Scotland’s former high civil servant has been accused of snubbing an look earlier than a Holyrood committee.
Kenneth Gibson, the SNP convener of the Finance Committee, mentioned his colleagues have been “extraordinarily disenchanted” at Leslie Evans’ refusal to look.
Evans, who was Everlasting Secretary of Nicola Sturgeon ’s Authorities, will retire quickly after a stormy interval in cost.
She was criticised in a Holyrood report final yr for the Authorities’s failings in its illegal probe into Alex Salmond.
The Finance and Public Administration committee had requested her to look in entrance of MSPs to share her “reflections and insights” of her time in publish.
Nevertheless, it has now emerged the committee and Evans are at loggerheads.
In a letter to Evans, Gibson wrote: “Reassurances have repeatedly been provided that the proof session was not meant to revisit occasions beforehand thought-about by the Committee on the Scottish Authorities’s Dealing with of Harassment Complaints.
“Certainly, as we indicated in our invitation, this session was as a consequence of give attention to broad points throughout the Committee’s newly added public administration remit, equivalent to how authorities capabilities, the capability and functionality of the civil service, tradition, and the way insurance policies are developed and applied.
“We're due to this fact extraordinarily disenchanted on the discourtesy proven to the Parliament by your failure to interact immediately with the Committee at any stage concerning our invitation, regardless of our greatest efforts.
“Once we lastly obtained a response, it was not from you, however from the Workplace of the Everlasting Secretary, stating that, as you at the moment are on a interval of go away (relationship from 31 December 2021 till you retire from the UK Civil Service on 31 March 2022), you aren't in a position to converse on behalf, or signify the views, of Scottish Ministers.
Gibson added: “At no level have we requested you to take action. We've been completely clear always that our curiosity lay in your personal reflections, not these of Ministers, to assist the Committee in creating a clearer understanding of the workings of presidency in our new public administration position.”
He added: “We're firmly of the view that it's within the public curiosity for the Committee to listen to from civil servants as a part of our public administration remit. You stay within the employment of the Scottish Authorities and we don't settle for that your interval of go away exempts you from giving proof to a parliamentary committee, in the best way advised within the response we obtained.”
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