SLCC appointments scandal 'humiliation' for Justice Secretary as MacAskill forced to abandon new lay member recruitment

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill was forced to cancel appointments round after media reports of scandals at the SLCC. Amid denials from the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission that at least one of it's lay members who were personally appointed by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill last year wished to 'step down', revelations from Scotland's independent appointments regulator and sources now confirm the incident did take place and that the new appointments round, had to be abruptly cancelled by the Justice Secretary just one month later after reports appeared in the media of scandals involving the SLCC's lawyer members.

SLCC delayed publication of meetings details for 5 months to hide secret recruitment drive. The Legal Complaints Commission's requirement for new lay members only emerged this week, in the five month late publication of their meetings minutes, which insiders allege was a deliberate delay to cover up the fact that at least one commission lay member had asked to step down, as I reported earlier, here : Justice Secretary forced into new appointments round at Scottish Legal Complaints Commission after lay member ‘steps down’

Media reports showed extreme anti-public bitterness at SLCC. However, revelations from documents obtained under the Freedom of Information act which I reported on, and were also reported in the Sunday Mail newspaper, portrayed board members & staff of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission as anti-consumer, anti-reform, and having the same closed shop mentality as the Law Society of Scotland, where papers showed that board members had engaged in bitter hate fuelled rants against victims of crooked lawyers, had also attacked individuals who were claiming compensation against 'crooked lawyers' and were seemingly more interested in being out on the town than performing their public duties.

Scottish appointments regulator OCPAS confirmed they were involved in now cancelled recruitment of SLCC lay members. The Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments in Scotland have now confirmed they were involved in an abruptly cancelled round of lay member appointments to the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, initiated in February by the Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill who was then forced to cancel the appointments round after only a month, in April.

A spokesman for OCPAS said : "We did assign an OCPAS Assessor to oversee a new appointments round for the SLCC in February of this year. The Scottish Government cancelled the round in April before it got beyond the planning stage. This is the prerogative of the Scottish Ministers."

He continued : "It is not possible for the Scottish Ministers to recruit ministerial appointees for the Commission without our regulatory oversight. When we do have regulatory oversight over appointments the vacancies always have to be publicised appropriately. As a minimum they must be publicised on the Scottish Government’s public appointments website"

SLCC Board members – Who wants to step down now ? However, this is not the first time board members have wanted to 'step down' at the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, which has received over £2 million pounds of public money so far, where board members earn up to £350 a day in expenses, and some salaries of particular members of staff are hitting up to £1350 a week.

I reported earlier that the entire board of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission threatened to resign over a lack of insurance cover and increased perks, which itself could have also provoked another costly round of appointments by the Justice Secretary. On that occasion, the Scottish Government were forced to give in, and bow to the demands of the SLCC board members.

Scottish Government ‘were humiliated’ by lawyers complaints quango the SLCC. A Scottish Government insider talking about the scandal at the SLCC claimed today the whole episode "had made a fool out of the Justice Secretary" after Mr MacAskill instituted a new appointments round for lay members in February of this year, but was then forced to cancel it just a few weeks later.

Media focus on booze culture & secret goings on at SLCC derailed the latest shoe-in appointments. The insider claimed : "The SLCC's failure to competently handle their lay member issue ended up causing a lot of problems for the Justice Secretary and Justice Department officials, who, after the media reports on Margaret Scanlan and Eileen Masterman, had to cancel the new recruitment round the commission itself had requested."

"Secrecy on the issue was viewed as important as the SLCC was presenting its budget to Parliament and no one wanted awkward questions on the conduct of ministerial appointees and the fact some suspected there would have been shoe-in appointments if there had been no press attention."

He went on : "I understand the whole episode was very humiliating for MacAskill and the justice team. They were and still are very angry over the whole thing but many are thinking the SLCC is just not up to the job they are supposed to be doing."

A spokesman for a consumer organisation today also expressed concern over the SLCC's handling of the appointments affair. He said : "If the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission always choose the secrecy route in trying to hide their problems then I don't see how the public can have any confidence in them at all."

