JUSTICE Secretary Michael Matheson has been dragged into the row over a whistleblower who made allegations of financial wrongdoing against the Scottish Police Authority.
Matheson has known about the case of Amy McDonald, who was director of financial accountability at the SPA, for nearly 12 months.
However, the SNP Government has said little on the case, other than to say that the “matter” was subsequently “raised” with the police watchdog.
Tory MSP Liam Kerr said: “These revelations demonstrate that the SNP had full knowledge of the allegations of financial mismanagement at the SPA from the start.
“The Justice Secretary has once again been extremely slow to act given these apparently credible and specific allegations.
"People will be increasingly concerned that yet again Michael Matheson's own actions and judgment are under scrutiny”.
The SPA is the national oversight body for Police Scotland, but it has itself been under fire for a range of questionable budgetary decisions.
In December, Auditor General Caroline Gardner criticised the body for approving lavish relocation expenses for a deputy chief constable, as well as for spending nearly £400,000 on temporary senior staff.
This newspaper revealed last month that McDonald, a chartered accountant who used to sit on the SPA senior management team, used whistleblowing legislation to allege a sizeable misuse of SPA funds.
She is currently in a different post on the forensics side at the SPA and is taking the watchdog to an employment tribunal.
However, the SPA successfully applied for an anonymity order in the case which prevents the names of third parties from being discussed.
It is also understood the allegations pre-date the arrival of former Labour MSP Susan Deacon as the new SPA chair. Holyrood’s Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee has been urged to probe the claims.
The spotlight is now on the Justice Secretary, who has been aware of the allegations for 10 months.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The Scottish Government received correspondence in May 2017 which related to this matter. This was raised with the SPA shortly thereafter.”
Asked if Matheson had learned of the matter at this point, the spokesperson added: “I can confirm that the Justice Secretary was made aware in May 2017.”
Under whistleblowing legislation alleged wrongdoing can be flagged up to the Justice Secretary, but it is unclear if Matheson came to know of the allegations by this method.
A spokesperson for Audit Scotland also confirmed knowledge of a whistleblowing case: “We can confirm that we are aware that a whistleblower made a protected disclosure in relation to the Scottish Police Authority. However, in keeping with our whistleblowing policy, we are unable to confirm or deny whether our recent report included disclosures from a whistleblower.”
Whistleblowing charity Public Concern at Work has opposed the anonymity order in the McDonald case. Speaking to this newspaper earlier this month, PCaW chief executive Francesca West said: “We became aware of this whistleblowing case and the anonymisation order blocking the names of individuals connected with the alleged wrongdoing.
“We felt that this was being used to shield the Scottish Police Authority from embarrassment. The public have a right to know about matters of misuse of public funds – particularly in the case of sizeable sums of money.”
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