23 Queen Square
Glasgow
G41 2BG

13/11/15

Linda McKay
Convener
Loch Lomond & Trossachs National Park 
Carrochan
Carrochan Road
Balloch
G83 8EG

Dear Ms McKay, 
Matters arising from Commissioner’s Decision 1771

First, I wish to apologise that when submitting this complaint, I had inadvertently listed by your name paragraph 4.18 of the Code which is about the test to be applied for registration of interests.  This of course makes no sense without paragraph 4.17, which is about registration of interests,   The Commissioner then added paragraph 4.18 to my complaint without consulting me:  if he had, my error would have come to light as I was aware you had declared ownership of Loch Venachar House on the register of interest and had no complaint about this.    I only realised my mistake when the final copy of the report was issued, wrote immediately to the Commissioner but have been told the report cannot now be amended.   I would therefore like to apologise unreservedly for my role in the first part of the investigation which was about you alone.
As you will be aware, what prompted my complaint was the failure of you and two other Board Members to declare your property was in one of the proposed Management Zone and the subsequent alteration of the Board Minutes.   I would hope that you, and fellow Board members, would agree that deliberate alteration of minutes is a serious matter and why, in the absence of any response to the letters I sent to you about this on 12th and 16th June, I had reasonable cause to believe that you could have been involved in changing them.  This was partly based on my experience as a Board Member of another public body, where the chair usually approved minutes before they were issued and Board members scrutinised them once they had been received (which in LLTNP case was two weeks after Board meetings).   
The Commissioner however has now reached the conclusion (para 4.23) that the decision to add to the minute “was taken by officers without reference to members” based on the minute of the Board Meeting of 16th of June (which only became available to the public in late October and which I had not seen when I submitted my complaint).   I am happy to accept the Commissioner’s conclusion about responsibility but would hope that you would agree that officers falsifying what Board Members say at meetings is a very serious issue.   I would appreciate it therefore if you could inform me (respecting confidentiality issues) what you have done to date and what you intend to do to hold those officers to account: 
a)	What action have you, as Board Convener, taken to establish which staff were responsible for this?   I find it difficult to believe that Sandra Dalziel, the governance manager, would have done this without consulting Jaki Carnegie and Gordon Watson or that they would not have checked the minute before it was issued.   What is more Gordon Watson the Chief Executive was quoted in the Sunday Herald, in response to the allegations that the minute had been falsified, as stating that Declarations of Interest had been made at the meeting on 27th April “entirely appropriately and clearly”.  This strongly suggests he was involved.
b)	What actions are you considering or have you taken against the staff who were responsible for falsifying the minute of 27th April?
c)	What action will the LLTNP Board take to make it clear to all staff that falsification of minutes is completely unacceptable in public life?
It also appears possible that staff may have falsified the minute of the “business meeting” prior to the Board Meeting on 27th April as the Commissioner’s decision does not explain the apparent inconsistency between the minute of the “business session” prior to the Board meeting on 27th April (para 4.15) and the written statement obtained from Martin Earl (para 4.29).  Paragraph 4.15 states:   “The minute of that session details a suggested wording for Ms McKay:  “I declare a potential interest in respect to both the Your Park and Live Park items.  I own a residential house <and an area of adjoining land> within the Park.  In relation to Your Park, this may be relevant because the house is within the boundary of the proposed management zone”.  In paragraph 4.29 Martin Earl’s statement, after confirming a discussion took place of what to declare at the “business meeting”, states:  “a discussion took place regarding the handling of declarations of potential interest for two significant items, Your Park and the Local Development Plan.  Officers advised members that we could declare a potential interest that we owned property within the National Park for the purposes of both items.  This was raised by Board members and the Board was advised by the Chief Executive that……………..this broader declaration of interest was advised as sufficient to cover both items”. (My emphasis).  There is no explanation in the report as to why, if Board Members were advised one thing, was a different wording produced for you?   Now, I appreciate there may be an explanation for this but the other possibility is that the minute has been falsified.  I would ask you to confirm whether or not the statement in the minute about a statement being drafted for you was correct and if not, you will treat this as another case of staff falsifying minutes?  
Lastly, a key part of the Commissioner’s decision was to consider whether or not camping or other activities that would have been prevented by the proposed by-laws took place adjacent to your house (para 5.6).   The Commissioner has accepted your evidence that the evidence of camping activity was “not such as to demonstrate that degree of proximity or potential” so as to constitute an interest that required to be declared.   I am not disputing that decision but what I cannot understand from this is:
a)	Why did the National Park install gates to the entrances of the carpark adjacent to your house and 100m further down the road if there were no issues and when the gates do not seem to have been included in the original plans for the sites as set out in the 5 Lochs Visitor Management Plan?  
b)	Why did the National Park this summer send a person round to the car parks described above each day at 9pm to lock the gates?  Who took this decision and why?  (A local person told me this was happening when I visited the carpark earlier this year.   The minute of the Trossachs Visitor Management Stakeholder Group of 29th April records that at that time the gates were not being locked).   It seems to me to be a perfectly logical place where people might park campervans and relieve pressure elsewhere.
I am concerned that if there is not an issue of activities taking place in the carparks adjacent to your house, spending money on gates and gatekeepers appears to me to be a serious waste of public resources when, as we know, there have not apparently been resources available to develop facilities where people do camp.
I look forward to your response

Yours Sincerely, 

Nick Kempe

cc 	Dr Aileen McLeod, Minister for the Environment
Richard Lochhead, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs