THE SNP leader of Glasgow City Council has spoken publicly for the first time about her husband being banned from acting as a company director for six years.

Susan Aitken defended Gordon Archer’s actions in the run-up to his disqualification, and insisted it was a “technical issue”.

She said Mr Archer, a former SNP councillor and adviser to John Swinney, had settled with the UK Government’s Insolvency Service to protect a business and people’s jobs.

“Gordon, I suppose, 'took one for the team',” she told the Herald.

Mr Archer, 54, was disqualified in February until 2028 after an Insolvency Service investigation found he had “breached his fiduciary duties” at a green energy firm he chaired by causing it “to enter into transactions to the detriment of its creditors”.

Administrators had accused him of removing almost £400,000 from Lake District Biogas Ltd (LDB) as it was heading for insolvency in December 2018, and transferring it to two of his own businesses, leaving creditors out of pocket.

Mr Archer and his business partner later repaid £45,000 without any admission of liability.

Mr Archer was disqualified after giving an undertaking to the Insolvency Service as an alternative to being taken to court.

Disqualification means a person cannot be a director of any UK company, “be involved in forming, marketing or running a company”, or sit on the board of a charity or school.

A breach of the order is punishable by up to two years in jail.

After Mr Archer’s disqualification was first reported last month, the Scottish Tories said Ms Aiken had “major questions to answer” about what she knew of the “scandal”.

Interviewed by the Herald, Ms Aitken stressed the matter was “entirely separate” from her work as council leader, and queried why she was even being asked about it, despite the potential impact on the couple's shared finances.

Ms Aitken and Mr Archer, who married in 1997, have a joint mortgage on a home they bought for £290,000 in 2016.

However she went on: "I did know about the dispute that he was in with the Insolvency Service.

"He chose to settle with the Insolvency Service over a technical issue around fiduciary duty. 

“He continues to run a successful business.

"He is very clear he disagrees with the Insolvency Service, but decided for the sake of his business that he and his business partner would settle with the Insolvency Service. And that was the settlement they came to.

“The Insolvency Service believed that he and his business partner knew that the business was going into administration. They said they didn't.

"In the end they took a decision and they came to a settlement with the Insolvency Service, that's it, that's it. And the business continues to trade. He will not hold a directorship for that period. But that is it.

“It's not for me to answer the business-based reasons why he and his business partner took the decisions that they did. 

“I think they would say that they believed they took the right decisions. I know that they would say that they believe they did nothing wrong. 

“However, the Insolvency Service didn't agree and rather than go to court, they took a settlement and that was in least in part to ensure their business wasn't put at risk because clearly going to court there is risk involved in that.

“Gordon, I suppose, 'took one for the team' if you like in order to protect his businesses and his employees. I am not going to say anything more.

"It's nothing to do with my job as leader of the council. It's nothing to do with the SNP in any way whatsoever and it's nothing to do with Glasgow city council whatsoever.

"It is essentially a private matter between a business and the Insolvency Service and a matter which has been resolved and settled.”

READ MORE: Susan Aitken - I will step down from leading SNP council group if we lose in May

Lake District Biogas Limited (LDB) was set up in 2014 to turn the waste products from a creamery in Cumbria into biogas fuel for local homes and businesses.

Mr Archer joined the board as its chair in 2015 and became joint operational director with his business partner Mark O’Dowd.

However the firm failed to generate enough revenue to cover its costs, and one of Mr Archer's other firms, Renewables Unlimited LLP, was tasked with turning it around.

But in December 2018, Mr Archer and Mr O’Dowd both resigned after disagreeing with the rest of the board on how to save the firm.

LDB went into administration a month later with debts of £11.2million, and was ultimately saved, although unsecured creditors received less than a penny in the pound.

In 2019, the administrators reported they had submitted a confidential report on the conduct of LDB’s directors to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.

They said that around the time Mr Archer and Mr O’Dowd resigned “significant payments were made to entities controlled by Mr Archer.

"These payments, totalling £373,698, were made in respect of management fees and loan payments without the knowledge or approval of the wider Board."

The administrators also sent a “formal letter of demand” to Mr Archer setting out why the funds should be “returned in their entirety and refuting the various explanations made to the Board immediately after his resignation”, but Mr Archer “refuted all allegations”.

The administrators then sent another letter saying that, in their opinion, “there had been multiple breaches by Mr Archer of his obligations to the Company in common law”.

They added: “We are anxious to pursue the recovery of sums removed by Mr Archer."

However, after considering “legal proceedings”, the situation was resolved a year later by a productive dialogue with Mr Archer and Mr O’Dowd.

Despite believing a “good claim” existed for repayments, the administrators accepted some of the pair’s arguments could have merit and be persuasive “at trial”.

Their report said: “It became clear that there was a willingness to conclude the matter without the prospect of litigation and, following lengthy negotiations, a settlement agreement has been entered into with all parties pursuant to which payment of a sum of £45,000 was made without any admission of liability.”

Mr O’Dowd, 57, a solicitor, has not been disqualified as a company director and currently holds 25 active directorships.

Although Ms Aitken does not record any of Mr Archer’s business dealings in her council register of interests, she has previously listed his directorships in the register of interests she files as a member of Glasgow University Court, including Renewables Unlimited LLP.

The LDB episode is not the only one of Mr Archer’s business dealings to have raised questions for Ms Aitken.

In 2019, she was embroiled in a nepotism row after another of Mr Archer’s firms, Sogo Arts, was able to rent a refurbished council property for £1 a year. 

The firm was the first beneficiary of a scheme to fill empty shop spaces in the city centre.

Ms Aitken was cleared by ethics watchdogs after Labour said she should have declared an interest in the deal.