The following Scottish Law Reporter article highlights extremely pernicious actions of the former Chief Executive of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) her reportedly lucrative Scottish government sanctioned payout on exiting her post under a cloud, supposedly on the grounds of ill-health, and her subsequent miraculous recovers and re-entry within a matter of weeks into public life as an employee of the SPSO - a public services body already under scrutiny for underperformance and questionable practices. Aside from the demonstration of unheathy relationships between various public servant bodies and government officials one at very least has to question the performance metrics that are used to determine the calibre of employee that is regarded as an asset within taxpayer funded offices.
http://scottishlaw.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/too-ill-to-work-yet-ex-slcc-chief.html
The following article reports threats made by NHS bosses at Wishaw General Hospital in relation to whistleblowers highlighting cuts at a neonatal unit that are putting the lives of newborns at risk.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/health/hospital-bosses-use-shameful-scare-3342849
The following link recounts a string of failings by NHS24 which resulted in the untimely death of Mr John Willock.
http://maciverblog.co.uk/2013/11/06/a-mans-last-hours-and-the-shame-of-nhs-24/#comments
The Glasgow Herald recently highlighted the following issue with regard to the Scottish conveyancing system.
Educational aspects of the recent Accountability Scotland conference held at the Scottish Parliament on the 16th September 2013 were reported in the Times Educational Supplement Scotland. The link to the report is as follows:
https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/local-authorities-diktats-teachers-reach-absurd-levels - [11th March 2023 - this article has been relocated and can only be viewed for free three times, so please see John Stuart's paper in the conference proceedings - page 4].
The current political atmosphere in Scotland is discussed within the following article. The author, Walter Hume, is the visiting professor of education at Stirling University, AS member and recent speaker at the organisations first public conference held at the Scottish Parliament building on the 16th September 2013.
Noted: 18th February 2024: Page appears to have been removed. http://www.scottishreview.net/WalterHumes117a.html
An article in the Pakistan Daily Times challenges the spokesman for British High Commission to debate regarding Scottish universities manipulation of procedures used to determine standards and by rote their standing in the university league tables. Recommendations made in the Sinclair report to the body responsible for supervising quality assurance in Scottish Universities have failed to be implemented by the SPSO.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2013%5C04%5C24%5Cstory_24-4-2013_pg3_3
One of our members has a referral in an article on the Society page of the Scottish Review. The related article can be read here.
Noted: 18th February 2024: Page appears to have been removed. http://www.scottishreview.net/WalterHumes37a.html
This link to the House of Commons website relates to findings of the Justice Committees Scrutiny of the draft Public Bodies (Abolition of Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council) Order 2013 as highlighted in the second link below.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmjust/965/96503.htm
This link to the House of Lords document by the secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee details their findings relating to the abolition of the AJTC.
See the following Scottish Review articles in which recognition is given to one of Accountability Scotlands committee members, Mr Rab Wilson, for his presistence in taking the Ayrshire and Arran Health Board to task over a catalogue of incidents of negligence and associated gross failures of management and governance.
Noted: 18th February 2024: Page appears to have been removed. http://www.scottishreview.net/KennethRoy56a.html
Noted: 18th February 2024: Page appears to have been removed. http://www.scottishreview.net/KennethRoy75a.html
The following link is for the Local Government and Regeneration Committee Meeting of Jan23 2013 in which the SPSO's Jim Martin presents their annual report.
Note: 1st February 2025. Link fails. http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28862.aspx?r=7708&mode=pdf
The relevant SPSO report is here: https://www.spso.org.uk/sites/spso/files/communications_material/annual_report/Complaints-reports/SPSO%20local%20government%20complaints%20report%202012-13.pdf
It is thought that the relevant LGFR Committee Meeting is here: https://www.parliament.scot/api/sitecore/CustomMedia/OfficialReport?meetingId=9384
The following link provides access to a forum where Scotlands constitutional future is discussed. It provides information and the facility to participate in debate on the subject.
www.scottishconstitutionalfutures.org
Patients First is a campaign group set up to raise awareness of the challenges that raising concerns brings in some organisations.
http://www.patientsfirst.org.uk
The following is a link to an article on whistleblowing and the experiences of those who, despite the obstacles put in their way, have had the integrity and courage to expose the activities they have witnessed.
The Jimmy Reid Foundation is a respected research/think-tank body which, although leaning to the left, has no affiliation with any political party or organisation and is publicly welcomed by most political parties.