He continued : "This latest affair, which seems to show the Government and the commission were trying to hide their need for new lay members raises questions over the whole appointments process, especially where lay members are supposed to be independent of the legal profession and are there to balance the complement of lawyers already sitting on the SLCC."

A member of the public, who read my earlier report this week on the lay member scandal at the SLCC decided to call in and ask for an explanation.

He said : "After reading your report on Monday, I called the SLCC to ask why lay members were resigning but the person I spoke to denied there were any resignations or anyone wanted to step down, despite the fact it says in their own minutes a lay member was going to step down which you also published. How can anyone trust an organisation like that ?"

SLCC Chair Jane Irvine – greater clarity needed at SLCC for new lay members. To end the theme of secret resignations & secret appointments for now, the SLCC managed a two line reference in their April minutes to the ‘delay’ of the lay appointments round. The SLCC’s Chairman, Jane Irvine is quoted in the briefest terms as saying : “The Chair also advised that SGvt have agreed to defer the additional appointment of Lay Members to the Board until there is greater clarity over need by the SLCC.”

However the April minutes have only now been released, months after the events took place which you read by clicking on the following thumbnails :

SLCC April’s minutes – published 5 months late, hopefully not for public eyes ?

So, it seems, secrecy and outright lies are the order of the day at the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, where news of internal scandals and the failures of its board members to live up to their expected duties towards the public are concealed, just in the same way the Law Society of Scotland conceals all its dirty operations. Is this what we expected from the hard work put in on the Legal Profession & Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 2007 ? I think not.

Scotland wins on devolution but after 10 years Scots still miss out on justice

Holyrood brings devolution but no justice for Scots. While Scotland celebrates 10 years of devolution with the anniversary of the Scottish Parliament, Scots have not enjoyed increased access to justice or increased rights against corrupt professionals or reforms to over the span of the Holyrood parliament to-date.

While there is no denying it the Scottish Parliament has given us a stronger voice in our own affairs, the fact remains that in the 10 year span of the Scottish parliament so far, there has been scandal after scandal in the world of Scots law, where the legal profession and vested interests have for the main, delayed, dodged, or even obliterated most cases seeking remedy of injustice in Scotland from the McKie fingerprint saga, to the fate of the Lockerbie bomber, to the very public, consistent failures at Scotland's Crown Office which have seen a string of high profile convictions quashed over ‘unsafe’ (doctored) evidence and even cases where the thoroughly guilty have walked free.

In the world of Scots civil justice, the pace of reform has been virtually non existent, with Scotland being one of the few countries where class actions are not allowed, simply due to fears the public will turn on the financial & legal sectors themselves , MacKenzie Friends, also still banned from the Scottish Courts, even after 39 years of service in the rest of the UK (and other countries), rights of audience reforms, initially brought in 20 years ago, still not fully implemented allowing the public to choose their legal representatives, rather than as things still stand – solicitors choosing their clients .. etc etc … the list is endless, suffice to say, Scots are third class citizens when it comes to civil justice, in fact, when it comes to any justice.

I am a supporter of Scotland having a Parliament. It certainly has given us a stronger and much needed voice in our own affairs.

MSPs – you pay their mortgage as well as your own but your house will be repossessed before theirs. I am not, however, a supporter of MSPs having us pay their mortgages (and everything else down to stamps) while earning £67,000 a year or the £96,000 a year the 6 Cabinet Ministers earn who do get their mortgages paid for by us. I am also not a supporter of the cosy arrangements certain MSPs have with the likes of the legal and financial professions, who seem to enjoy political favour after favour, where MSPs will happily take over parliament's time to put forward their friend’s policies or legislative proposals, while oh-so—obviously blocking members of the public access to elected representatives or victims campaigns seeking resolutions to a wide range of cases of injustice, simply because those campaigns or cases conflict with potential donations from the professions.

MSPs help the professions much more than the public. Put simply, its nice & fancy for an MSP, even a Cabinet Secretary to be seen with a bunch of bankers & lawyers at a fancy dinner, and then the next week, take over some Parliamentary time to raise a motion on their dinner host’s behalf, but its not so convenient for an MSP to do the same for, say, abuse victims, or a cancer sufferer asking for withheld medication just because he’s in the wrong postcode, or perhaps say to victims of poisoned blood products – “oh we can answer and settle your cases next week because we know who is guilty” …. no .. its just not possible to do, is it … our politicians are just not honest enough to take those kind of simple steps … there’s too much … “oh .. we’ll see what we can do” (while worrying about how much they can secure for doing or not doing it) and 10 years pass, and nothing changes.

