A national watchdog is probing Perth and Kinross Council over missing records related to a £128k director position that was recently scrapped.
Perth: So, there’s some drama brewing over at Perth and Kinross Council. A national watchdog is stepping in to check out why there are no emails or records about a £128k-a-year director role that got the axe.
Audit Scotland is on the case, looking into how a top boss left without any official notes or meetings being recorded. Alison Williams took the director position in February last year but left in August to “explore new opportunities.” Then, poof! The role was gone by September.
It gets a bit murky, though. The council claims all decisions were made after some unrecorded chats with the chief executive, Thomas Glen. But that’s raising eyebrows, especially since there’s no paper trail to back it up.
Audit Scotland is now including this whole situation in their review of the council’s operations. They mentioned that this will be part of their audit work for 2024/25. Sounds like they’re digging deep!
Thomas Glen, the chief executive, insists that no emails were deleted, which is a relief, I guess. Meanwhile, The Courier has also reached out to the Scottish Information Commissioner, who’s looking into this whole mess.
Oh, and just recently, the council had to apologize for not revealing how much Ms. Williams got as a relocation fee. They initially said it wasn’t in the public interest, but later realized it was actually in their own accounts. Oops!
Turns out, she received nearly £4.5k to move for the job. The council’s info governance officer admitted that the FOI team messed up and didn’t know the info was already public. It’s a bit of a tangled web, isn’t it?
Just to clarify, the FOI issue they apologized for is different from the ongoing investigation by the Scottish Information Commissioner. So, it looks like there’s more to come on this story!
