Corruption in the HIE?
A surprising item came up at the BBC – apparently the head of the HIE also runs his own consultancy company, and has been awarding contracts to his own business:
Enterprise chief cash row probed
Contracts awarded by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) to a company run by the chairman of the agency are to be investigated.
The internal probe into almost £100,000 worth of contracts given to Willie Roe’s consultancy firm Rocket Science is to be overseen by Audit Scotland.
The firm recently had to repay an £8,000 consultancy fee to HIE following claims it had plagiarised information.
Here’s my somewhat naive idea – that employing business people in local goverment bodies is a great idea – you bring in commercial experience civil servants are unlikely to have.
However, when you’re hired in that position, you provide your expertise directly to your employer – in this instance, HIE. You don’t try and farm out contracts to your own private interests. That’s a conflict of interest.
The BBC item makes a claim that HIE’s internal review system is investigating this, and that internal procurement systems were believed to have been followed – but how on earth can anyone claim that the boss of a company can really instill confidence if he is perceived to be creaming the system for his own gain?
I can certainly see that a business owner would see the strengths of their own company, and flaws in competitors – but wouldn’t it make better sense to hold competitors properly to account using your knowledge and experience, rather than take an easy decision to award contracts to yourself?
To be sure, the contracts involved are in the region of £100,000 – a drop in the ocean for the HIE’s budget of just under £80 million – but it gives every suggestion of self-interest, not public interest.
In the meantime, it looks like William Roe is having to reconsider whether he wishes to retain his HIE salary of £47,905.
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