Scott Report Out
The report into the controversy over the appointment of Bertha McDougall as interim Victims Commissioner is just out. Peter Scott Q.C. finds no intention by anyone involved to mislead, and no evidence to warrant a police investigation, but serious shortcomings in how officials handled a Freedom of Information request in relation to the appointment.
UPDATE: Apologies to those of you who like RJ found this boring. I only had time to post the link up yesterday, before running off to do radio and TV, so wasn't able to pen an appraisal. I can see that the report is pretty dense with a cast list of anonymous civil servants identified only as Mr A, Ms U, Mr O, Mr M and so on...But I think the meat of the report's a bit more interesting than the headline.
The headline is "Hain and officials exonerated" but the chapter of shortcomings, whether they ocurred by accident or design is quite interesting. On page 14 we get the revelation that Ian Paisley personally handed Bertha McDougall's CV to Peter Hain identifying her as "the lady I spoke to you about as a suitable candidate for Victims' Commissioner", and asking that the nomination should be kept secret. Subsequently she was the only candidate interviewd before the appointemnt was made.
Then we see how various Freedom of information attempts to discover how her name got into the frame provoked responses which failed to mention this salient fact.
On pages 26 and 27 Scott documents the role of the Head of the NI Civil Service Nigel Hamilton who works on the devolved side of the government in the OFMDFM. Both Peter Scott and Judge Girvan thought he provided an "evasive" FoI answer. Mr Hamilton took the view that it was up to the NIO direct rulers to decide if delicate information should be released, but stands accused by Mr Scott of "unacceptable" behaviour in his "attempt to maintain a somewhat artificial and unreal distinction between the political and non-political process".
There's reams of similar stuff and maybe it is just for us anoraks who like guessing who Mr O and Mr M might be. And maybe this is water under the bridge. But remember a Permanent Victims' Commissioner was due to have been announced by the end of the Assembly term, but no name has officially been confirmed. Reading this one makes you wonder what internal shenanigans mignt be going on in relation to the appointment of Mrs McDougall's successor.
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I had a go at reading it and got as far as paragraph 1 of the Executive Summary on page i. Then I got bored. Bored even before the pages are given proper numbers.
I remember being bored when this story started and at every mention of it since.
I reckon Bertha and Brenda will be bored reading it. I reckon the journalists who have to read it will be bored as soon as I was. I reckon the politicians who won't read it, but will praise/criticise its findings would be bored if they did read it. I reckon the lawyer who wrote the thing got bored with it.
Tonight, I'm watching Hollyoaks.
Mark,
Thanks for your synopsis on the report.
Do you think there is a need to probe further into the report's findings.
I am sure people of Northern Ireland will be greatly assuaged by knowing that both offices - NIO and OFMDFM - have taken steps to ensure that the integrity of the NI Civil Service, in terms of conduct and service delivery, will now be piece backed together via the removal, or displacement, of such anonymous officers from those positions in which they have proven to operate with incompetence leading to failures.
Such incompetence led to failures in connection with the 'evasive' FOI and I imagine that nothing will happen due to the whole chain of command being corrupted or either something will happen, as ought to happen.
It seems that such a situation should have repercussions as government officials who cannot deal with 'the complexity of government' really ought not to be working in government at a level outside of their ability.