Sturgeon and her senior Civil Service managers.
The facts are clear. The Permanent Secretary, Leslie Evans and her senior manager team engaged in a criminal conspiracy breaching the Ministerial Code by maliciously failing to timeously inform Nicola Sturgeon of allegations of harassment being lodged against Alex Salmond by two Government employee’s.
This record provides the evidence.
07 November 2017: Hynd, Richards and MacKinnon exchanged opinions on how to deal with harassment complaints against former Ministers. McKinnon tabled a “routemap” of a policy which suggested application to former Ministers.
07 November 2017: Allison & complainant Ms B. Allison informed the Holyrood Inquiry she had received a telephone call in the course of which Ms B, made allegations against Alex.
Ms B said she was responding to a 2 November 2017 email headed, “Sexual harassment – message from the Permanent Secretary” which had been distributed to all Scottish Government staff.
Following the conversation Allison telephoned Evans office and arranged a telephone conference so that she could advise the Evans of the details of the allegations.
That the first contact was made to Allison remains a mystery given she was the Director of Communications, Ministerial Support and Facilities having given up her position in human resources some time before.
08 November 2017: Hynd produced a first draft procedure applying only to Former Ministers. Referring to his work and that of MacKinnon he said that “neither of the pathways involving Ministers look right”.
09 November 2017: Allison briefed Evans who judged that whilst the information provided by Ms B was of concern further action not yet required.
09 November 2017: Evans then convened an urgent meeting and further discussed the allegations with Allison then met separately alone, with Richards.
09 November 2017: Evans failed to brief Sturgeon immediately which was a breach of the “Ministerial Code”.
An email from Evans private secretary was circulated that evening appraising recipients of the content and outcomes of the earlier meeting and the actions that were to follow from it. One action was: “Evans would like to have calls/conversation’s tomorrow with: Allison, Russell and Richards.
In her evidence to the inquiry, Allison summarised how, after the initial phone call she continued her involvement with Ms B and her “concerns”:
“I had early contact with Ms B. That contact was a series of texts. I also had, I think, three telephone calls with her, but no meetings. No written record was ever taken of any of her concerns.”
All but one of these contacts were in the period 08 November to 29 November 2017.
10 November 2017: Evans called Russell and Allison separately and assigned appointments, roles and responsibilities to each of them and advised Richards of the details.
Throughout that period Allison was Director of Communications for the Scottish Government, in addition to whatever responsibilities she had for Ministerial Support and Facilities.
Given a plethora of much more qualified support was already in place for someone in Ms B’s position, with even more about to be added, one might legitimately wonder how this came about.
Its boundaries were unambiguous:
“To keep this manageable the focus is on those who have had experiences of sexual harassment.”
And the line of communication of “issues” through HR to Evans was clearly defined:
Allison later told the Holyrood Inquiry that pastoral care was in place in case anyone wanted to say, “I am concerned that things are coming out. This feels tough, so where can I go for support?’ Trade unions, the welfare officer and the employee assistance programme and so on might be advised.”
But Allison’s real role was to cocoon Ms B and her “concerns” about Alex until hastily prepared unique procedures for investigating and deciding on historical harassment complaints was in place. She admitted to this when she told the Inquiry that: “I felt at times I was trying to hold a space open for her.”
And Russell was just as much in the dark on the matter. She told the Holyrood Inquiry: “To be honest, at the time, in November 2017 as the documentation will demonstrate, I was not aware of Allison having that role of pastoral care. I was only aware of the role that the permanent secretary asked me to do.”
And she was not alone in that respect given that Russell, in common with almost all of her Scottish Government colleagues, had no idea of the top secret role Allison was performing for Evans:
13 November 2017: Allison copied Evans office staff a message she had sent to Ms B containing Russell’s contact details and her role. She then told Russell that someone might be in touch with her, but provided no details.
Russell’s evidence to the Holyrood Inquiry is enlightening. She advised: “After I took on the role on 13 November 2017 there was an engagement with Barbara Allison, in which she advised me that somebody might want to come and speak to me.
I advised Barbara that the text number for that purpose had been made available to staff and that, if anyone wanted to contact me, I would obviously be happy to see what I could do to support them, as had been set out in the note…. She said that she had been approached by somebody who wanted to speak. That was all I knew.”
Russell was not contacted by Ms B. The entire process from “concerns” to formal complaint to ultimate decision, was handled exclusively by Evans through Allison, Richards and Mackinnon.
Indeed, even as late at the time she gave evidence to the Holyrood Inquiry Russell still assumed “wrongly” that the “somebody” Allison had been referring to on 13 November 2017 was Ms A.
A revelation that prompted a need for the Inquiry to ask Allison to write to them on 9 December 2020 to correct the misunderstanding, and point out that the “somebody” was actually Ms B.
About Allison:
Her appearance before the Holyrood Inquiry was a masterclass in the art of subterfuge. Uninformed observers were underwhelmed with the evidence of the well presented elderly lady who was clearly nearing the end of a long and distinguished career. Her contribution to events was minor and ended soon after she passed Ms B on to MacKinnon. But the truth is that Allison possessed presentation skills finely honed over many years. and she was able to disguise the level and influence of her input. She was in fact the lead officer of the Scottish Civil Service LBGTQ movement charged with the deemed urgent implementation of the policies of the discredited and defunct Stonewall organisation.
13 November 2017: Cabinet Secretary James Hynd wrote to senior civil servants about sexual harassment allegations against current Ministers:
“We would need to alert Sturgeon to the fact that a complaint had been received against one of her Ministers and to take her mind about how she wished it to be handled.”
15 November 2017: Hynd wrote a second email to Evans officet commenting on a suggestion that complaints against Ministers might be resolved by informal means without the need for Sturgeon to be involved:
“I am not at all sure that this … will be acceptable to Sturgeon either generally or in the specific context of sexual harassment. Especially for the latter I think she will want to know straightaway if a complaint against a Minister has been received and will want to decide how it should be treated.”
There is, then, no ambiguity cancelling out any plausible argument that Evans or any of her fellow civil servants could possibly have thought that it was acceptable for them to keep Sturgeon in the dark about any allegation of sexual harassment against any of her current Ministers.
Why then would any of them think it would be acceptable not to inform Sturgeon of allegations against her mentor and closest friend of thirty years? Just doesn’t add up !!!!
caltonjock 