News / Budge and Doull evade suspension
TWO SHETLAND councillors had their knuckles wrapped by the Standards Commission for Scotland on Thursday for failing to declare a financial interest during a vote concerning an agricultural co-operative.
Shetland South councillor Jim Budge and Shetland North councillor Addie Doull escaped suspension and disqualification, but were censured by the commission following a three hour hearing in Lerwick.
In January last year both councillors failed to declare a financial interest and withdraw from a meeting of the council’s development committee when it discussed helping Shetland Livestock Marketing Group Ltd (SLMG) from almost certain collapse by offering a £25,000 grant.
Instead both declared an interest, and stayed in the council chamber to participate and vote on the issue.
Mr Budge and Mr Doull were previous office holders with SLMG, a co-operative with around 300 members set up to develop the agriculture industry in the isles.
However at the time of the meeting they were just ordinary members holding shares of 0.51 per cent and 0.17 per cent respectively.
In spring last year Shetland Islands Council threw two financial lifelines to SLMG and have since also agreed to offer a £407,000 grant towards upgrading the marts at Lerwick’s Staney Hill.
It has since been transformed into a mutual benefit organisation that will not distribute any potential profits to its members.
The hearing was told that it was unlikely that the two councillors would ever have gained financially from their SLMG membership – in fact both had donated money during 2009 to help keep the co-operative afloat.
However the hearing ruled that both were required to declare an interest and should have withdrawn from the meeting on 22 January 2009, because their part-ownership enable them to get access to public funding.
In his report, investigating officer David Sillars said: “There was the potential for SLMG to receive grant funding to assist in the preparation of a business plan which in turn could impact on SLMG’s future viability.
“There was also the prospect that the partnership would be able to access infrastructural agricultural support – in common with the rest of the farming community of which he formed part – at favourable financial rates.”
The hearing’s chairman Okain McLennan said the commission regarded the breach as a serious matter, but acknowledged that neither councillor had acted wilfully or deliberately; instead they had been negligent and made an error of judgement.
Representing the two councillors, Chris McDowell of employment specialists Anderson Strathern LLP said his clients accepted that they had not complied with the code and stressed that this was not a case of dishonesty and there had been no intention to deceive or hide anything.
Councillors Doull and Budge had been reported to the Standards Commission by Lerwick resident Michael Peterson who said he was “appalled” by the “behaviour of agriculturists”.
But it emerged that Mr Peterson had acted on behalf of somebody else from within the local community, a fact he states in his complaint letter to the commission.
Mr Budge said afterwards that he was “vexed” that someone was acting behind the scenes rather than expressing concern about SLMG in the open.
He said that the 16 month long investigation had been a strain, but “with hindsight” he accepted that he should have declared a financial interest.
Both men said that they had been elected by a community where almost everybody had some agricultural interest, and that they were determined to make their voters’ voices heard in the council chamber.
Mr Peterson said afterwards he was not satisfied with the outcome, questioning why the council continued to pour money into SLMG when there was no prospect of it ever making a profit.
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