THE publicly funded environmental charity Keep Scotland Beautiful has to be fully investigated following nepotism allegations, Scottish Government ministers have been urged.
Last weekend, this newspaper disclosed how Catherine Gee was appointed to an executive role at Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB) after her husband Derek Robertson became chief executive last year.
It also emerged that Gee secured another lucrative post when Robertson was chief executive of a Liverpool-based charity in 2009.
John Wilson, an SNP MSP for Central Scotland, said the couple should "temporarily stand aside" if the Government agreed to a probe.
KSB, a high-profile charity that receives more than £15 million of public funding, was accused of nepotism after Gee was hired as head of corporate services without the post being externally advertised.
She was taken on as an "organisational change consultant" in April 2011, the month after her husband became chief executive. She was then given a fixed-term contract.
Following a management shake-up, Gee was then appointed to the "executive team" post, after being the sole internal applicant.
The Sunday Herald can reveal the couple had worked together before. In 2007, Robertson was appointed chief executive of environmental body Groundwork Merseyside (GM), which worked with disadvantaged communities. In 2008, while Robertson was chief executive, Gee was employed to do consultancy work at the charity. The pair married that year and Gee was later hired to a senior GM post. They left the charity in the latter half of 2009.
A GM board paper from November of that year shows the charity was facing financial difficulties after they left. It noted that the audited accounts would have to be adjusted to reflect a deficit of between £80,000-£121,000, "as opposed to the £14k deficit reported to trustees at the September 2009 board meeting".
A director was quoted at the meeting as saying she had been "concerned about the way the business was being run".
The 2009 board paper also stated that a charity trustee had "raised some initial concerns with Derek regarding Catherine's appointment", but the trustee believed she had the right skills for the job. It added: "Other trustees commented that they had not been aware that Catherine was Derek's wife and so were not aware of any conflict."
Administrators were called into GM earlier this year.
Last week, KSB operations manager John Frater said: "I don't regret her [Gee's] appointment. A real act of discrimination would have been not to hire her because she is the chief executive's wife."
But politicians yesterday raised further concerns about KSB. The SNP's John Wilson said he would raise the issues with the Scottish Government, adding: "The couple should temporarily stand aside if an investigation is launched."
Labour MP Graeme Morrice said: "I find it disturbing that KSB is the second example of Catherine Gee getting a senior post at a charity run by her husband. Scottish ministers should urgently call for guidelines to be introduced on the hiring practices of publicly funded charities."
A KSB source hit back at suggestions that Groundwork Merseyside was in a poor state when Robertson left in 2009, calling the claims "a personal vendetta" by "disgruntled former employees".
The source added: "We are very happy to meet Mr Wilson to discuss this issue, after which we are confident the facts will speak for themselves."
David McHendry, a former board member at GM, said: "Derek played no part in the process of recruiting Catherine Gee, and her appointment was unanimously confirmed by the board of charity trustees."
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