By Democrat reporter
The great “golden goodbyes” scandal continues to impact on West Dunbartonshire.
Copies of the document which exposed Glasgow City Council for being part of it have already arrived on computer screens at West Dunbartonshire Council.
Council Chief Executive Peter Hessett will be asked to look again at the departures from and appointments to chief officer posts following the dining out and golf at Cameron House scandal involving top officers and at least one contractor.
The value of the contracts the council was considering awarding at the time was in excess of £2 million.
We have to depend on hearsay here because the ban on speaking to council officers is still in place.
Police called in to investigate declared “nothing to see here” and Cllr Jim Bollan of the Community Party was sanctioned and reported to the Standard Commission by then Chief Executive Officer Joyce White for persistently raising the subject.
Bundles of receipts for meals at fancy restaurants were included in the evidence given to the detectives.
The police investigating the matter are reported to have commented that they were surprised at the remarkably slack way the rules governing payments at council officer departures were applied in Dumbarton.
The Dumbarton Democrat was banned from asking direct questions on any subject no matter what by the Chief Press Officer Amanda Graham, a former local newspaper journalist who works in PR at the council.
Ms Graham and Mr Hessett claimed that our editor, Bill Heaney, who has been in journalism for 60 years and was Scotland’s Weekly Newspaper Journalist of the Year three times, had interupted a council meeting to raise a point disrespectfully with then Provost William Hendrie, who was in the chair.
But Mr Heaney, who was editor of the Lennox Herald and various other journals and a special adviser to the First Minister of Scotland in addition to the chair of the Treasury Select Committee and the vice president of the European Parliament, maintains he didn’t interupt the meeting; that it had terminated for lunch, and that his point was about the press and public being unable to hear in the council chambers, which is their legal right.
Ms Graham has claimed that Mr Heaney harrassed Miss Ellen McBride, the Archdiocesan representative on the Education Committee when it met to discuss the possibiltiy of closing St Martin’s Primary School in Renton.
Mr Heaney again denies this. He said: “I never got near Miss McBride. I took her picture from about 50 yards away [see top of this page] after she was escorted to her car from the meeting by two press officers, including Ms Graham.
“The press officers were acting as if they were in a movie. That Ms McBride required protection. They appeared to have lost the plot and were treating the former teacher as if she were about to become the victim of their perception of intrusive journalists.
“Nothing could be further from the truth. I had wanted to ask her why she supported the St Martin’s closure when the Archdiocese had made it clear that they greatly valued Catholic education and shutting schools was a strange way of doing that.
“Anyway, it’s what the press are there for. Asking questions on behalf of the public is our accepted, perfectly legitimate role in life.
“If people like Ms McBride cannot accept what is part of life in the public eye then they shouldn’t be sent to public meetings to represent important bodies such as the Archdiocese.
“If they can’t stand the heat then they should get out of the kitchen.”
Caught up in the scandal – Joyce White, Amanda Graham, Peter Hessett, Ronald Dinnie, Raymond Walsh, Bill Heaney and Ellen McBride.
The sound system has since been found to be defective and – hopefully – repaired at a cost of more than £50,000, but The Democrat remains banned.
On the “golden goodbyes” saga which saw Donald Dinnie and Raymond Walsh depart with attractive settlements – and the later departure of CEO Joyce White – Council across the country have been told by the Auditor General to ensure there is no repeat of the Glasgow scandal in their areas.
The amounts of all these settlements have been kept a closely guarded secret.
West Dunbartonshire is one of the 32 councils in Scotland to receive this warning.
And, today, responding to new documentation provided to the Scottish Parliament’s Public Audit Committee which reveals that in 2023-24, Scottish public bodies agreed to 84 settlement agreements, including 40 with confidentiality clauses in place, worth more than £3,932,217.
The parliament committee Deputy Convenor and Scottish Liberal Democrat economy spokesperson Jamie Greene said: “This is a huge number of settlement agreements, a huge number of a gagging clauses and a huge sum of public money being paid out.
“From the Scottish Government to NHS Scotland and a host of public bodies, there are substantial pay-outs being made on a regular basis and very little transparency for the reasons for the exits or how much people are being paid.
“The Scottish Government’s mishandling of HR matters has infamously landed them in court cases and legal battles in recent years, from the famous (WICS) Water Industry pay-offs to big sums at Ferguson Marine for failure.
“It seems like the Scottish Government is playing fast and loose with public money when well-paid public executives quit.”
Democrat editor Bill Heaney said: “This whole business stinks to high heaven. We have been banned and lied about by this duplicitous council and the SNP and Labour who have been in power in Church Street over the years since this began have conspired to gag us and make it difficult for us to report and comment on important matters of genuine public interest. That’s not democracy. It smacks of totalitarianism.”
Top of page: Former St Peter’s, Bellsmyre, head teacher Ellen McBride pictured after the education committee meeting at the former council offices. Picture by Bill Heaney
All the while – what (and why) has Peter Hessett been “quiet” about regarding the Brian Gourlay case?
Who is currently the ‘Monitoring Officer’ at WDC?