Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee

Meeting date: Thursday, September 27, 2012

Official Report 250KB pdf

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Interests

Good morning everyone, and welcome to the 12th meeting in 2012 of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee. I remind members to turn off mobile phones and BlackBerrys.

We have new members—Brian Adam and John Mason—who are very welcome. I invite them to declare any relevant interests.

Thank you for your welcome. Other than what appears in the register of members’ interests, I do not think that I have relevant interests to declare.

This is something of a return to the committee for me; it might be of interest to members to know that I was convener of predecessor standards committees some time ago and that I piloted the Interests of Members of the Scottish Parliament Bill through in a previous parliamentary session. I note that we are likely to re-examine interests, so I hope that members will not hold that against me.

Thank you. I hope that we will not undo all the good work that you did. Time will tell.

Thank you for your welcome, convener. I have been thinking about what I should declare at this stage. I am a chartered accountant and member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, and I am on the institute’s ethics committee. I imagine that there will be no conflict in that regard and that we will be going in the same direction.

It might be useful to say that when I was a councillor I was suspended for nine months for breaching the code of conduct for councillors. I can expand on that if anyone wants to know more. I think that that might be of interest.

I do not think that we have a couple of hours just now, John. Thank you for that.

You are both very welcome.