A SENIOR Scottish Conservative MP has challenged the Scottish Permanent Secretary’s manager over whether he is satisfied with her performance during the Salmond saga.
David Mundell was questioning Simon Case, head of the civil service and line manager to Leslie Evans, during a parliamentary committee hearing this afternoon.
Mr Case said that while mistakes had been made during the handling of the investigation into allegations of sexual harassment by the former First Minister, Ms Evans had “apologised”.
Mr Mundell, former Secretary of State for Scotland, asked Mr Case: “Are you familiar with the evidence which was given in the civil proceedings raised against the Scottish Government by the former first minister Alex Salmond; the criminal case which was pursued by the Crown Office in Scotland against Mr Salmond, the Scottish Parliament's inquiry into the handling of harassment cases by the Scottish Government and the review subsequently conducted by Laura Dunlop QC?”
After replying in the affirmative, Mr Mundell asked: “And on the basis of all that information are you satisfied with the permanent secretary's performance?”
Mr Case paused to “draw breath”, and then said Ms Evans had been “very clear about the failings and the mistakes made”.
He added: “ [She] has apologised for those on many occasions, which I have to say is typical of Leslie and the sort of leader that she is, that she's open about the mistakes she's made. That's the sort of behaviour that we expect.”
Mr Mundell, MP for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, then asked if Mr Case shared the ”widely-held view in Scotland that nobody has taken responsibility for the mistakes that have been catalogued” and added: “ It is one of thing to be open about making mistakes. It's another thing for somebody to take responsibility for those mistakes.”
Mr Case responded: “From what I've seen, Leslie has taken responsibility for those. She's been clear about the mistakes that were made, she's apologised especially to the women involved. On this question about responsibility, of course the First Minister retains confidence in Leslie and has made that publicly clear. That's an important guide for me, about how the overseeing Minister feels about the performance of the permanent secretary.”
Mr Case said the First Minster’s opinion on the permanent secretary was an important aspect that he would “take into account” and added: “There would be very unusual circumstances that you considered a permanent secretary’s performance to be below standard if the Secretary of State or First Minister or what have you was actually displaying full confidence and giving you strong feedback on performance.”
Mr Mundell asked Mr Case how he would give confidence to civil servants who may need to report concerns about workplace behaviour in future, following the botched handling of the Salmond allegations.
He said he had been “in discussions” with Ms Evans already and added that the Scottish Government or the civil servicer had been unable to set out its full response because of the election campaign”
He added: “I know they're keen to do so as soon as the election campaign is over.
“I'm clear that there's a strong determination amongst the civil service in Scotland to learn the lessons of the Holyrood inquiry, Dunlop, and to make the changes to give people the confidence that you're talking about.”
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