I was not surprised to hear the news that the home of Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell had been searched by police yesterday. Nor was I surprised to hear that the head office of the SNP has been visited as well. This issue has been brewing for far too long and the possibility of such action has always existed. What I will not comment upon, of course, is whether or not there are issues for anyone to answer. I do so with good reason. I do not know.
What I do, however, know is that accountability is vital. This is not just true in politics. It is true of every organisation. When a commitment is made and action must follow, then evidence is required by those to whom obligation has been assumed as to what has happened. That should not be a surprise. Despite that, accountability is one of our commodities in very short supply.
The whole edifice of corporate accounting is built upon the basis of denial of responsibility. It is pretended that the only obligation that a company has is to report to its shareholders. This is not true when glaringly obviously there are other stakeholders with concern as to the activities of what are quite appropriately called public interest entities. These other stakeholders are:
- Other suppliers of capital.
- Trading partners, whether suppliers or customers.
- Employees, whether past, present or future.
- Regulators.
- Tax authorities.
- Civil society in all its forms, from local authorities, to journalists, politicians, researchers, NGO groups, and individuals whose lives are impacted by the organisation that is reporting.
By definition, if an entity is defined as being of public interest then it has to account to the public. Despite that, the entire accounting profession seemingly exists to deny this obvious fact.
International financial reporting standards, which are the rules that underpin the whole of accounting in more than 100 countries around the world, including the whole European Union and the UK, suggest that it is only shareholders and the suppliers of capital to a company who have any right to information from it. Even then they say that right only exists with regard to the decisions that they might make on whether to supply a company with funds, or not. That is the narrowest possible focus of concern that could be defined. It is glaringly, obviously inappropriate.
I cannot say for certain that those in authority elsewhere take their lead from accountants, but the denial of accountability appears to be extraordinarily commonplace, not least in politics and political parties.
The Conservatives long ago gave up being accountable to their members.
Labour and the SNP still, however, hold conferences at which motions are passed by their members, and then the leadership completely ignore what was decided. If those leaders think that they can be that unaccountable, it is hardly surprising that other errors of judgement to take place.
I stress, I have no idea what is going on in the SNP. It has never been my business to know. I am, however, quite sure that a revolution in accountability is required, not just there but throughout politics, business, and in society at large. The pretence that organisations that seek to have an impact on the lives of others are unaccountable for the consequences of their actions is no longer tenable.
Those with responsibility need to be brought to account. Those who refuse to accept that responsibility need to be expelled from office. That's a pretty straightforward rule. Its application would transform public life, politics, business and well-being. No wonder those with power fight so hard to resist it.
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Accountability should mean that the BBC (which claims to be notionally independent of government) should be formally accountable to the licence-payers who pay for it.
It isn’t.
It’s accountable to a government department.
That is called democracy
I’ve always thought that all organisations should be:
Accountable
Transparent
Responsible
Inclusive
Democratic
And there should be a way to independently rate organisations, after all, if you have nothing to hide
Also yesterday Belgian and German police raided the offices of EU party group, the European People’s Party (EPP).. it seems corruption and malpractice is rife wherever there is power.
Presumably, with the SNP there is no smoke without fire. Even if every £ is found and accounted for their obfuscation is intolerable. We have got used to Conservative Party funding from corporate unaccountable donations and probable overspending in elections when you look at the mass of glossy leaflets they distribute which must cost a fortune.
As far as the Labour Party goes, they have lost thousands of members through the Corbyn fiasco and are now cozying up to the corporates for funding as well. On accountability, despite overwhelming votes at the Labour Conference in favor of proportional representation the leadership and NEC refuse to support this transformative reform that would make UK politics far more democratic.
Given the nature of Limited Liability I find it bizarre that there is no reporting requirement for what I would loosely call ‘creditors’ which would clearly include employees whose livelihood depends on a Company and Tax Authorities to ensure that their interests are properly protected.
I have said many times that this is a real issue with party politics, all parties have, shall we say, skeletons in the closet, and I believe that is why we will never progress.
“If you expose us, we’ll expose you”
Do political parties have to be audited?
In any case, surely a competent forensic accountant (such as yourself Richard) would get to the bottom of this missing £600k PDQ?
I suspect I could do it with less than 20 coppers taking away files for two days.
I admit that seems bizarre overkill. But, there may be more to this than has been said.
The issue was first aired in Jan 2020 and this very recent article gives proper context https://wingsoverscotland.com/lipstick-on-your-collar/
It’s not through lack of trying…’three members of the SNP’s finance committee resigned in March 2021 over Peter Murrell’s refusal to let them see the books and investigate where the money was’
I feel rather sad for the SNP to be honest and for Scotland but also all of us – maybe I’m prejudging but we deserve better than this and the sooner the public only funding of political parties becomes the requirement and the norm, the better.
Tory Party and their mates pocket £37 billion on track and trace and nothing….
Tory Party and their mates profiteer and make millions on utterly useless PPE throughout COVID and nothing….
Tory Party and their crooked mates make millions from Russian black money and nothing…
Tory party is known to be riddled with corruption, tax dodging and avoidance and nothing…
I could go on and on but all of Scotland know exactly how corrupt these people really are sitting in government at Westminster , so I wont because the list would be too big…
But anything to do with SNP ?
Oh of course, it has to be a massive uproar and basically 24hr coverage, showing completely over the top and totally ridicules amount of Police presence, mixed in with deliberate misleading accusations, speculation and yes blatant upfront lies in regard to what is actually going on over ”POSSIBLE”, yes at this stage, ”POSSIBLE” wrong doing…
Which if it turns out to be true that wrong doing has indeed taken place, then that is totally fine and those that did the wrong doing will be dealt with and face what ever consequences the law dictates and decides is the appropriate punishment…
But honestly folks and totally regardless of whether you are a Pro-Scotland/Indy person, or a unionist, or if you are and SNP member, or not…
The sheer and utter hypocrisy from the UK MSM right now that is being shown, broadcast and printed is nothing but totally disgusting and a complete insult to all people living in Scotland and its only an idiot, or complete moron who would fail to see why the UK MSM are reporting the fiasco in such a way as they are doing and if people take offence at that, or disagree with what I have said, then that is perfectly fine but in all honestly, I not interested in what you have to say….
As seriously, the anti-Scottish UK MSM are more interested in £600,000 that was donated voluntarily, than it is in the billions upon billions of pounds of taxpayers money that was stolen, sorry meant awarded to their mates in dodgy contracts during COVID…
So yes, I am not interested in what anyone has to say if they are too stupid to see what is blatantly going on right now, be they Pro-Scotland/Indy, or they are a unionist…
Your comments on scale and what appears to be quite extraordinary use of police resources at the home of Peter Murrell are fine
I agree that many Tory issues have not been investigated.
But that does not mean my opuntia on accountability is wrong – and prima facie there has been an ongoing accountability issue to resolve in the SNP for some time. And resolution is what is needed. I make no further judgement.
It gives me no pleasure whatsoever to see what is happening to the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon. She is one of very few politicians who have been able to command respect across a wide spectrum. The lesson I take is that it is never a good thing for those in power to retain that power for too long. It applies to business and civil society as well as to politics. It tends to lead to an increasing lack of accountability and transparency, with honourable exceptions.