No place to hide.. especially if it’s got five stars
Exam body to reveal cost of luxury junkets
Scotland’s controversial exam body is to reveal new travel arrangements for senior off icials following pressure from the Sunday Mail.
The Scottish Qual i f ication Authority (SQA) has found itself at the centre of a political row over its five- star globetrotting, paid from the public purse.
A series of Sunday Mail exposés detailed how top SQA officials took business class flights and stayed at lavish hotel s , including the Ritz- Carlton in Saudi Arabia.
Details only came to light after a six-month battle for the information to be made public. Despite the extent of its travels, the education quango claimed its officials had not broken internal rules.
Our story last week led to Education Secretary John Swinney being quizzed on the organisation in the Scottish Parliament.
Under mounting pressure, Deputy First Minister Swinney said the SQA should be more “transparent”.
New measures are to include “strict” guidelines on travel which were only introduced following our investigion into spending. The body initially refused to reveal details.
But after we contacted the Scottish Government on whether the refusal fitted in with Swinney’s message on transparency, the SQA did a U- turn and announced it would publish the travel guidelines.
Insiders at the body said public backlash over its spending on junkets – as well as revelations about its dealings with brutal regimes with appalling human rights records – had already been felt in the corridors of the SQA’s Dalkeith and Glasgow offices.
One source said: “When the original story was published in April, international business travel was curtailed.
“You had senior officials walking about like bears with sore heads because they’d had some overseas trips rescheduled at quite short notice or cancelled altogether.
“It’s not news to people who work at the SQA that international travel for senior staff was out of control. The finance people have been saying for years the types of f lights and hotels officials were staying in were far too extravagant.”
Last week, we told how three senior of f icials, including reti red chief executive Dr Janet Brown, stayed in the Ritz- Carlton in Riyadh on a three-day trip to
Saudi Arabia that cost taxpayers £17,000. The trio had also travelled extensively on business class f lights, staying in five- star hotels in exotic locations such as Mauritius and Sri Lanka.
There were also claims that SQA’s head of international, Alistair Shaw, took his wife Morag to Greece to stay in a five-star hotel when he was there on official business. Scottish Greens MSP Ross Greer said he had previously been given assurances from SQA officals that they only used five-star hotels in danger hotspots around the world.
The SQA said “str ict ” new guidelines would be published next week.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We expect all public sector bodies to act in an open and transparent manner, and to ensure that their travel and subsistence policies deliver the best value for money possible for the Scottish taxpayer.”