I was frozen out by police watchdog
Whistleblower accountant barred from raising alarm
A POLICE accountant has told MSPs she was barred from raising the alarm over financial mismanagement.
Amy McDonald, former financial accountability officer at the Scottish Police Authority (SPA), said she could only blow the whistle over alleged ‘improper payments’ after they had been made.
The chartered accountant told an employment tribunal in Glasgow earlier this year that she had uncovered massive payoffs for senior executives – and claimed she was ignored after blowing the whistle on ‘significant wrong-doing’.
She said an SPA executive was given a ‘golden handshake’ of more than £160,000 despite facing prosecution for domestic abuse.
Now Mrs McDonald has given a written statement to the Scottish parliament’s public audit committee, which has told SPA chairman Professor Susan Deacon it is ‘concerned’ about the disclosures.
Mrs McDonald said there was a delay on the part of the SPA in investigating the allegations after she raised concerns in July 2016, December 2016 and January last year, which included lodging a formal written grievance.
The accountant said: ‘As a director, I was only able to raise whistleblowing concerns after incidents had occurred and the public funds in questions paid out.
‘I did not have the authority to stop alleged improper payments being made.’
Mrs McDonald also told the tribunal an executive who had quit, with another job lined up, withdrew their resignation after an SPA official told them a redundancy deal was possible – and a payoff of nearly £80,000 was arranged. The deal allegedly came to light when the executive concerned was seen distributing ‘champagne and goody bags’ to colleagues.
Mrs McDonald told the hearing, before employment judge Susan Walker, that she was sidelined within the SPA and frozen out of key meetings after raising concerns about finances.
She felt ‘disowned’ and ‘isolated’ after her fears of possible wrongdoing were not taken seriously – and now works at the SPA in a role in the forensics division.
She said she took a job in the public sector because she ‘did not want to work for people who were extremely rich and make them richer’.
Mrs McDonald was awarded nearly £7,500 by the tribunal in July after its panel ruled that her ‘professional standards’ were ‘criticised’ by two members of the SPA board.
Scottish Tory justice spokesman Liam Kerr said the case had exposed ‘some very murky goings-on within the SPA’. In a letter to the SPA sent last week, Labour MSP Jenny Marra, convener of the public audit committee at the Scottish parliament, said its members were ‘concerned’ about Mrs McDonald’s claim that she could only blow the whistle after the payments had been made.
She reminded Professor Deacon that she had previously advised a ‘comprehensive review of the SPA’s governance’ was under way.
The MSP said: ‘The committee is seeking confirmation that this issue has been addressed as part of the review of processes and procedures at the SPA to ensure that concerns about the potential misuse of public funds can be raised prior to the money being spent.’
An SPA spokesman said: ‘The Authority notes the correspondence from Mrs McDonald and will provide any further evidence the committee requires about improvements in its systems and practices over the past year.’
It comes only months after the SPA was criticised for failing to quiz the chief constable about rising crime.
Figures released in September show fewer than half of crimes are solved, with the clear-up rate for rape now the lowest on record.
At a meeting of the 15-strong SPA board in Stirling days after the statistics were published, members had the chance to question Chief Constable Iain Livingstone.
But they did not ask him about the first increase in recorded crime since 2006, including a rise of 20 per cent in reported rapes and attempted rapes.
At the time, the SPA said it monitors police performance at quarterly intervals throughout the year.
‘Champagne and goody bags’