This is the second part of Councillor Michael Breslin’s account of his first hand experience of the conduct of Argyll and But Council in the ever murkier affair of Castle Toward, Ardentinny and Actual Reality.
Councillor Breslin’s account of events in the latter half 0f 2012
This part of the story covers the period from the end of August 2012 until early December the same year.
In Part 1 we heard the admissions from senior officers that Actual Reality had not been treated fairly in the past and their claims that officers had only been doing what their political masters wanted them to do. What I don’t know, other than from Actual Reality, was what was done to them.
In summary Actual Reality claim that:
- They were offered a useless 25 year lease when the council had already been given approval to offer a 99 year lease. Lottery and other grant funds were available at that time, as was bank lending, and ownership or a very long lease was essential in order to satisfy either grant conditions or bank lending. They had to operate from Castle Toward with no security of tenure.
- Critical information on fire and electrical safety was withheld from them for a number of months despite them working with the council on improving safety in the building. See Gordon Gibb’s letter of December 2012 for fuller information.
- Their business was shut down by the council at very short notice, ostensibly for safety reasons. Again, see Gordon Gibb’s letter [linked immediately above].
- The insecurity and uncertainty after the castle opened again mean their business suffered and they lost around 20 FTE jobs as a direct result.
- This insecurity and uncertainty increased with the apparent sale of Castle Toward to Seasons Holidays. [More information on Actual Reality’s version of events is here.] Note in particular the timeframe over which discussions had taken place with Seasons and note also the fact that Audit Scotland have given the sale process that took place a seal of approval.
My view was that it looked as though there was a concerted attempt to put Actual Reality out of Castle Toward [and out of business] in order to get vacant possession for the sale of the property. This may or may not be accurate but it would give a strong motive for what Actual Reality claim happened.
It has to be stressed that at no point did I or Actual Reality raise any of the fire safety issues with either officers or elected members. This was because we were focused on getting the sale of Ardentinny sorted out to ensure Actual Reality didn’t go out of business, as was perfectly possible if the sale became even more protracted than it was already.
While I knew what Actual Reality had said about past events, these had the potential to be a diversion from our focus, the sale. Bear this fact in mind when reading the account of the meeting on 26 November below.
In the months between August 2012 and December 2012, the process of selling Ardentinny to Actual Reality proceeded, but slowly.
I had expected that it might have come to the October council meeting but this passed, and it then came to the November meeting. The proposed sale was on the agenda for the November meeting but instead, the sale was deferred as per the extract from the minute below.
How this proposal to delegate to this group came about I don’t exactly know but I was deeply uncomfortable about it and made my views clear to Roddy [Ed: Councillor Roddy McCuish] as leader. Were there approaches behind the scenes from opposition councillors for this group to be formed and if so, who were they and what was the motive behind this?
Extract from minute of meeting of 26 November 2012
‘The Council considered a report which advised on the current position in regard to the proposed sale of the Council’s property at Ardentinny to Actual Reality Learning and Leadership Ltd (AR), the current occupiers of the Council properties at both Castle Toward and Ardentinny.
‘Decision
‘Agreed that no decision be taken today and that Council agrees to a further delegation to the Executive Director of Customer Services and the Chief Executive to finalise the sale of Ardentinny Outdoor Centre facility to Actual reality following discussion and agreement with the Leader of the Council, the Depute Leader, the Lead Councillor for Finance and European Affairs, Lead Councillor for Education and Lifelong Learning and the Leaders of the Opposition, Councillors Morton, Walsh and Mulvaney. The final decision to be taken within 7 days of the November Council Meeting.’
The meeting to discuss finalising the sale was held on Monday 26 November 2012. I wasn’t able to be in Kilmory that day and attended via a very poor quality audio link, as did a few others.
In Kilmory were a number of officers including Sally Loudon, Douglas Hendry and David Logan plus Roddy McCuish, James Robb, Dick Walsh and, I think, Ellen Morton. During that meeting, and for reasons I could not at the time fathom, Councillor Walsh made a highly derogatory remark about Actual Reality – to the effect that they had put the lives of children at risk due to their lack of investment in Castle Toward.
The poor audio meant I cannot say exactly what was said but I later emailed those present, quoted what I thought Dick had said and asked him to reply by return if I was mistaken. He did not reply, a feature of communications with him.
