SCOTTISH Police Authority chair Andrew Flanagan is under severe pressure after a Holyrood Committee accused him of “unacceptable and “inappropriate” behaviour over a damaging secrecy row at the watchdog.

In a letter to Justice Secretary Michael Matheson, acting committee convener Jackie Baillie wrote that she and her colleagues had “very serious” concerns about governance and criticised chair Andrew Flanagan’s treatment of a former board member.

The SPA was set up to provide oversight of Police Scotland, but the watchdog’s own performance has been criticised recently.

As part of Flanagan’s governance review of the SPA, the body controversially decided to move to private committee meetings and hold back publication of board papers until the day of the meeting.

Moi Ali, at that point a board member, raised objections to the recommendations in public session, but was sent a private letter by Flanagan afterwards.

He expressed his “dismay” at her stance and suggested it would not be fair for her to continue attending committees. She quit weeks later.

Flanagan was also criticised after for not passing on a critical letter by Derek Penman, the HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary in Scotland, to his board colleagues on the secrecy plan.

Holyrood’s Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny committee has held hearings into the rows, with Ali claiming yesterday that Flanagan’s letter amounted to bullying. She also said he was not fit to the chair. Three serving SPA board members also appeared to fault Flanagan for not passing the HMICS letter on to them.

In her letter, which was sent on behalf of the committee, Labour MSP Baillie wrote:

“We consider that the chair of the SPA board, Mr Andrew Flanagan, would appear to have behaved inappropriately on occasion and in a manner not in keeping with relevant Scottish Government guidance.”

On the circumstances of Ms Ali’s resignation, she continued: “We have not seen anything in the evidence presented to us to suggest that Ms Ali did anything to breach the principles of collective responsibility. Rather, it appears to us that Mr Flanagan treated Ms Ali in an inappropriate manner, to the degree that she felt obliged to resign from the board.”

The letter also addressed Mr Flanagan’s failure to pass on the HMICS letter:

“We consider this decision to be unacceptable. The decision is even harder to understand as the letter also formally confirmed that Mr Penman intended to undertake a statutory inspection of the SPA, an announcement of supreme importance to members of the board.

“Mr Penman confirmed to us that he expected the letter would have been circulated to the board, and that some information contained in the letter had not previously been discussed with all board members.”

The Baillie letter also noted that the SPA was “male-dominated” and raised the question of Mr Flanagan’s appraisal:

“Given our comments above about Mr Flanagan, the chair of the board, we request further information on how his appraisal is carried out by the Scottish Government’s relevant accountable officer particularly the specific matters on which his performance is assessed.”