Alex Salmond case leads to huge rise in complaints about MSPs

Almost all - some 730 - are understood to have been made about the committee of politicians who investigated the Scottish Government’s handling of sexual misconduct allegations against Mr Salmond.

This flurry of complaints in 2020-2021 compares with annual totals of only 109 in 2019-20 and 23 in 2018-19. The acting Ethical Standards Commissioner, Ian Bruce, in his annual report warned handling the sheer volume of paperwork generated would need “considerable resources”.

Mr Bruce will today give evidence about his annual report to Holyrood’s Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee.

His appearance comes as politicians across politics privately warn of what they regard as a growing weaponisation of the complains system, with online activists believed to be generating many of the concerns raised.

The Herald understands complaints have been made against government and opposition members and that some have already been thrown out.

Mr Bruce did not mention the Salmond inquiry in his annual report. He said 730 of the 763 complaints related to a “similar issue”.

He added: “The majority of these complaints have been grouped together and will be processed in 2021/22.

“It is anticipated that concluding these investigations will require considerable resources.”

“The rapid increase in complaint volumes in the past two years have been driven by single issues attracting a large volume of complaints.

“In 2019/20, we received 63 complaints about a single MSP’s manner of engaging with constituents.

“The complaints received towards the end of 2020/21 all related to a series of linked courses of conduct.”

Official figures show 584 of the 763 complaints were about alleged breach of confidentiality.

The Ethical Standards Commissioner independently investigates complaints against MSPs, councillors and public appointees. For Holyrood members, it reports its findings to the standards committee of parliament for a final ruling.

The committee, for example, late last year cleared a former Tory MSP, Adam Tomkins, of breaching the code of conduct by tweeting that the deputy first minister, John Swinney, was “devious” and “unscrupulous”.

Most complaints do not make it to MSPs for consideration.

Murdo Fraser, another Conservative, last month announced on Twitter that the Ethical Standards Commissioner had written to tell him it had thrown out a sixth complaint about him in the last 12 months.

Mr Fraser was a member of the Salmond inquiry committee. MSPs are not allowed to discuss the details of complaints, which are secret. So it is not clear of what he had been wrongly accused.

The politician at the time said he feared the complaints system was being “abused”. He added: “I feel that, and I am by no means the only opposition MSP in this category, that I’ve been targeted by supporters of the SNP, the Yes movement, that are making spurious and vexatious complaints against me which thankfully the ethical standards commissioner is throwing out.”

The number of complaints does not necessarily equate to the number of cases being investigated. There can be multiple letters of concern about one topic, insiders stress.

Speaking in September 2020 about the 2019-20 figures, Mr Bruce suggested complaints were rising but cases less so. Citing the scores of complaints about a single unspecified tweet, he said that “something that is relatively straightforward can lead to an apparently significant increase in the number of complaints".

He added: “Generally, though, there is a trend, it is fair to say that this applies not just to MSPs but equally to councillors, in complaints about how members treat others.

“You have asked what the reasons behind the rise are. I think that, for the past year and a half, people have had a lot of time on their hands and there is an exponential rise in the way in which members engage with the public via social media.”

Complaints about councillors and public appointees are not at record levels. There were 301 in 2020-2021, compared with 319 a year before and 197 in 2018-2019.

However, Mr Bruce in his annual report suggested the online world was generating a lot of the paperwork.

Writing about complaints about councillors, he said: “The largest number of complaints involved allegations of disrespect towards members of the public and Council employees: Several of these involved allegations of disrespect in the form of social media posts or engagement on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

“There is a clear trend that allegations of disrespect towards members of the public and Council employees are becoming increasingly frequent for this office, as reflected in the year on year increase since 2017/18."

The commissioner reports breaches of the code of conduct to the another body, the Standards Commission. It made 15 such reports in the last financial year, six of them involving allegations of disrespect.

Mr Bruce took over as acting commissioner last April and has since warned, among other things, about high staff turnover and loss of institutional memory.

Audit Scotland last year issued a blistering report late last year about the body, which has a £1m a year budget. However, it also said the Commissioner’s Office was making progress under Mr Bruce to address issues raised.

Auditor General Stephen Boyle, in a statement, said "It is disturbing to see so many failings in an organisation, not least because it deals directly with concerns raised by members of the public.

"It is vital that progress underway continues and that the recommendations made by the auditor are implemented.

"The overarching risk is that there will be a loss of public trust in the ability of the Commissioner's Office to properly investigate and consider complaints made against individuals in public life in Scotland."