A senior Aberdeen councillor has been cleared over claims he lied about a £100million penalty clause in the city’s controversial Marischal Square deal.
Labour’s Willie Young, the local authority’s finance convener, was found not to have breached the code of conduct by the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life.
Opponents of the £107million office and retail scheme lodged a complaint after Mr Young suggested in January that abandoning the Muse Developments project would cost more than £100million.
The commissioner Bill Thomson found, however, that there had been no breach of the “honesty” section of the code because the information had been provided to Mr Young by council officials.
In a written ruling, the head of the watchdog said: “There will be many occasions where information used by councillors will emanate from officers and I consider that it is generally reasonable for councillors to be able to rely on the accuracy of that information.”
Last month, the commissioner cleared 20 Aberdeen councillors of a separate complaint relating to their alleged failure to respond to communications from Marischal Square objectors.
Mr Young said last night: “Once again the Standards Commission have found in my favour.
“I understand some people being anti the development of Marischal Square but I do resent the fact that people think that we acted in an unreasonable way, because it’s not true.
“We listened to the objectors and we did everything that a reasonable council would be expected to do, but at the same time we made a democratic decision, and actually when people see the Marischal Square finished, people will wonder what the fuss was about.
“It will be a great development, worthy of the city of Aberdeen.”
William Skidmore, who made the complaint against Mr Young, said the ruling was “predictable” and that the investigation was not “robust”.
“Elected officials are routinely cleared of any allegations of a breach of the code of conduct,” he said.
“Only the accused is questioned and his or her denial is sufficient to satisfy the commissioner that there is no case to answer,” he said.
“Secondly, the commissioner accepted the claim by Councillor Young that his statement regarding the cancellation fee of £100million was based on inaccurate information he received from officers.
“In other words, the commissioner himself also blames the officers for embarrassing Councillor Young by giving him inaccurate information.”