A Stirling councillor has been suspended from taking part in council business for five months after he was found to have breached the Councillors’ Code of Conduct for behaving disrespectfully towards council officers and bullying a senior council officer.
Labour councillor for Stirling North, Danny Gibson, appeared before a hearing of the Standards Commission for Scotland at Stirling Council’s Old Viewforth HQ on Wednesday.
Following the hearing, the panel today (Friday) has imposed a five month ban on Cllr Gibson - who previously served as deputy council leader - for a series of breaches of the Councillors’ Code of Conduct.
An allegation that he called a senior female officer a "boot" in a telephone conversation with another councillor was thrown out.
In a statement issued today, the Standards Commission for Scotland said: "Following a Hearing held in Stirling on 21 June, 2023, Stirling Councillor Danny Gibson was found by the Standards Commission to have breached the Councillors’ Code of Conduct for behaving disrespectfully towards council officers, and for having bullied a senior council officer. Cllr Gibson was suspended for a period of five months."
In one of the incidents, Cllr Gibson was also found to have acted disrespectfully towards an applicant’s representative at a Licensing Board meeting.
At that meeting, Cllr Gibson 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.
In addition, Cllr Gibson was 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.
Witnesses told the hearing he belittled council staff, issued a “personal attack” and behaved disrespectfully on a number of occasions.
One of the claims against Cllr Gibson alleged that he spoke to council officers – including senior councillors – with a lack of respect.
Click here for more news and sport from the Stirling area.
One of the accusations relates to a planning application for flats in the Riverside area of the city. It was stated that Cllr Gibson had began to copy then SNP councillor Alasdair MacPherson into emails on the application to council officers and that in May of 2019 Cllr Gibson had requested officers to serve a “stop notice” – halting work at the site – due to concerns he had over HGV vehicles accessing the site.
Cllr MacPherson said that he “distanced” himself from the emails as he felt Cllr Gibson was “getting in on legal matters” and needed to “stand back”.
Council officers later indicated to Cllr Gibson that serving a stop notice could leave the council open to a legal challenge and no notice was served.
It was further alleged that at a pre-agenda meeting in October 2019, which was attended by council officers as well as councillors Gibson and MacPherson, that Cllr Gibson “belittled” council officers, including a senior manager.
Cllr MacPherson said that the meeting left the manager ”utterly demoralised” and that other council officers had been left “shaken” by the way he had been treated and he then raised the meeting with the chief executive.
At the pre-agenda meeting, it was said by Cllr MacPherson that Cllr Gibson had “belittled and harassed” council officers and “contested the rationale behind their decisions”.
Giving evidence, chief operating officer Brian Roberts said: “What started as a pre-agenda meeting on paper quickly became a personal attack.”
Cllr Gibson was said to have been in dialogue with the local community council on the matter over the stop notice and he claimed that by not serving the notice Mr Roberts had “dropped him in it”.
It was further claimed that he had been pressuring officers to use their “delegated authority” at the site.
Mr Roberts added: “I felt it was personal, that I had either deliberately or inadvertently dropped him in it.
“I felt I was being belittled in front of colleagues and my professionalism was being questioned.”
In mitigation, Cllr Gibson said that he did not have an “unhealthy obsession” with the site and went on to say that he was not pressuring officers to use their delegated authority, but was in fact supporting them to use all of the delegated authority at their disposal.
Cllr Gibson added: “Brian (Roberts) is a fantastic officer and I have a huge amount of respect for him.
“I was genuinely sorry that those were his feelings on the matter.”
None of the witnesses were able to recount specific words used by Cllr Gibson towards officers.
Another allegation relates to a licensing panel decision for a Shell petrol station on the A9 southbound at Balhaldie in October 2019.
At the licensing committee meeting, it was said that Cllr Gibson had treated Shell’s legal representative with disrespect.
Former SNP councillor Maureen Bennison, who chaired the committee at that time, said that Cllr Gibson began to speak over the applicant’s solicitor and was becoming “argumentative”.
Ms Bennison said: “I was mortified.
“It was a public meeting and I didn’t want the licensing board brought into disrepute.
“It was cringey.”
Ms Bennison then contacted licensing board members to arrange a meeting and the members’ concerns were put to Cllr Gibson about his behaviour who, according to Ms Bennison “didn’t seem to be too bothered by it”.
Cllr Gibson said that he was simply challenging the Shell legal representative on the application and he was the only councillor that voted against it.
Tory councillors, Martin Earl and Douglas Dodds, told the hearing they do not recall Cllr Gibson crossing a line during the meeting, with Cllr Dodds indicating that, in his view, Cllr Gibson had simply been asking tough questions of the applicant’s legal representative.
The hearing heard a further allegation that in a private one-to-one phone call with Cllr MacPherson, Cllr Gibson had described a senior council officer as a “boot”. However, the panel felt it did not have sufficient evidence to prefer one version of events to the other in respect of the issue and decided it could not uphold it.
Following the panel’s decision, chair Ashleigh Dunn said: “In this case, the panel found that Cllr Gibson’s conduct, towards council officers and others, was entirely inappropriate and unacceptable.
“The panel considered that councillors should be aware of the inherent influence their role brings and should note that as elected politicians, they are in a position of power over council employees. The panel therefore emphasised the importance of the requirement for councillors to behave respectfully towards council officers, in order for officers to be able to undertake their tasks without being belittled, or subjected to bullying, unwarranted pressure or interference.”
Ms Dunn added: “The Standards Commission considers 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. As such, the panel concluded that a five-month suspension was the appropriate sanction in the circumstances.”
A full written decision of the Hearing will be issued and published on the Standards Commission’s website within 14 working days.
