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Highland councillor censured for ‘inadvertent’ breach of councillors’ code of conduct

Councillor Allan Henderson when he was chairman of HITRANS. Sandy McCook
Councillor Allan Henderson when he was chairman of HITRANS. Sandy McCook

A Highland councillor has been censured by the Standards Commission for Scotland for failing to declare an interest at a council meeting he was chairing last year.

In an online hearing yesterday, Lochaber councillor Allan Henderson was found to have breached three points in the Councillors’ Code of Conduct.

They involved a motion to approve £170,000 of additional funds for work relating to Skye Aerodrome and proposing to write to the transport secretary on behalf of the council and Hitrans, the regional transport partnership.

Mr Henderson was at the time chairman of Hitrans, which was a member of a working group established for the purpose of developing Skye Aerodrome into an airport.

The Standards Commission panel ruled Mr Henderson should have declared his interest in Hitrans, because a member of the public ‘could reasonably conclude his interest as being sufficiently significant as to affect his discussion and decision-making’.

The panel accepted Mr Henderson’s role as Hitrans chairman was unpaid, and that the funding approved by the committee would not benefit Hitrans.

A specific exclusion in the code for members of regional transport partnerships would have allowed Mr Henderson to take part in this discussion and decision-making, had he declared this interest.

The panel also accepted Mr Henderson’s mitigation that his failure to comply was inadvertent and an oversight, for which he had apologised unreservedly.

Skye resident Tom Stephen, who is against the development of the Skye aerodrome, originally reported the breach to the Standards Commission.

He said: “The whole business around this airport affair gave the impression of a cosy stitch-up by many of those in the various organisations and those with positions of power and influence.

“The final straw was watching the chair of the committee making the decision not bothering to declare that he was also the chair of Hitrans, which was heavily involved in all stages of the process.

“I am pleased that such complacency has now been reprimanded, and hope that in future council members will remember the importance of transparency in all their conduct.”

Mr Henderson said after the hearing: “I was delighted that the panel accepted that as Hitrans chairman, I had the right to take part in the debate, but I took full responsibility for the technical oversight of firstly declaring the interest to gain this right, and apologised for the oversight.”