21. Letter to the Commissioner from
the Director of Strategic Projects, Department of Resources, 17
March 2010
Thank you for your letter to [the Director of Operations]
of 10 March. I am replying on behalf of the Department of Resources.
I am afraid that we have not been able to discover
any records which would cast light on Mr Mackay's discussions
with the then head of the Fees Office in 1997 (that official retired
in 1998). Nor do we have any records which indicate that any later
consideration was given within the Department to the elections
which Mr Mackay and Ms Kirkbride made as to their main and additional
homes.
The Department was certainly aware of the arrangements
in the sense that both Mr Mackay and Ms Kirkbride made their declarations
openly. I think that it is reasonable for Mr Mackay to have inferred
from this that the Department had no difficulty with the arrangements.
Mr Mackay's arrangements were subject to a story
in the Telegraph
in May 2009, but no action was then taken by the Department because
of the impending review conducted by Sir Thomas Legg.
As you know, Sir Thomas concluded that Mr Mackay
and Ms Kirkbride had obtained a financial benefit unintended under
the Green Book rules and therefore had acted contrary to the principles
governing it. Sir Thomas's conclusion was subject to an appeal
to Sir Paul Kennedy. Sir Paul's conclusion was that, if the advice
given by the Fees Office was as Mr Mackay suggests, then that
advice "was plainly
mistaken" and that Mr Mackay should
have recognised it as mistaken. Sir Paul also suggests that Mr
Mackay's arrangements had lost sight of the purpose of ACA.
I have no reason to dissent from Sir Thomas's and
Sir Paul's conclusions that Mr Mackay was not within the rules
in claiming second home allowance for his London home. I regret
that the original advice of the Department, and its subsequent
inaction, may have given Mr Mackay comfort in his claims.
17 March 2010
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