Cammy calls lawyers over timesheet claim

Published on Monday 25 April 2011 14:59

A CITY councillor is considering legal action after a publicly-funded trust he used to work for accused him of "irregularities" in his timesheets.

Councillor Cammy Day, who represents the Forth ward, has dismissed the claims by officials at the North Edinburgh Trust (NET) as "false and inaccurate".

The Labour councillor, who replaced the late Elizabeth Maginnis following a by-election victory in November 2008, said he will consult a solicitor about the claims, contained within an official complaint by the NET to the Standards Commission about all four Forth councillors.

The Evening News has seen a copy of the complaint, which primarily relates to a joint letter signed by Liberal Democrat councillor Elaine Morris, SNP representative Steve Cardownie, Conservative Allan Jackson and Cllr Day.

Within the complaint, NET vice chairwoman Elizabeth Stevenson, said: "Cllr Cammy Day was employed by NET as a development worker up to February 2010, when he resigned. At the time of his resignation he was in discussions with the chief executive in connection with irregularities in his timesheets and records of work."

The NET, which still includes a picture of Cllr Day on its website, is a community development trust that is mainly funded by the city council, Scottish Government, Big Lottery Fund and Capital City Partnership. It has also received funding from the Lankelly Chase Trust and Climate Challenge Fund.

Cllr Day said: "If they had an issue with my work they should have dealt with it then. This is false, it is inaccurate and there is no evidence to back it up."

When asked whether he would consider taking action against the Trust as a result of the allegations, he said: "I need to ask our legal services people. I will be taking council legal advice and my own legal advice about what they are claiming.

"I did not leave the Trust under bad steam. My time was up and I was becoming too busy as a councillor, so I did not leave under a cloud.

"There is no evidence of this whatsoever. Their information is false and inaccurate and should never have been included in a complaint about councillors."

Council sources say that, if timesheet irregularities were proven, it would have an impact on his role as a councillor. One insider said: "If he has been falsifying time sheets when it is public money that pays his wages then that is very serious. Whether or not it can be substantiated now that he has left (his job] I do not know.

"If that case is proven it would raise serious concerns about whether he could continue in his role as a councillor."

The complaint about the four Forth councillors was made by the NET after they sent a joint letter to trust chairwoman Betty McVay saying constituents had raised concerns about the way its Just The Job programme was managed and that, following an investigation by council officials, a second round of funding was being withdrawn.

In the letter, the councillors said that, as a result, a number of young people would not have access to training for employment and asked what actions Ms McVay would take "to ensure that such a lapse does not occur again".

The NET then lodged the official complaint with the Standards Commission on the grounds that "the letter contains a number of inaccuracies, alleges irregularities that we are unaware of, fails to identify the source of alleged concerns, is not on official City of Edinburgh Council letterhead and is written in a clearly intimidatory manner".

Nobody at the NET was available to comment today.