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The condition of politics: populism and opportunism
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Familiar Faces: Part 2
Kenneth Roy
If Gary Coutts (ex-Edinburgh Labour councillor) is proving to be a more or less permanent fixture at NHS Highland, where his chairmanship has just been renewed for a third consecutive four-year term, there are others in McQuangoland with almost as much enduring appeal. Concentrating for the time being on NHS boards (heaven knows what I might find elsewhere), I bring you Andrew O Robertson, chairman of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.
Mr Robertson will be familiar to regular readers as the man who presided over the aborted Blawarthill development, which would have put St Margaret of Scotland Hospice out of business in favour of a scheme involving Southern Cross Healthcare. You will remember Southern Cross. Who could possibly forget them? They had a terrible record of looking after, or not looking after, old people in their care, and when the going was about to get not so good some of their top guys cashed in the chips and walked off with millions. Still our vigilant financial press failed to detect a smell. Right to the inglorious end, Southern Cross kept winning contracts from public authorities to ‘care’ for some of our most vulnerable people. Why? You’d better ask the NHS and their ‘partners’ in local government.
I will not rehearse in detail how SR tried to alert Mr Robertson – as well as the wider Scottish public – to our well-informed belief that Southern Cross was running out of dosh and most unlikely to be in a position to offer anybody a bed at Blawarthill. No attention was paid to these warnings. All too soon our direst predictions came true: Southern Cross went belly-up, taking the Blawarthill project with it.
At one stage I suggested that Greater Glasgow and Clyde might be better off with a new chairman: fresh start and all that. Naturally what has happened is that, in recognition of his outstanding work, Andrew O Robertson has been reappointed chairman for another four years at the going rate of £39,936 a year: a contract worth a tidy £160,000.
It will surprise no-one who knows how public appointments in Scotland operate that he has been succeeded by a recently retired local authority chief exec rather than by someone outside the familiar loop.
Click here for Familiar Faces: Part 1
Kenneth Roy is editor of the Scottish Review
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