So what good is a parliament and a Government to people if there is no justice ? Well, there are plenty countries around the world who have Parliaments and Governments but, like Scotland have high levels of injustice. Thoughts turn to comparisons with several South American countries, which also prompted officials from the United Nations to call Scotland's Justice system that of a "Banana Republic". They were right to do so.

William Wallace – he wouldn’t have wasted much time on bent politicians & crooked officials. Selling William Wallace to Scotland is fine, I think most of us probably look up to him, and oh, but to have someone like that in politics .. we will sadly never see. If, perhaps, we were able to travel back in time and inform William of how unjust Scotland is today, I suspect the response would be more of a raised claymore to those who commit injustice, cover it up, or prolong it for profit, rather than the usual bout of letter writing which many Scots and their families are forced to engage in to the smarmy, egotistical politicians of our day who lead only by cult and bluster, rather than face the truth by walking among their people and do as they are commanded by the very people they are supposed to serve, rather than rule.

I doubt William Wallace would have embarked in 5 or 10 year letter exchanges to help resolve the cases of victims who are denied justice, where perhaps the murder of a family member has gone without proper investigation, where innocent people have been vindictively set up with criminal charges only to be acquitted while politicians mounted a concerted attempt to cover up the falsehoods, negligence & corruption, where political interests have used our justice system to fiddle verdicts such as the Lockerbie trial , where victims of medical criminality have been allowed to die to protect corrupt civil servants who knew about poisoned blood products, and where the legal establishment (as I have reported on so often) have blocked legislative reforms to its own protection of crooked lawyers, crooked members of the judiciary, and unjust laws.

Of course, everyone laughs at people who claim injustice, don't they ? its funny .. it didn’t happen to someone (yet) so they are not too bothered … but they stop laughing fast when they fall victim to an injustice that also cannot be put right because the same politicians of our present day who cry ‘Scotland ahoy’ and claim to represent our best interests, are too busy prostituting themselves generally to those who are causing the injustice, for top dollar.

Indeed, while the public struggle & usually fail to secure hearings from politicians, businessmen whose foreign empires are built on gambling money, can apparently secure the undivided attention of politicians, with even Ministers rushing to their side, even willing to change & bend the law as long as big finance heads their way, that's Scotland today, nothing to do with William Wallace, I can assure you..

So what kind of a Scotland do we live in, when our Scotland has no justice and still no one humble or honest enough to give us justice ? Isn't it time we took back Scotland, for Scot's sakes ?

This is what Scots are left with on Justice after 10 years - a Justice Secretary who prides himself as owing a bunch of lawyers [and bankers] for putting him in power. But Scotland is made up of more than lawyers and bankers, Kenny …

Happy 10 years, Holyrood, but for my view, while people drop dead before receiving medication they’ve campaigned for 3 years to obtain, or abuse victims are denied help (even after writing to their MSP (now the Justice Secretary) for years) .. or victims of medical criminality die simply so that a few politicians & civil servants are spared the clink, there’s nothing much to celebrate .. just more work to be done, with maybe one day, an honest man or woman to be found among us who will do it, selflessly, without fear, serving and putting the community first, instead of vested interests & big money worship.

Justice Secretary forced into new appointments round at Scottish Legal Complaints Commission after lay member ‘steps down’

Scottish Legal Complaints Commission delayed publishing minutes to hide lay members resignations. The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission was caught up in another scandal tonight as it was revealed that at least one, so far unidentified lay member wants to stand down, provoking a new round of Ministerial appointments of ‘lay members’ who are supposed to have no links to the legal profession, to the beleaguered law complaints body.

