Tag: integrity

Salmond Inquiry: Lessons will be learned, says Swinney

Scottish Government comments on Committee report

The Scottish Government says lessons will be learned from the Scottish Government’s handling of harassment complaints, following the publication yesterday of the parliamentary inquiry’s report.

Responding to the findings of the Committee on the Scottish Government’s Handling of Harassment Complaints (SGHHC), Deputy First Minister John Swinney said it was clear that the women who had raised complaints had been let down.

Deputy First Minister John Swinney said: “I welcome the report of the Committee, which, alongside the independent report produced by James Hamilton and externally led review by Laura Dunlop QC, will assist the Scottish Government’s in learning lessons for the future.

“I also welcome the Committee’s acknowledgement that the Scottish Government was motivated by doing the right thing – creating a culture and procedure for investigating any claims of harassment.

“I agree with the Committee’s finding that James Hamilton’s report is the most appropriate place to address the question of whether or not the First Minister breached the Ministerial Code. He found there was no breach.

“The Scottish Government has acknowledged that it made mistakes and that these led to the Judicial Review being conceded, and I know that this had a real, and damaging, impact for the women who raised the complaints. We have apologised for this and we do so unreservedly again today.

“I remain absolutely determined that the Scottish Government should ensure this does not happen again and that together we create a culture where these behaviours do not arise.

“Given the timing of the report it is not possible to respond fully and in detail, not least because the three reports have overlapping areas of interest, and some recommendations are in conflict with those in other reports.

“Together, all three reports highlight a range of important issues and provide the basis for improvement work which now be taken forward in consultation with others including the Parliament, Trades Unions, and those with lived experience.

“The Scottish Government will carefully consider the recommendations from the Committee, alongside the other two review reports, in order to put improvements and an implementation plan in place.”

Mr Swinney chose not to address the committee’s contention that the First Minister mislead parliament, referring instead to Mr Hamilton’s findings.

But the Hamilton report clearly states: “It is for the Scottish Parliament to decide whether they were in fact misled”.

The committee DID decide … and found the First Minister guilty.

Mr Hamilton also expressed ‘deep frustration’ at redactions made to his report.

In a note accompanying the published report he stated: “A redacted report that effectively erases the role of any such individual in the matters investigated in the report cannot be understood by those reading it, and presents an incomplete and even at times misleading version of what happened.

“It is therefore impossible to give an accurate description of some of the relevant events dealth with in the report while at the same time complying with the court orders.

“I am deeply frustrated that applicable court orders will have the effect of preventing the full publication of a report which fulfils my remit and which I believe it would be in the public interest to publish.”

The Conservatives, the biggest opposition party at Holyrood, initiated a vote of No Confidence in the First Minister, but with the Greens supporting the government – and both Labour and the Lib Dems abstaining – the Tory motion was doomed to failure.

Nicola Sturgeon will face her final First Minister’s Questions session of this parliament later today; I wonder what the questions will be about!

Then, the next test comes in six weeks time when Scotland goes to the polls in the Holyrood elections.

Report of the Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints | Scottish Parliament

Political parties have become even more secretive about their online campaigning

Openness and transparency are the key foundations of any democracy. But today we find too much of our politics is shrouded in secrecy. Too often voters remain unsure about who is behind the messages they read, who is behind the information that shapes their political views, and ultimately their votes.  In no area is this truer than online campaigning (writes JESSICA BLAIR).

Nine months on from the general election, we still have little idea how much money was spent in the campaign. But even when the data is published by the Electoral Commission, huge gaps will remain in our understanding of how voters were targeted – and by whom.

Democracy is about empowering citizens so that they can actively take part in our political processes and make an informed decision at the ballot box. Transparency, fairness and accountability in political campaigning are key to ensuring this is possible. But while technology offers huge opportunities for political engagement, the current system – if it can be called that – is an unregulated Wild West.

Indeed, the Electoral Commission’s own post-election research found that ‘[m]isleading content and presentation techniques are undermining voters’ trust in election campaigns’ and that the ‘significant public concerns about the transparency of digital election campaigns risk overshadowing their benefits’.

Democracy in the Dark, a new report commissioned by the Electoral Reform Society and written by Dr Katharine Dommett and Dr Sam Power, sheds light on campaigning in the 2019 general election.

For the first time, the authors reveal how much was spent on social media platforms by campaigners and parties during the election, and track the rise of non-party ‘outriders’, with all the associated secrecy.

However, it’s not enough to just point out the risks. Dommett and Power also summarise the many sensible, proportionate and easily implementable recommendations, around which there is broad and cross-party consensus, as to how we can restore trust in our democratic processes.

These reforms would shine a light on the murky world of unregulated online campaigning, focusing on five key areas: 1. Money; 2. Non-party campaigns; 3. Targeting; 4. Data; 5. Misinformation.

Many of the recommendations in this report echo existing calls to modernise electoral law to help rebuild trust in our democratic system. Recommendations include closing funding loopholes, creating national standards for social media ad transparency and ensuring voters can easily see who is targeting them and why.

Since we published our report Reining in the Political Wild West in 2019, countless calls have been made across the political spectrum in support of reform and there continues to be strong and long-standing cross-party support to tame the unregulated Wild West of online political campaigning.

Yet despite repeated calls for reform, little action has been taken. Strikingly, far from becoming more transparent, the authors find that in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, parties and campaigners have become even more cautious about disclosing information about their campaign activities online.

In terms of progress, the most significant step has been the launch of a consultation on extending the use of imprints to include online election material – a necessary step, but which on its own is woefully insufficient.

Such limited efforts have further been undermined by alleged threats to abolish the Electoral Commission if it cannot be ‘radically overhauled’. Rather than enhancing the Commission’s powers and resources so that it can tackle the challenges of the modern age, the body tasked with protecting our democracy is under unprecedented attack.

With elections due to take place across the UK in May 2021, we cannot let the urgent task of ensuring our electoral integrity be kicked into the long grass once more.

Read the full report Democracy in the Dark