A SCOTTISH Highland councillor has been suspended for two months after being found to have breached the councillors’ code of conduct.
Sutherland councillor Michael Baird, a LibDem, has been suspended after he was found to have been “disrespectful towards the chair and committee of a local community group".
Baird has accepted he breached the code of conduct and has since “apologised unequivocally".
The “disrespectful” exchange came when the councillor was involved with a project to transform Carbisdale Castle.
The castle is being passed to a community benefit board who will oversee opening up the castle to the public. The local group was consulted on a land purchase by Forestry and Land Scotland.
Baird became involved with the land purchase when he sent the chair of the local group an email in September 2023, stating that if the local group’s committee did not support the land purchase he would not support future funding for the local village hall.
Previous funding for Culrain Hall, nearby to Carbisdale Castle, has come from the council’s discretionary ward budget.
The panel also heard that councillor made repeated calls to the committee chair and made “several unannounced visits” to their home.
The panel said that while Baird was allowed to advise how ward funding should be spent, what he sent the local chair what could be interpreted as a “threat".
Morag Ferguson, Standards Commission member and chair of the Hearing Panel, said: “The panel found that councillor Baird, as a ward councillor, effectively threatened to use his position and influence over the expenditure of ward funds to pressure the chair and committee into making a decision on a wholly unrelated matter.
"The panel considered that the making of such a threat in the circumstances was disrespectful towards the chair and committee.”
In the circumstances, the panel concluded that a two-month suspension was the appropriate sanction. Ferguson added: “The Code of Conduct does not prevent councillors from assisting constituents. The panel considered, however, that councillor Baird could have done so without issuing any threat concerning council funding.”
The panel did not consider that Baird’s conduct, in respect of two other issues of complaint, amounted to a breach of the Code of Conduct.
