STIRLING councillors have voted to keep a Labour representative previously suspended for bullying as the head of an anti-bullying taskforce.
At a crunch meeting on Thursday, SNP group head Scott Farmer described the decision to appoint Danny Gibson as convener of the council’s children and young people committee as “totally and utterly inappropriate”, adding that it “beggars belief”.
Gibson has also been appointed head of a “short-life” working group which will oversee efforts to tackle bullying and harassment in the city’s schools.
Gibson was suspended from taking part in council business for five months last year after he was found to have breached the councillors’ code of conduct for behaving disrespectfully towards council officers and bullying a senior council officer.
The SNP group put forward a motion on Thursday urging councillors to rescind the appointment, but this was voted down by Labour and Tory representatives.
After the meeting SNP councillor Gerry McLaughlan told The National: "Today we witness in the raw, the agreement between the Tories and the Labour Party in Stirling.
"Labour have placed a councillor who was found guilty by the Standards Commission of bullying, in charge of an anti bullying working party. It is Alice in Wonderland politics.
"The Tories joined with Labour to make sure that he kept his job. We are not surprised. We witness every week the complicity between the two."
The SNP motion to remove Gibson as convener was voted down by 11 votes to eight. Gibson did not speak during the meeting other than to vote.
Farmer said during the meeting: “It beggars belief that we would have a bully chairing a working group on bullying, violence and aggression in our schools.”
Independent councillor Alasdair MacPherson, who voted with the SNP group, said he thought it was a “sick joke” Gibson had been given the position, adding it showed the Labour Party was “morally bereft”.
SNP councillor Susan McGill added: “We have a duty to hold high standards of behaviour and to act as positive role models, and Councillor Gibson hasn’t acted with integrity.”
She went on: “I believe Councillor Gibson should step down [as convener] with immediate effect. What example is he giving out to impressionable young people of Stirling?”
The Standards Commission for Scotland said following a hearing on Gibson’s behaviour last year that “such serious breaches of the code have the potential to interfere with the effective operation of the council, to undermine the important relationship between council officers and elected members, and to bring the council into disrepute – as well as potentially exposing it to successful legal challenge.”
It found Gibson’s behaviour to be “entirely inappropriate and unacceptable”.
Labour councillor Margaret Brisley accused the SNP group of “mischief-making and politicking of the worst possible sort” as she argued the Standards Commission had reached its conclusion and “that is the matter finished”.
In one incident looked at by the Standards Commission, Gibson was also found to have acted disrespectfully towards an applicant’s representative at a licensing board meeting.
At that meeting, Gibson – who previously served as deputy council leader – was further found to have breached the provisions in the code that require councillors to act fairly and being seen to act fairly; take into account only relevant and material considerations; and when making decisions on quasi-judicial and regulatory matters which would include licensing applications.
Gibson was also found by the panel to have become inappropriately involved in operational matters by attempting to pressure officers to take certain courses of action, in respect of issues relating to a development site and regarding the future of a community hall.
