Chamber and committees

The two instruments relate to the surrender of, and a compensation scheme for, what are known as zombie knives. Obviously, I am in favour of getting rid of what look to be pretty offensive weapons—if you google “zombie knife”, you will see what I mean. However, the lead committee should be absolutely certain that the regulations are clear on what is meant by a zombie knife, as opposed to any other knife. Obviously, the law needs to be absolutely clear, and we do not want knives to slip through the net. We should raise with the lead committee the need for it to be absolutely certain that the instruments are clearly defined.

Convener, I have no further questions but I invite the committee to take these allegations extremely seriously. They relate to your brief and I think that you should be delving deeper into what has been going on at the college.

I understand that, but the very commissioning of that report makes me feel that the committee needs a little bit of background to all this that it has not had.

I have the minutes from the 8 June 2021 board of management meeting. Under a section entitled, “Internal Audit Update”, it says:

“The Chair updated members ... on a number of allegations of potential staff misconduct within one of the college faculties. The allegations related to 3 separate matters:

Systematic bullying and intimidation of a number of staff over a prolonged period

Potential financial irregularities (of private businesses operating from college premises, using college materials and lecturing staff time)

Potential timetabling anomalies (fabrication of hours, of students, of classes).”

This has been reported in the press previously—I am not saying anything new. However, we have here, in black and white, in the board of management minutes, an allegation of private businesses operating from college premises.

Earlier, Auditor General, you said that millions of pounds of public money were not being overseen. That point is extremely relevant here. Were you aware of any of those allegations?

Okay. A report from the Scottish Funding Council has been mentioned, we have investigations that seem to be stuck, for some reason—they do not seem to be going anywhere—and two key members of staff have been suspended for six months. That does not seem acceptable to me.

However, there is another report, which was commissioned by the now-suspended principal, Aileen McKechnie, from a company called Azets. Are you aware of that report and do you know what it covers?

So it was in November.

Okay. I think that the same point applies, though. There were brand-new members who had not gone through proper training by then, and a representative of the Scottish Funding Council was present at that meeting, so the same question applies, whether the suspensions happened on 4 November or 30 November.

Okay.

My view is that this could be a police matter. Do you have a role, if people want to come to you in confidence with information?

Thank you very much, convener. It is good to be back at the committee. I served on the Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee in the previous session, but I should say that I have no relevant interests to declare—I do not think that what is declared carries over from one session to another.

It has been interesting to listen to the lines of questioning from members. I will pick up on some of what has been said, but I also have questions of my own. I have been aware of concerns about the college for some time now, and I have been approached by people at the college. Willie Coffey asked about the impact on staff. I have been an elected member—both as a councillor and as an MSP—for some time, and I have never come across a situation in which people are as scared as they are in this case. That applies to current staff and former staff. I have never seen anything like it. I will give the committee some background to that, because it has not had it yet.

Craig Hoy mentioned the meeting on 4 November last year, at which there were six new board members. Of course, that was the meeting at which the principal, Aileen McKechnie, and the interim clerk to the board, Brian Keegan, were suspended. There is a question about whether a board with six new members who had not gone through proper training should have taken such a big decision. A representative of the Scottish Funding Council was also present at that meeting. Was that appropriate?

I am content with all that, but it strikes me that the very fact that the instrument breaches the 28-day rule suggests strongly that it has been rushed through, for the reasons that have been outlined. The instrument involves the use of a new test for rabies, which gives quicker results than the one that has been used traditionally, from which people get the results in two weeks—with the new test, the results come back in two to three days.

I am not sure which committee will be the lead committee but, whichever one it is, it should look at the issue and satisfy itself that the new test is up to the job. I am sure that it is—I have no reason to think otherwise—but the lead committee ought to look at that because, no matter where an animal has come from, we need to ensure that we are safe.