The Labour leader of North Lanarkshire Council has survived a vote about his future after being bailed out by the Conservatives.
Jim Logue has been urged by the council’s SNP opposition to step aside pending a police enquiry into the financial activity of two council-linked companies he was involved in.
The Nationalists arranged a special meeting of the council on Monday to call for his exit, as well as the publication on internal audit reports into the issue.
The motions were defeated 40-33 when Labour and Tory councillors voted together.
SNP group leader David Stocks said: “We have put our case to the council on behalf of the public and the council has made its decision.
“The police must now be allowed to carry out their investigation without hindrance and we will not be making further comment on this issue until the police release their findings.”
Depute SNP leader Tom Johnston added: “It is incredibly disappointing that the Labour and Tory councillors have voted to withhold crucial audit reports from public scrutiny.
“The public are entitled information and despite this vote, we will continue to fight for openness and transparency for the people of North Lanarkshire.”
Paul Kelly, Mr Logue’s deputy, said the SNP were running a “smear campaign”, and said his boss had spent his career fighting the kind of practices he was “now falsely accused of”.
Council chief executive Paul Jukes said the council had never published investigative audit reports and each was different in terms of the legal issues and personal data it contained.
He said: “The council reaffirmed the principle that decision-making around audit reports should be for the chief executive's judgment. In making those decisions I will be guided by legal advice.
"I also have a duty to avoid anything which would inhibit internal auditors and undermine the effectiveness of their work."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel