An explosive row is threatening to bring down the top of South Ayrshire Council, it can be revealed.
The embattled body’s chief executive has moved to lodge an official complaint against one of her most senior councillors.
Eileen Howat wants Brian McGinley, the council’s depute leader, hauled over the coals.
It follows his blistering attack on her “poor leadership”.
Ms Howat, the council’s highest paid official on £130,000-a-year, has erupted with fury at being criticised.
Months of growing tension between the two has culminated in a grievance going to Scotland’s Ethical Standards Commissioner.
The Post understands more senior officers are now prepared to come forward and back up the content of Ms Howat’s complaint.
Cllr McGinley’s relationship with a string of top officials has become increasingly strained, according to sources within County Buildings.
And his latest broadside – seen by the Ayrshire Post – has brought matters to a head.
In it, the Labour leader openly challenges Ms Howat’s ability to lead change within South Ayrshire.
“The council is being directed by an approach that has outlived its usefulness,” he says.
He goes on to criticise the “debateable thinking and intentions” of a report put forward by Ms Howat on restructuring top level managers.
The report, approved by councillors in 2017, “epitomises many of the problems that are inherent within this organisation,” he adds.
Branding the report “at best misguided,” Cllr McGinley goes on to produce his own seven page dissection of its weaknesses.
He concludes: “The paper lacks coherence and ambition and is peppered with assertions with little effort to substantiate claims made.”
Ms Howat, who was sent the brutal review of her own work, has now come out fighting.
In emails defending her position, she has slammed “wholly inappropriate” discussions around her “ability and performance”.
She added: “In the last six months I feel that there have been a number of cases where my authority, and that of other senior officers, has been challenged in relation to operational matters outwith the remit/role of elected members.
“More recently there have been particular instances where there has been direct criticism of my ability/performance without evidence or justification.”
Ms Howat is due to face her routine Appraisal Panel this coming Tuesday, of which Cllr McGinley is ironically one of five members.
And the pair’s spat is now going all the way with Cllr McGinley being referred to the Ethical Standards Commissioner for Public Life, based in Edinburgh.
Ms Howat, who labels language used by Cllr McGinley as “pejorative,” adds that the complaint has been made “by virtue of this and other communications individually and also cumulatively.”
Ms Howat declined to comment when contacted by the Post.
Cllr McGinley failed to respond.
