GOVERNMENT is accountable to parliament and parliament is accountable to the people whether that be the UK parliament or the Scottish parliament. In its simplest form, this the basic social contract between the electorate and those that represent our interests in parliament.

Yet over the course of the last week there has been a clear and obvious lack of openness and transparency that goes to the heart of both governments which has been in the making for a long time. Spin now dominates the narrative and logical thinking takes a back seat whilst those that hold high office attempt to play fast and loose with the detail.

In Westminster, we have a Prime Minister who clearly misled parliament and potentially will receive a fixed penalty notice for breaking what was his own government's law. Yet we have a situation where his own cabinet is split over whether he did or did not break the law irrespective of the findings of any investigation.

In Scotland, while it is in no way a criminal matter, it has been alleged that the Scottish Government under the stewardship of Nicola Sturgeon signed off and fast tracked a contract with Ferguson Marine with the focus of getting a good headline ahead of the 2015 SNP party conference.

Last week Audit Scotland published a report which concluded that contracts were given the go ahead despite “inadequate safeguards to protect public money”.

Furthermore, it is my understanding that Ferguson Marine told the Scottish Government that they couldn’t provide the mandatory refund guarantees for the financial risk to Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL), the Scottish Government firm that owns CalMac Ferries.

It is also worth noting that the CMAL board considered that there were too many risks involved and told Transport Scotland it would prefer not to award the contract to the Ferguson yard and to start the procurement process again.

There is no doubt in my mind that this was a politically motivated decision with the focus being on the perception that would be created for the Scottish Government as the saviours of Ferguson Marine but seven years later it’s a very different story for the SNP.

We have a First Minister who talks about taking responsibility and with the buck ultimately stopping with her but this is nothing more than good media training. The reality is that there has been no accountability or ownership of the issue.

Initially, the response was to blame Derek Mackay, former Finance Secretary, but then it came to light that he was actually on holiday at the time of the contracts being signed. From what I can see it seems to be that signing off the contract comes down to John Swinney – Deputy First Minister and Keith Brown. Even still, questions must be asked about what they knew, their reasons for disregarding advice from CMAL and, ultimately, who made the decision to proceed.

Opposition parties must call for a full independent inquiry to determine what happened with investigators not connected to the Scottish Government in any way to ensure openness and transparency. If the Scottish Government is found to have acted reckless then this will become a resignation matter for the minister or ministers concerned.

I work in a sector where transparency and openness are required at all times and the same should apply to all governments and politicians who must be held to a high standard.

I think the time has come for the creation of an ombudsman or regulator where if there is any allegation of impropriety, such as the allegations of Johnson breaking the law or Sturgeon over the ferry fiasco, they have a remit to investigate the allegations and make conclusions.

For this body to be really effective its role and power should also be embodied in necessary legislation with a clear understanding that if a minister is found to be in breach of the ministerial code, has broken the law and or misled parliament then it will result in the termination of their elected status with a by-election to take place within six weeks of a judgement.

We need to restore trust in politics. How we do that is by taking the politics out of any question about wrong doing by a politician, by having an official body that is recognised by law to perform an investigation with the power to take decisive action.

Barrie Cunning is managing director of Pentland Communications and a former Scottish Labour Parliamentary candidate