Council-owned firms ordered to advertise all jobs in bid to end cronyism

SCANDAL-hit Glasgow City Council has unveiled plans to tackle the perception of cronyism in the wake of the Steven Purcell affair.

Senior executives have ordered all the companies set up by the former council leader's administration before his dramatic resignation earlier this year to make sure they openly advertise all their jobs. Glasgow's network of council-owned firms – called Aleos or arm's length external organisations – have come under fire for the way they recruit.

Construction company City Building used headhunters to appoint senior staff, including a former general secretary of the Labour Party in Scotland, Lesley Quinn. Her post, and those of other executives, was not advertised.

The chief executive of Glasgow City Council, George Black, has now officially "recommended" that all Aleos advertise posts that they seek to fill, even if they have also hired headhunters.

A senior council source said: "No-one has ever come up with any evidence that recruitment practices at City Building are unfair. However, what this new measure does is guard against any such perception and stop anyone from making such claims in the future."

City Building is one of a number of arm's-length bodies running Glasgow council services. Others include Glasgow Culture and Sport, the charitable company to manage city museums, art galleries and leisure facilities. There are also Aleos running city markets, car parks and home help services. Councillors received more than 400,000 for sitting on the boards of such bodies under Purcell's leadership.

Graeme Hendry, an SNP councillor in Glasgow, questioned the way City Building had employed Quinn: "City Building should have ensured that they were not open to accusations of cronyism but unfortunately the way they conducted this appointment left them wide open to it."

A City Building Spokesman said: "City Building has used a recruitment consultant to fill a number of posts. On some occasions the external consultant has chosen not to advertise the posts, interviewing a number of candidates before making a recommendation of the strongest to us.

"The company is under no obligation to comply with recommendations that we should advertise all jobs. But we have chosen that in future we will do so."

Scotland on Sunday earlier this year revealed that City Building had donated 4,000 to the Labour Party by taking tables at a fundraising dinner.

The company also spent nearly 20,000 wining and dining Labour figures. Auditors from Glasgow City Council, meanwhile, have cleared the company of any wrongdoing over contracts granted to the Labour Party's biggest donor in Scotland, Willie Haughey.