Watchdog probes SNP council boss’s ‘nepotism’ deal
She’s told to quit over husband’s £1 a year rent
AN SNP council leader is facing calls to quit amid a probe into her husband being given a local authority property for a rent of £1 a year.
Susan Aitken championed a scheme in which empty shops in disadvantaged areas that were owned by Glasgow City Council were rented out for next to nothing.
Known as Meanwhile Spaces, the taxpayer-funded initiative aimed to breathe life into run-down parts of the city.
But council auditors have confirmed they have now mounted an investigation after The Scottish Mail on Sunday revealed in November that the first organisation to benefit from the scheme was run by Ms Aitken’s husband, businessman Gordon Archer.
Last night, critics called on Ms Aitken to ‘reflect on her position’ and stand down.
Anti-poverty campaigner Alex O’Kane, who protested at the City Chambers against the £1 rent deal and now plans to complain to the Standards Commissioner, said: ‘It’s appalling. She has to go. She championed a publicly funded deal which benefited her husband’s business.’
Two council-owned shops in the Saltmarket area of the city centre were among 11 empty premises refurbished at a cost to taxpayers of £345,000 and handed to SOGO – an arts magazine of which Mr Archer is chairman – for the nominal rent of £1 per year.
The business space now operates as a gallery where artists are charged to exhibit their work and where copies of the magazine are on sale. In
November, when MoS first disclosed the £1 deal, the council defended it by saying: ‘SOGO, a non-profit community interest company, was chosen by City Property after scoring particularly highly.’
It declined to reveal the scoring process.
Mr Archer has been a director of no fewer than seven companies which have been dissolved. Another is in liquidation, while a ninth is in administration.
MoS can also reveal that the chairman of City Property, Councillor Angus Millar, intervened to remove mention of SOGO’s involvement in the Meanwhile Spaces scheme in an email to Ms Aitken’s office last June.
In the document, seen by this newspaper, he wrote: ‘I’ve removed the list of tenants here as I thought it may be too much detail and I didn’t want people to get bogged down interrogating [the] choice of tenants.’
When MoS asked the council if this was a deliberate attempt to conceal the involvement of the council leader’s husband, a local authority spokesman replied: ‘No. At this point, the identity of the potential tenants had not yet been before the City Property board.
‘It is common to speak to potential interested parties in advance of finalising a scheme like this to ensure that there is sufficient interest.
‘Meanwhile Spaces is a way to regenerate the high street by making it easy for a range of eligible organisations to rent property at a low rent.
‘Organisations know they have to vacate the premises if a rent-paying tenant is found.’
Labour group leader on the council Frank McAveety said: ‘If this was happening in the business community, it would be called “insider trading”.
‘Susan Aitken should reflect on her position. The more murky information that emerges confirms that view.’
As council cuts rents to £1 a year, f irst to benefitis...council chief ’s husband! EXPOSED: MoS in November