HES staff survey review 'won't be pretty', interim CEO admits
The interim chair and interim CEO of Historic Environment Scotland faced a grilling from MSPs
A scandal-hit heritage quango will need outside help to recruit a new leadership team to recover from a “long period of turbulence”, MSPs have been told.
Ronnie Hinds, the interim chairman of Historic Environment Scotland (HES) and interim chief executive Stephen Uphill gave evidence to a Holyrood committee.
Mr Uphill described internal staff feedback from an equality report - which the organisation refuses to publish - as “horrific”.
Of an ongoing staff survey about HES culture, he added: “I don’t expect the results to be pretty.”
To try to make the appointments without additional help “would be to proceed on a hope and prayer”, Mr Hinds told the Culture Committee, adding: “I really don’t think that is what we should be doing.”
Mr Hinds also called the decision by previous senior staff to spend £2.9m on the Archive House project without proper board oversight “inexcusable”. The project to create a world-class storage centre in Bonnyrigg was halted in 2024.
The organisation, which is responsible for hundreds of historic properties, including Edinburgh Castle, has been rocked by a series of controversies exclusively revealed in The Scotsman.
These include that a senior staff member was sanctioned for twerking in front of actor Martin Compston.
HES has also faced allegations of corruption and an internal racism row.
Mr Uphill was pressed on how many of the 30 recommendations for change made in a report had been completed.
The Martin review “closely examined” concerns surrounding a “toxic culture” in HES, and found it had suffered from a “combination of unproductive relationships between the HES board and senior executives, a lack of joint visible leadership, and limited collective accountability”.
Mr Uphill could not tell MSPs how many of the recommendations had been implemented.
READ MORE:Historic Environment Scotland CEO Katerina Brown 'to step down' from role at crisis-hit quango
When pressed on this by deputy convener Senga Beresford, Mr Uphill said: “I am afraid I don’t have the number for you.”
He added: “It’s not about, dare I say it, ticking boxes of particular recommendations, it’s about a direction of travel and bringing HES back into the position it needs to be in.
“I don’t have a tick-box answer for you I am afraid, but we are taking all those recommendations, and the recommendations from other reviews, into the transformation programme.”
Mr Uphill said he had joined HES at Christmas last year to “bring some stability to the leadership”, but he added: “These things take longer than anticipated.”
Mr Uphill and Mr Hinds were also asked about procurement cards.
It was revealed that HES’s 1600 staff had access to 400 purchasing cards, raising concerns about a lack of spending oversight.
This was in light of revelations in The Scotsman around procurement irregularities and allegations of inappropriate use of hospitality.
Mr Uphill told the committee the number has now been reduced by 108.
He added: “I would say to the committee, sadly because of the press attached to that, some of our staff actually handed in their cards because they didn't want to be potentially accused of doing things wrong, which is really sad.
“Because, as we said at the time, e-procurement cards are a way that, with a geographically dispersed organisation such as HES, we can enable our staff to make purchases in even local DIY shops to help maintain the estate.
“So there's there's there's a bit of a slightly sorrier story from that reduction in cards.”
He added that individual spend limits had also been placed on the cards.
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