Note: 1st February 2025: Link is dead. http://reidfoundation.org/
The Silent Crisis paper from the Jimmy Reid Foundation is worth reading. This report shows that by many measures Scotland has one of the weakest local democracies in Europe. The "Silent Crisis Report Summary" is available.
Consumer Focus Scotland’s response to the Ministry of Justice’s consultation on reforms proposed in the Public Bodies Bill is available as a download through the following link which is in line with Accountability Scotlands petition to the Scottish Parliaments Public Petitions Committee (also see the Featured Accountability Scotland Publications section of this website):
Former Scottish Legal Complaints Commission Chief Executive Eileen Masterman has taken up a position as a SPSO investigator after resigning under a cloud from the SLCC. She has subsequently produced a "whitewash" report for the SPSO in the cover up of the case below. Is it appropriate that someone with this history should be an SPSO investigator?
http://petercherbi.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/deputy-first-minister-to-look-into.html
To read of some bad experiences with the SPSO (Scottish Public Services Ombudsman) go to:
http://www.scottishombudsmanwatch.org/
Note: 1st Feb 2025: Sadly this link is now dead.
To access the Crerar report, an independent review of regulation, audit, inspection and complaints handling of public services in Scotland:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/09/25120506/0
A contact for the AJTC (Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council) the body that endeavours to keep under review the administrative justice system as a whole with a view to making it accessible, fair and efficient:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/ajtc/
Noted: 24th February 2018 - this link is now dead, and reports "AJTC Closed"
Corrected Transcript of Oral Evidence from the AJTC (Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council):
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmpubadm/c1621-i/c162101.htm
Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsmans perspective on administrative justice and the AJTC (Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council ):
http://www.ombudsman.org.uk/about-us/media-centre/ombudsmans-speeches/2011/administrative-justice-from-the-ombudsmans-perspective/3
Noted: 25th February 2018: Page appears to have been removed.
Petition calling for the Parliament to set up an Appeal Tribunal to review final decisions by the Public Services Ombudsman where any complainer so requests.
Audit Scotland - the organisation responsible for monitoring how our taxes are spent:
https://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/about-us/auditor-general
Raising Concerns about officials within Public Service Bodies audited by Audit Scotland:
and
http://www.ethicalstandards.org.uk/
The following link provides access to undergraduate law students who are active in the field in an advisory capacity.
The following is a publication by Allan Rosenbaum, Director Institute for Public Management and Community Service and Professor of Public Administration Florida International University (USA) on Good Governance, Accountability and the Public Servant:
http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/NISPAcee/UNPAN005698.pdf [21st March 2023 - link removed as it fails with a "time out]
An article of interest:
Case for a Statue to Thomas Muir (1765-1799) by Patrick Scott Hogg
'I have devoted myself to the cause of The People. It is a good cause – it shall ultimately prevail – it shall finally triumph.'
Thomas Muir, 31 August, 1793
I was recently told I had more chance of selling ipods to moles than selling an idea to politicians. Cynicism aside, I have optimistically initiated an e petition to the Scottish parliament asking the Scottish Government to consider erecting a statue to Thomas Muir (1765-1799) whom I, and many others, consider to be the founding father of Scottish democracy.
Muir, now largely unknown in his home country, was at one point more famous across the world than any Scot living during the turbulent 1790's, including Robert Burns. I humbly ask Scottish Review readers to support the idea that Muir should be remembered for his contribution to democracy and support the campaign to erect a national statue to him by signing the e-petition.
Ideas change the world. The idea of 'democracy' is a great and noble one. Britain boasts of its democracy. Yet, if we look closely, the theory is great but the practice is a failure – if we define democracy as the political implementation of the will of the majority. Only twice in UK general elections since the franchise act of 1918 have over 50% of the people elected the government in power, in 1931 and 1935. The majority of British governments have generally been elected by a minority of the people. The first-past-the-post system thwarts expression of the will of the majority. Parties now anaesthetise internal debate and allow private lobbyists and careerism to dominate.
The will of the people is sovereign in abstraction only. In Scotland, however, due to recent proportional representation, we now have a genuine representative form of democracy emerging from the stale, dead, old Westminster system.
The dominant theme over the past few centuries in the stop-start evolution of democracy has been the tug-of-war struggle between dominant animal hierarchies and the sovereign will of the majority. The establishment has only ever partly rescinded its control over power when it was either forced or saw advantage in so doing. During the late 18th century a paradigm shift in ideas occurred, under the influence of mainly the home grown Scottish Enlightenment, when the language of liberty and equality became ubiquitous.
