Yesterday I went to the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) headquarters to hear the Standards Commission judge Sid Perrie while he is off sick with stress as a result of how he has been treated. Sid is the locally elected member for Balloch and had sent six emails trying to challenge the Flamingo Land planning process between 26th and 28th August 2024 (see here), (here), (here), and (here). Ever since the LLTNPA has been trying to shut him down, hence the complaint to the Standards Commission. In his absence Sid was suspended for six months without pay from the LLTNPA.
Morag Ferguson, the chair of the panel that heard the case – the other two members were Susan Vestrey and Malcom Bull – opened the proceedings by reading out a prepared script. This failed to state that Sid Perrie was unable to attend the hearing because he was unwell. Nor did it explain that the Standards Commission had refused to adjourn the hearing on health grounds and without giving Sid time to obtain the medical information required by Section 7.5 of their Adjournment Policy (see here). (Alannah Maurer and myself made that adjournment request on Sid’s behalf and have all the paperwork to prove this).
There were four people at the hearing besides the panel, the Investigating Officer – who presented the case against Sid – and the member of staff typing up a transcript of the proceedings: someone from the LLTNPA sent to report on behalf of his senior management; an observer from the Scottish Parliament; and two members of the public, including myself. There was no representative from the Balloch and Haldane Community Council present although I had advised them about the hearing.
The hearing itself took around two hours, from 9.30am to c11.30am. The panel then adjourned to make their decision in private before the hearing recommenced at 1.10pm. On the panel’s return Morag Ferguson then read out their decision so fast it would have been almost impossible to take notes, even if I had not mislaid my pen!. That lecture took over 10 minutes to deliver. While their note taker looked an extremely proficient typist, that the panel could have deliberated the case,agreed their grounds for finding against Sid Perrie, written this all up and then checked the script in 1 hour 45 minutes defies belief and further demonstrates it was a foregone conclusion.
There appeared to be a number of factual errors and omissions in what Morag Ferguson read out which I will consider in more detail when the written decision is published (within two weeks). The news release which was issued before close of business (see here) failed to mention that Sid Perrie was unwell, and therefore unable to represent himself at the hearing, or that he is neurodiverse – two facts which might have elicited a critical response from the media.
The media release also contains misleading information, for example it states the panel was:
“concerned he had not demonstrated any insight whatsoever into the potential impact of his conduct
on others, either on a personal level, or in terms of how it made them feel when working for, or
engaging with the Park Authority. Indeed, the Panel noted that Mr Perrie appeared to be concerned
only with his own views”.
The panel deduced this without ever speaking to Sid, on the say so of an Investigating Officer who interviewed him on the phone and without hearing his justification for what he had done. As he had stated in those emails that was ALL about acting according to the principles which are supposed to underpin the Codes of Conduct for Public Life but now count for nothing (see here).
The truth is what prompted the emails is that Sid was concerned about the whole process behind the Flamingo Land planning application and was trying to represent the views of the people who elected him. The Standards Commission’s decision means people in Balloch will have no-one on the LLTNPA Board to represent their views until after the elections for local members in July. It now appears that the Scottish Government could delay taking a decision on the Flamingo Land application until after the Holyrood elections in May. Sid’s sixth month suspension means that there will be no-one on the LLTNPA board who will ask awkward questions until after the planning application is decided.
What an utter travesty. All concerned in this should be ashamed of themselves.
This has all the smell of a stich up between an incompetent LLTNPA executive and a Standards Commission more intent on putting a lid on the case rather than investigating the case thoroughly. Just where is local democracy and free speech in all of this?
One lesson which will not be learned by these authorities, and the Scottish Government is the Code of Conduct that they allege Sid breached. This Code of Conduct has the effect of limiting debate and open discussion on such controversial matters as Flamingo Land and needs urgent reviewing – but not by the Scottish Government or its quangos.
Exactly so. It’s a deplorable episode.
Is this a surprise!
“Concerned he had not demonstrated any insight whatsoever into the potential impact of his conduct on others”.
The irony of that statement. I haven’t been able to go out in my wee boat which I had been doing for 50 now, because I don’t have a smartphone to provide my biometric data and DNA so I just sit on the shore for fear of being hauled before the Procurator Fiscal.