Arbitration 'not appropriate' for Alex Salmond complaints, MSPs told

The prospect of using arbitration to resolve internal sexual harassment complaints made against Alex Salmond by civil servants would have been "inappropriate", MSPs have heard.

Former first Minister Alex Salmond

Paul Cackette, former head of legal services at the Scottish Government, revealed civil servants making complaints about Mr Salmond had rejected an offer of formal mediation to resolve the matter.

The Scottish Government suffered a court defeat last year to the former SNP leader over the process it used to investigate the complaints made by two civil servants - at a cost of £630,000 to taxpayers. Mr Salmond was also separately cleared of 13 charges of sexual assault in March this year at the High Court.

Mr Cackette said today the Government's legal department became aware there were problems with the case in October 2018 - three months before settling the case with the former first minister - as he appeared before a specially convened committee of MSPs looking into the Scottish Government's handling of the case.

A tranche of documents were today released by Mr Salmond's legal team by the committee that show that he had made offers of arbitration which could have settled the issue out of court.

Mr Cackette said this was rejected for a "range of reasons”.

"It's not generally regarded as an appropriate means of resolving a dispute where there is a significant degree of factual disagreement in relation of harassment," he said.

"The view we took was that it was not possible to completely separate out the substance of the complaints from the arguments about procedural irregularity."

Mr Cackette added that since the complainers had rejected the chance of mediation, the government was not inclined to go back to them again and ask about the prospect of arbitration.

The Scottish Government case collapsed after it emerged the investigating officer heading up the probe into the complaints against Mr Salmond had been in previous contact with the complainers about the case.

Mr Cackette said he first became aware of this in late October and admitted that it was a "potentially significant problem”.

"I realised that if the circumstances were as they were set out by the petitioner, then that was a very serious issue," he said.

Asked why the government took more than two months after this to concede the case, Mr Cackette said a process involving a "number of stages" then had to be undergone to establish the full circumstances.

"It took time to work out what this actually, really meant," he said.

"It wasn't, in that sense, really a slam-dunk moment."

The judicial review cost the Scottish Government £630,000 in expenses, including Mr Salmond's own costs, with about ten to 12 lawyers having worked on the case on behalf of the Scottish Government.

Asked if the extent of the costs reflected that it had taken "some time" for the Scottish Government to concede the case, Mr Cackette said: "In a sense, yes."

The Salmond committee will take evidence each Tuesday while the Scottish Parliament is sitting. They are due to hear from Mr Salmond himself next month, when Ms Sturgeon is also expected to give evidence.

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