I won’t comment on why he wanted to be involved in the discussion nor on why he said what he did, a remark that had nothing to do with the business in hand. Readers can come to their own conclusions.
I can say that when Christopher Mason found out that Councillor Walsh was going to be involved, he and others on his board were troubled by this. An extract from correspondence between us is pasted below:
[Christopher Mason] ‘I have to tell you that my colleagues are very upset about this and I am not entirely happy. I am being asked why Councillor Walsh is now involved; as we understand it, he is not one of the ward councillors for Ardentinny and the only position he holds in the Council is Leader of the Opposition. As I do not know why he asked to be involved, I cannot enlighten them.’
[Michael Breslin] ‘He is, though, the leader of the opposition group, Christopher. What I do not know is why Cllr Walsh is now interested in this matter and why he felt unable to express that interest during the council meeting on Thursday past. I will be asking the chief executive to ensure that tomorrow’s meeting is 100% on the record, as I has to be in my view.
‘I did email the chief executive on Sunday 25 November, the day before the meeting. This said: ‘Sally, I want to put on record the fact that I find it odd that we are having a meeting to discuss the above rather than agreeing to the paper at Thursday’s meeting.
‘You know that I have major issues over the way in which Actual Reality have been treated over a number of years. I very much hope that tomorrow we finalise this sale, and the conditions of that sale, without any new information or proposals surfacing at the last minute.
‘If there were alternative proposals to be put forward, or new information that could influence the transaction, the proper place for discussion was, in my view, at Thursday’s council meeting. I also think that this should not have been an exempt item as I have previously made clear.
‘However, Roddy and Dick have agreed to the meeting tomorrow and I had to go along with that despite serious misgivings.
‘I assume that tomorrow’s meeting will be 100% on the record, Sally because that is the correct way to handle this.’
She [Ed: Council Chief Executive, Sally Loudon] replied to me later that day saying: ‘I’m not entirely sure what you mean by the meeting being on the record’.
I wasn’t the only one troubled by this delegation. I know Roddy wasn’t happy either, nor was James Robb. An email from James to myself and Roddy, dated 26 November 2012, is pasted below giving his view on what happened. It appears that the form of delegation was changed between James initially knowing about it and the later announcement of it in the council chamber.
[Councillor Robb] ‘Michael
‘That was why I was willing to support your position (the group position) on the day of the Council but now it seems to be delegated not to officers but to a select group of members – not democracy. What Douglas read out is not what I saw on Thursday on the delegation motion. We should have just dealt with it as you proposed last Thursday and we could have handled the predictable opposition concerns.
‘Regards
‘James’
The sale [Ed: of Ardentinny] was not finalised as planned, following the 26 November meeting. It came back to the December 2012 council meeting.
However, in the meantime, Roddy and I got the letter from Gordon Gibb and the letter from Christopher Mason. Initially, I was of the view when I saw Dr Mason’s that we might be better not treating it as a complaint in case it killed off the sale transaction but when we saw Gordon Gibb’s letter, the 2 combined meant we had little option but to treat these as a serious complaint.
My email to Roddy, from between getting Dr Mason’s version of events and then getting Gordon Gibb’s, is shown below.
[Michael Breslin] ‘Roddy, this is to confirm my telephone calls today to you and Isobel.I sent on a copy of the e mail from Chris Mason to Isobel given the potential seriousness of what is alleged.
I also called Chris and he has confirmed that this is NOT, currently, an official complaint.
My view is that under normal circumstances this would have been treated as an official complaint even if these words were not used. However, I take the view that the overall public interest is best served if this is treated as information only at this stage. My thinking is that to take this as a formal complaint now could prejudice the purchase of Ardentinny. I further think that if that was to happen, the best interests of the whole Argyll community would not be best served as it might prejudice the business Actual Reality operates and it could deprive the council of a welcome capital receipt.
‘On balance, therefore, we should do nothing but note the information received but at some stage we will need to treat this as a formal complaint, even if Actual Reality disagree. I suspect, though, that AR will convert this into a formal complaint within weeks. My advice is we leave the timing to Actual Reality.’
