Edinburgh Sucks! | Whistleblower heads to court

Alistar Frater

Whistleblower heads to court

By The Basa ⋅ June 23, 2006 ⋅

The news this week that the whistleblower in the Cityconnect and ELLP fiasco is heading to court for further action against the council for their bungling cover-up of the loss of about £400,000 from the public purse is good news for community education staff throughout the city if our mailbox is anything to go by.

Also coming up soon is yet another Employment Tribunal dealing with the case and even Children & Families staff who are not in the Community Education service have informed us that this is all good news for them.

However, according to the mail we have received, the big worry for the council staff is that this is all get’s swept under the table with a massive payout to the whistleblower, covered by confidentiality agreements before they head into the courts and confirms the staff’s fear that Edinburgh is a no-go area for whistleblowers.

If this heads to court, the big losers will be not only politicians but also the most senior officials within the Children & Families department, namely Johah Jobson and Fraudster Rosendale.

News into us is that Rosendale has been privately admitting that because of the publicity on this case, especially on this site, his employment prospects anywhere outside his current job are currently ranging around the 0-5% level and that 5% pertains to employment in the big hoose at HMP Saughton where he will take over kitchen duty from the previous incumbent, Lord Fawkes of Prestonfield.

Jonah Jobson is in a slightly better position because he is currently discussing his big golden goodbye before heading into retirement but with the possibility of a number legal challenges, both civil and criminal, into the handling, cover-up and later victimisation of a number of parties involved on the horizon it may be that Jonah’s payoff will have to be severely cut back because of his inaction in the case when all the facts come out.

Politically for Ewan Aitken and Lesley Hinds, if all comes out, it will be disasterous. What will be interesting is to see what stance Donald Anderson takes in the court cases as he was the one that received the whistleblowing emails and asked Rosendale to investigate and those orders were never carried out. Instead Rosendale instigated an illegal investigation into find out who the whistleblower was including illegally tracing that person’s IP address which is not only against Council policy but also against UK law.

A council spokeswoman said: “The council is looking at the issues raised by Mr Travers. We are addressing his concerns and taking them very seriously. His grievances are being dealt through normal council process and the situation is being addressed through the appropriate channels.”

The next questions coming up about this saga, is that how much council money has been spent on defending Rosendale’s Fraudsters through two Industrial Trubunals and the upcoming court cases. In the words of some labour councillors “this Cityconnect thing is just not going to go away”.

More Info: Whistleblower takes legal action