Minutes from February 09 just published reveal that at least one lay member is to stand down. Revelations from minutes recently released show that one of the SLCC’s lay members, so far unidentified, has asked to stand down, and discussions have already taken place between the SLCC’s Chair, Jane Irvine, the CEO Eileen Masterman and the Scottish Government’s Justice Department over replacements and mysteriously also point to the appointment of an additional lay member. “Paper (08.07.5.1) was noted from the Chair. The Chair also stated that she and the CEO had attended a meeting with the SG to discuss the recruitment of an additional Board Member. It was noted that SG have agreed to the appointment of 2 additional Lay Members; this is due to 1 Lay Member wishing to stand-down in the near future so that there will be 1 additional new appointment. Discussion took place regarding the recruitment process for additional Members and it was agreed that the Chair would update Members as matters progressed.”

SLCC Chair Jane Irvine. The Chair of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, Jane Irvine, refused give an explanation for the sudden departure of a lay member, nor did she wish to identify the individual at the centre of the latest crisis to hit the ‘independent’ SLCC. Ms Irvine delayed any announcement on the matter by making the enquiry a ‘freedom of information request’, which can take anything up to 20 days to receive a reply.

A legal insider said tonight : “This latest problem to hit the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission shows it is unfit for purpose and should be scrapped in its present format. The delay in publishing these minutes simply because there were problems within the organisation the SLCC did not wish to reveal, demonstrates the commission is more focussed on protecting itself than protecting the interests of clients.”

He went on : “If the public and the profession are to be served by a regulator which will give the public confidence in the Scots legal services market, there has to be a totally independent regulator with full powers of prosecution and enforcement of discipline, rather than the idiotic arrangement we currently have where the SLCC will investigate a complaint and the Law Society will ‘punish’ the offending solicitor.”

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill decidedly unhappy over more disarray at SLCC. The Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill was asked for his reaction to the resignation and the requirement for a new round of lay person appointments to the SLCC. His spokesman said : “We wouldn’t comment on speculation about the board membership of an independent public body. Any further appointments that might be required would take place according to the statutory framework laid down in the Legal Profession and Legal Aid Act and the procedures laid down by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments in Scotland.”

An official from a Scottish consumer organisation who looked at the latest publications of minutes from the SLCC was staggered that ‘late publication’ had been used to conceal serious problems within the SLCC. He said : “This latest scandal points to an organisation which does not have the consumer’s best interests at heart. Concealing resignations of lay members by failing to publish information timely seems to indicate to me the Commission realises it has no public trust otherwise why fear releasing such information into the public domain ?”

He continued : “These events also raise many questions such as : if new lay members are to be appointed, where are the advertisements for these posts ? who will pay for this new round of appointments ? what are the criteria for these positions ? and why is there to be an extra lay member appointed ?”

“If an extra lay member is to be appointed which will leave the SLCC with one more lay member than lawyer members, will the legal profession object to the arrangement or ask for an additional lawyer member to be appointed ? I can see this developing into another big mess at the SLCC.”

Well we have an interesting set of circumstances here, as it looks very much like the Justice Secretary will have to appoint new lay members to the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, but where will these lay members come from ?

Are the replacement lay members to be more stooges from the legal profession or other self regulatory bodies who know how to protect the guilty from their victims ? I fear that will be the case, as the initial round of appointments to the SLCC by the Justice Secretary, which I reported on here : Call for MacAskill appointments 'sleaze investigation' as revelations show Legal Complaints Commission member was subject of Police inquiry left a lot to be desired in terms of transparency and accountability.

The SLCC board members : Do you want to join this bunch and be a lay member ? If you feel like contacting the Justice Secretary over the lay member positions at the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, contacting the Justice Secretary as soon as possible, HERE. You can also contact the SLCC to offer your services as a lay member by email, HERE. Just don’t expect to be taken on if you don't have relatives already in the legal profession .. which does seem to be one of the criteria for sitting on the SLCC and scoffing up to £350 a day in expenses.

Law Society of Scotland officials get top line access to SLCC meetings but clients are not invited. Full details of the February meeting of the SLCC, just published late this month, with the entire top brass of the Law Society of Scotland in attendance, can be viewed by clicking on the following images, where readers may also note, the poor dears at the SLCC are also still waiting for their pensions transfer …

SLCC’s February meeting, details just published in June ! :

So how about keeping the public informed on these appointments ? or is this another ‘secret squirrel’ operation to parachute in more sympathisers of crooked lawyers into the once claimed ‘independent’ Scottish Legal Complaints Commission .. which is now anything but independent.

