Edgar told council officers blacked out Gunn transcript
COMMUNITY council chairman Gordon Edgar says he will give Scottish Borders Council one last chance to provide him with the full transcript of a recording played at a private hearing in March.
If it is not forthcoming, he will lodge an official complaint with the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, claiming maladministration by the Newtown-based local authority.
Mr Edgar this week said he was "totally dissatisfied" with a response The Wee Paper received under freedom of information (FoI) legislation.
Last month we reported how Mr Edgar had requested a copy of the transcript of a recording presented in evidence to SBC's standards committee on March 24 by Councillor Kenneth Gunn (SNP, Selkirkshire), who was defending a claim he had called community council vice-chairman Dr Lindsay Neil a liar at a community council meeting on February 8. The recording had been made inadvertently by Mr Gunn's community councillor wife Wilma.
Behind closed doors, the committee found, after considering the recording, that Mr Gunn had no case to answer, despite letters supporting Dr Neil's version of events by fellow community councillors.
But, as reported in these columns last month, the document sent to Mr Edgar by SBC's data compliance officer, Doreen Broom, was blacked out, apart from his own contributions to the February 8 discussion, with no reference to others who took part in the relevant section of the community council meeting, including Mr Edgar, Dr Neil, Mr Gunn and Mrs Gunn's and SBC's Selkirkshire councillors Vicky Davidson and Carolyn Riddell-Carre.
After Mr Edgar told us the blacked-out transcript was "worthless and without context", The Wee Paper sent a number of questions to SBC's press office and was informed they would be treated as FOI requests.
Firstly, we wanted to know about the covering letter to Mr Edgar from Mrs Broom which stated that she had been unable to provide a full transcript because "the council (SBC] is unable to obtain the consent of other individuals who had attended the (February] meeting… We cannot identify them as we are unaware of
their names and addresses … in order for us to obtain such consent".
Asked whether any attempt had been made to contact the other speakers, Mrs Broom
said it had not, adding: "I should advise no assumptions can be made as to who the parties were."
Mrs Broom also confirmed that it was "council officers" who had redacted (blacked-out) the transcript provided to Mr Edgar and that the standards committee, elected members of SBC, were not aware of the version Mr Edgar actually received.
And when asked whether the committee still believed the recording was admissable evidence, Mrs Broom said: "I would advise you should perhaps approach the party present at the standards committee and ask the individual if he accepted the recording and transcript as a true record."
Dr Neil said this week that he emphatically did not accept the evidence as a true record; nor had he received a copy of the minute of the standards committee meeting which he had been promised.
Mr Edgar blasted: "You have to ask who is running SBC when elected members are unaware of their own officials blacking out documents which I am entitled to under my data protection rights.
"I'll give SBC one more chance to give me either a copy of the recording or a full transcript of what was, after all, a public meeting, before I take this to the ombudsman."
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Weather for Selkirk
Sunday 12 February 2012
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