Fife Council has been asked to investigate alleged leaks to the press following the collapse of Lomond Homes.
The possibility confidential information was handed over about the precarious situation the building firm was in was a “deliberate betrayal of trust”, according to SNP group leader Peter Grant.
He said whoever was behind it may have killed off any chance of keeping the firm, which owes the council nearly £500,000, from tumbling into administration.
Mr Grant claimed someone leaked confidential information about Lomond Homes to the press on at least two occasions. He was among a group of councillors who had a confidential briefing from the director of finance on January 11.
“I’ve now had information from within the council and from other sources that convinces me that someone in the council had already disclosed much of this confidential information to the press before the briefing was issued,” said Mr Grant.
“At that point only a small number of officers and a handful of very senior councillors should have known what was going on. One of them has shown that they’re not fit to be trusted with confidential information.”
He claimed to have seen evidence the confidential briefing itself was leaked less than 48 hours after it was issued.
“Whether both leaks came from the same person or from different people this double breach of trust could seriously undermine the willingness of the business community to share confidential information with the council in the future,” he warned.
The opposition leader says the media had every right to publish, but the person behind the leaks needed to be identified and dealt with “very severely”.
“In the often brutal world of business survival, when a company is struggling the last thing they need is for full details of their plight to be made public, yet it seems that someone in Fife Council has decided to do exactly that.
“We can only speculate as to what on earth they thought this would achieve but they weren’t acting in the best interests of the council, they weren’t acting in the best interests of the people of Fife and they certainly weren’t acting in the best interests of the company.
“As things stand, it’s quite possible that whoever was responsible for the leaks was responsible for killing off any chance the company had of keeping out of administration, and they may have seriously dented the chances of the company’s creditors, including Fife Council, getting our money back any time soon.
“This is an exceptionally serious and deliberate betrayal of trust and I have asked the chief executive to investigate it as a matter of urgency.”
Council leader Alex Rowley replied: “On his issue about leaks, as far as I am aware the only leak that took place was the brief he and other group leaders got.
“I discussed this with the officials last weekend and we will have to consider how such briefings are provided in future.
“However, the key point that we should not lose sight of is that local communities and councillors have been raising their concerns about this company and the sections 75s (planning agreements) over a number of years and were continuing to raise these concerns with me and through the press up to last week.
“The difference is I was listening, and asking the questions of officials that should have been asked long ago. The last leadership sadly did not do that.”
Council chief executive Ronnie Hinds confirmed he had received Mr Grant’s request for an investigation.
leclark@thecourier.co.uk