Top civil servant refuses to release Sargeant report
THE Welsh Government’s top civil servant has “defied the will of the National Assembly” by refusing to publish the report of an inquiry into allegations that news of Carl Sargeant’s sacking was leaked before he was told.
Mr Sargeant is believed to have committed suicide last November, four days after being removed from his post as Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children after unspecified allegations of sexual harassment were made against him. He strongly denied the allegations.
First Minister Carwyn Jones asked Permanent Secretary Dame Shan Morgan to launch an inquiry amid claims that people outside the Welsh Government were aware that Mr Sargeant was going to be sacked before he knew himself.
Llanelli AM Lee Waters said he had received a text message informing him of Mr Sargeant’s sacking before it happened and Andrew RT Davies said during an Assembly plenary session that a staff member of the lobbying firm Deryn had told journalists about the sacking before Mr Sargeant knew.
Dame Shan told AMs in January that the inquiry had concluded there was no evidence of “prior unauthorised sharing” of information about Mr Sargeant’s dismissal.
But she refused to publish the report itself.
Last month Assembly Members voted to call on Dame Shan to publish the report with names redacted, but she has now written to all 60 of them, insisting she was right not to do so.
Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies said: “This is simply unacceptable and bitterly disappointing.”
In her letter, Dame Shan states that she had been asked by the First Minister to give further consideration to her position that the report “should not be disclosed because of the risk of prejudicing future investigations”.
The letter continued: “It would not be appropriate for me to release any details about who was interviewed during the investigation or the information given.
“As well as the obvious risk of a breach of personal data, it would also act as a disincentive to potential witnesses to come forward or to cooperate in future investigations if they could not be confident that their anonymity, and the information which they supplied, would be protected.
“Similarly, I do not feel it is appropriate to release the report itself, either in full or in a redacted form, because of the implications for the handling of future investigations.”
Earlier it had been stated that publishing the report would risk identifying those who complained about Mr Sargeant.
Dame Shan said the inquiry had been carried out by the Welsh Government’s Chief Security Officer, adding: “All individuals with potential access to information about the reshuffle were required to respond with specific detail relevant to the investigation.
“It is unusual for persons outside the Welsh Government to be interviewed in relation to leak investigations, but on this occasion some interviews were conducted with some external individuals who proactively came forward to volunteer information or were identified as possibly having information that could be relevant to the investigation.”
Mr Davies said: “The will of the National Assembly was clear and the excuses for not publishing the report are at best weak and at worst plain obstructive.
“If there is nothing to hide, then there is no reason why a redacted version of the report cannot be published.”
He added: “We will now consider all available options to ensure the will of the National Assembly for Wales is respected.”