A TRANSPORT boss was sacked after an anonymous letter claiming she was having an affair with a business colleague was sent to her manager, a tribunal has heard.
Ann Marie Waugh, 47, was dismissed from her £40,000-a-year post with Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) amid allegations she failed to declare relationships with staff at companies working for the quango.
In January 2012 she was dismissed after it emerged she had been seeing John McPherson, who runs the Scottish arm of UK services company GBM. The company had been awarded a major contract to clean trains on Glasgow's underground service.
A further disciplinary hearing was told Mrs Waugh, of Bishopbriggs, failed to declare she was the sister of the operations manager of another firm, Sasse, which has a £2.3 million contract to clean the subway plus bus and office premises.
SPT denied any impropriety in awarding the contracts but later found Mrs Waugh, who was a senior operations officer at Buchanan Bus Station, had been in breach of the staff code of conduct by failing to disclose the relationships.
Mrs Waugh, a former office manager for ex-Scottish Labour Party leader Wendy Alexander, claimed she had been the victim of a whispering campaign.
She appealed her dismissal in March 2012 and was reinstated to a demoted position of Business Improvement Officer.
However, after only three months in the position she tendered her resignation and has taken her former employers to an employment tribunal claiming unfair dismissal and sex discrimination.
A hearing in Glasgow has now heard Valerie Davidson, Assistant Chief Executive at SPT, tell how she was sent a letter that resulted in Mrs Waugh's dismissal.
Mrs Davidson told the hearing she was in charge of the register of interests and after receiving the tip-off she discovered Mrs Waugh had failed to register the relationship.
She said: "I checked the register and there was nothing on it.
"The letter made reference to the company GBM, who had been given two subway cleaning contracts. I asked Mrs Waugh if she was having a relationship with John McPherson, the director of the company, and she confirmed she was.
"I then asked her if there was anything else she wanted to tell me and she said there wasn't, but then disclosed to her manager a week later about her brother."
Mrs Waugh also gave evidence at the hearings and claimed she was reinstated in a "non job" and placed in the "naughty corner".
She said: "I was in a situation. I had to have a job otherwise I would lose my home. My point of view is that I was very aggrieved and I've never fully understood the reasons for my dismissal, which has had a knock-on effect on my life."
SPT lawyer David Hay questioned why she raised the grievance only after handing in her notice. She said: "I want to know what I did that was so bad I was dismissed for. I feel let down by SPT."
The hearing was adjourned until October.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article