Bit by bit, it seems, the ground is eroding beneath John Doyle, former principal of Coatbridge College. On his last visit to the Scottish Parliament he was the picture of self-assertive defiance. The chances are he will be rather less self-assured when next he appears before the public audit committee.

During his last bout, Mr Doyle laid about his critics. Had his £304,000 severance package cost the taxpayer? Not a bit of it. Would he feel a need to return the money? There was no hope of that. As for Caroline Gardner, the Auditor General, and her report on the Coatbridge affair, the word splenetic would probably describe his opinions.

Her statement that the erstwhile college executive had withheld Scottish Funding Council (SFC) guidance restricting pay-offs to a year’s salary had been “inaccurate and vexatious” in Mr Doyle’s no doubt carefully-chosen words. It will therefore be fascinating to hear what he next has to say for himself.

Six members of the remuneration committee, all in a position to know what information they received, support Ms Gardner and maintain they were misled. From Mr Doyle’s point of view, those are poor odds. Since at least one committee member also maintains the disputed funds came at least in part from college resources, grounds for a rebuttal will need to be definitive.

Plainly, the Auditor General is not holding her breath. Ms Gardener has restated her view there was “a deliberate withholding of information” from the people who were charged with making a decision. She points out that Mr Doyle, as principal and accounting officer, had a responsibility to give the committee all the information it required. This, say the members, did not happen.

All of this is of real public concern. Still more troubling, perhaps, is the fact that, according to lawyers, there is no means whatever of redress. As things stand, the only impediment to Mr Doyle’s continued defiance is his own sense of what is right and proper.

Even a man innocent of every allegation made against him could hardly be satisfied with that. The SFC, the government, and the taxpayer ought to find it profoundly unsatisfactory.