Scots chartered accountants ‘are too dishonest’ to handle wills & executries as ICAS pulls out of rights of audience battle for legal business

Scots accountants regulator ICAS have withdrawn their application for rights of audience. The choice of which professional should ruin your legal & financial affairs after you are dead, is to remain unchanged for now, with the revelation that the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland have put 'on hold' their application to the Scottish Government for extended rights of audience to handle clients wills & probate services - work currently undertaken exclusively by solicitors.

Scottish Government made a short admission on accountants rights of audience battle. A spokesman for the Scottish Government today said : "ICAS have put their application on hold meantime. We will proceed once we hear from them again. We have no correspondence from ICAS other than the application. We had a telephone conversation with them some months ago but have heard nothing since."

ICAS had applied for rights of audience to the Scottish Government in July 2008, under the terms of Sections 25-29 of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1990, which I reported on in an earlier article, here : Accountants demand powers to handle wills & legal services, offering 'crooked' self regulation and little consumer protection in return

The 2008 application came after ICAS had tried unsuccessfully to amend the Legal Profession & Legal Aid (Scotland) Bill 2007, to enable accountants to enter the legal services business, which I reported on earlier, here : Scottish Accountants try to amend LPLA Bill for their own benefit - but refuse independent regulation safeguards for the consumer

A solicitor welcomed the news that ICAS had pulled their rights of audience application, claiming that accountants could not be trusted to handle the wills of dead clients, and warned the public there were little safeguards in the event a crooked accountant made off with the client’s money.

He said : "Considering accountants have little or no experience in the field of handling probate work in Scotland, and clients have even less safeguards in terms of protection from rogue accountants ruining their business, I doubt it would be in the consumer's best interests at this point in time to allow accountants to handle clients post-death affairs. I would therefore not advise a potential client or any of your readers to trust an accountant to 'wind up' their legal affairs according to their will."

The case of Scottish Borders accountant Norman Howitt (pictured left) made it dangerous to allow accountants to handle a client's will. The solicitor went onto continue his critique and suggested accountants be barred from any involvement with wills : "On the basis of the now well known case involving your own family and the accountant Mr Howitt who was executor to your family’s ruined estate, I have advised and put off several clients from appointing their accountant as 'executor' to their will. After having read of Howitt’s actions in your case, I feel accountants and others close to the deceased's financial affairs should be banned from becoming executors on wills they are closely linked with or are handling via their firms either in a personal or business capacity."

You can read more about the way in which an accountant in the Scottish Borders, Norman Howitt, helped a solicitor also in the Scottish Borders, Andrew Penman of Stormonth Darling Solicitors, Kelso, ruin my family's legal affairs, and how they got away with it, here : A picture is worth a thousand words - Images of fraud reveal corruption & deceit by lawyers & accountants in the Scottish Borders

While for now, chartered accountants in Scotland do not have the right to handle wills & probate services, they can conduct similar business in England & Wales, which you can read more about HERE

There are numerous reported cases where accountants, acting in the capacity as executor, have totally ruined the estates of deceased clients. Take it from me, there is as little protection against a crooked accountant robbing your life savings or ruining your legal affairs, as there is against a solicitor doing the same.

Often I have found, from not only the case involving my own family’s legal affairs, but also those many more cases brought to my attention by you, the public, that crooked lawyers, and crooked accountants seem to make a good team taking as much money for themselves as they can get before actions are discovered.

It is also a fact the Law Society of Scotland and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, both self regulators of their own professions, work together closely on many issues, and proliferate each other’s aims on occasions of investigations into crooked lawyers & accountants, by appointing each other’s members to their in-house committees, a subject which I tackled earlier, here : Fears over corrupt self regulation as accountants regulator draft in ex Law Society President and solicitor as Public Interest members

I would therefore recommended that members of the public who have already appointed an accountant as 'executor' on their will should immediately replace that person or their firm with someone who is a lot less involved in their financial or legal affairs and ensure whoever that person is, they are appointed with a set of specific instructions on what they can and cannot do, with a given timeline & cost not to be exceeded for the completion of their work.