However, with the subsequent arrival of the letter from Gordon Gibb, we really had no choice but to accept what we had received as a formal complaint. That was our agreed position, ie we had a serious and formal complaint.
There is now an attempt to say there was no complaint – as is cited in the email below that I sent to Sally Loudon on 21 January 2014.
‘Sally, I have today seen your reply to Dr Mason dated 7 January in which you state:
‘and would, for the avoidance of any doubt, confirm that there was no formal complaint to the Council as you suggest’.
‘This is very far from the case Sally. The facts are that a number of members of the then administration, with the approval of the then leader, accepted we had no choice but to accept what we had received as a complaint, even though the word complaint had not been used. This was after we received, I think, 4 separate pieces of information that, together, clearly constituted a complaint of the most serious nature.
‘It was so serious that we considered taking a number of steps that would have been quite exceptional for any local authority to take. There was no unanimity on those steps so we agreed to take advice externally. Had there been “no complaint”, as you wrongly state, why would we then have:
1. Sought advice from Cosla?
2. Agreed that the matter had to be passed to Audit Scotland to investigate?
3. Agreed on 2 at the December 2012 council meeting?
‘Did we take steps 1 to 3 for no reason whatsoever? The statement that there was no complaint is both entirely factually inaccurate and plainly absurd. It would be like claiming that in 2012 there had been no council meetings at all (inaccurate) but that all the decisions taken at the meetings that didn’t take place would still be implemented (absurd).
‘This brings us back to the ill-advised email to all elected members from the leader and depute on 20 November in which they claimed:
‘There was no further contact about these matters until informal contact was made with the then leader of the council in December 2012, raising a political consideration of historical matters relating to the closure of Castle Toward and which raised concerns about the actions of the council. This contact was subsequently confirmed to the next leader as not being a complaint and was dealt with by the council.’
‘The yellow highlighting is mine [Ed: we have had to substituted bold emphasis] because: there was regular contact between June 2012 and the date in early December when we agreed there was a complaint; the contact wasn’t informal at all in December; nor was it a political matter and it was a complaint. Who confirmed it wasn’t a complaint I might well ask? Who scripted the words for Messrs Walsh and Morton? They refuse to say, so for the moment they have to take the blame themselves.
‘In short Sally, these attempts to re-write history cannot continue and I will have to take all necessary steps to ensure this doesn’t continue.
‘Regards
‘Michael Breslin’
My view then was that we should ask the chief executive to suspend 2 members of staff immediately and that we would then suspend her as soon as that was done. That view did not find favour so instead we agreed to seek advice.
As readers may recall, I tried to speak to David O’Neill, President of Cosla but, as he wasn’t available, I met with Rory Mair, Cosla chief executive, on 5 December 2012.
I told him the summary of the story and he gave me a number of pieces of advice which I sent by email to Roddy while on the train back from Edinburgh. I don’t have a copy of that email but if it’s ever needed the council system will have it.
The key piece of advice was to ask Audit Scotland to investigate the allegations.
I was contacted by Roddy over the weekend of 8/9 December and he asked if I would attend a meeting with Rory Mair in the City Chambers in Glasgow on the morning of 11 December.
When we got there Sally Loudon was with Rory Mair. It was clear there has been some form of pre-meeting and equally clear there had been other contact between the two since I met Mair on the 5th.
Mair tried to say I had misunderstood almost everything he had told me the previous week. I stood my ground on this and then they both tried to persuade Roddy and myself that this didn’t need investigated by Audit Scotland.
To say I was livid with Mair was an understatement but I was also shocked that Sally Loudon would be involved in the way she was, ie trying to interfere with an investigation in which she would be named by Actual Reality as one of the problem people. She should have had nothing to do with this and she should not have attended that meeting at all.
When Mair left, Sally then came out with something that I still think remarkable to this day. She pointed her finger at me across the table and said I had ruined her opportunity to get rid of Hendry.
She said that she had planned to have a shake up of the executive team and reduce it from 3 to 2.
She then said that with Audit Scotland now coming in, Hendry would see that any shake up was aimed solely at him and he’d have a case for constructive dismissal.
This, taken with the two previous admissions that Actual Reality had been badly treated by the previous administration, more or less sealed the argument for me.
The Actual Reality allegations looked very solid.
Michael Breslin