Bolstered by the American war of Independence and the French Revolutionary rejection of corrupt absolutism, the dawn of the modern era arose with its vision of a better more equal society and political democracy on the horizon. The idea of democracy was considered a dangerous criminal creed that threatened the fabric of the reactionary and largely corrupt old feudal society during the 1790's.
In championing the cause of democracy Muir catapulted himself into one of the most remarkable trials in the history of the Scottish legal system which occurred in Edinburgh on 30-31 August 1793. It was a blatant political trial. This was no ordinary 'criminal' in the dock. He was a placid, well-mannered Kirk elder. He entered Glasgow University at the age of 10, graduated MA at 17 years and at 22 years was a QC. Muir did not just represent himself in court, he represented the growing public opinion in Scotland and symbolically represented the Scottish Enlightenment precisely because he was a product of it.
Muir's trial, then, was of the type we would normally associate with the worst excesses of Stalinist Russia where instead of Siberia, Botany Bay awaited a guilty sentence; a verdict Muir knew he faced the moment he walked into court. Corrupt leaders of any nation have never been fond of a critic with a burning sense of injustice, particularly one who is their intellectual superior and knows it.
Muir was charged with various counts of 'sedition', a catch-all legal term to cover inciting disaffection to the government and disseminating information likely to cause disaffection towards government and the crown. The charismatic Muir proved himself innocent of all charges and mocked the law lords by suggesting they should have the alphabet up on a charge of sedition because his criminal behaviour amounted to owning and reading and recommending various books and pamphlets most intelligent people owned. He even dared to suggest the prime minister and other leading politicians who had previously supported reform were as guilty as he was. A critic of the Lord Advocate wrote after the trial:
'...the crime of sedition is confined in the hands of a body of men, at whose arbitrary direction, the most upright citizen in society may be condemned...the crime of sedition – a monster conjured up by party – an instrument in the hands of bad men, to crush the brightest reputations in the kingdom...'
During the trial Muir was described in court as the 'Demon of Mischief' and a rabble-rousing ringleader of radicals who according to his accusers, was such a powerful speaker that he threatened the very nature of civilised society. Muir was being tried because of the power of the idea of democracy. Muir's political activities were moderate, constitutional and loyal. As he remarked in court: 'I warned the people of that crime, exhorted them to adopt none but measures which were constitutional, and entreated them to connect liberty with knowledge and both with morality'.
Muir was found guilty and was sentenced to 14 years transportation to Botany bay.
The greatest minds of a generation fell cravenly silent or went underground, forced to employ pen names to protect their identity, as the last embers of the Scottish Enlightenment were extinguished.
The victors write the history. Muir was no hero to the phalanx of dominant animal silver-back law lords who judged him and the Lord Advocate, Robert Dundas, tool of his uncle Henry, the ruler of Scotland. The objective of Dundas and his team draped in the trumpery of pomp was to extinguish the spirit of freedom and liberty that had arisen across Scotland and silence Muir, who was, in the old fashioned Scottish idiom, too smart for his own good.
Fans of Robert Burns will know that Thomas Muir acted as the defence lawyer on behalf of the poet's friend Rev Dr McGill – celebrated hero of 'The Kirk's Alarm' – when McGill was persecuted for alleged religious heresy. Likewise, he was appointed legal counsel for the poet’s Edinburgh radical friend, James 'Balloon' Tytler, the extraordinary polymath who fled the country after being charged with sedition. Muir was also an intimate of Burns' close republican friend, the aristocratic Lord Daer. It was also Muir who inspired the poet to write 'Bruce's Address to His Troops at Bannockburn' ('Scots Wha Hae').
Like Burns, Muir was a democrat visionary who believed that the will of the Scottish people should be sovereign. It is remarkable that there are no recorded views of the bard about the trial of Muir which transfixed the nation for many months afterwards. It is highly probable the views of Burns about this historical trial have either been destroyed or remain undiscovered within the extant pages of the contemporary press.
Is Thomas Muir worthy of a statue? I believe he is. The works of several modern academics also point to his historical significance. These include the writings of Michael Donnely, Christina Bewley, Dr John Brims, Professor Nigel Leask, Professor Elaine McFarland and Dr Gordon Pentland. Maybe the real question ought to be, is Scotland now worthy to have had a Thomas Muir? There's a thought.
Patrick Scott Hogg is the co-editor of 'The Canongate Burns' (2001) and biographer of 'Robert Burns: The Patriot Bard' (Mainstream), 2008. He is a graduate of the University of Stirling and University of Portsmouth.
With thanks to the Scottish Review who previously published this article.