Bullshitting For Beginners

I MUST admit, I channelled my inner Kelvinside Lady – Karen Dunbar's brilliant 'Chewin' the Fat' creation, when I read the SRU's press release in the wake of the Keith Russell Affair coming into the public domain – it was classic corporate bullshit.

• The response was too-slow, coming a full week after David Barnes and The Offside Line scooped everyone with their explosive Keith Russell interview.
  
• It failed to mention, or even show how Murrayfield intends to address THE main issue raised by the Employment Tribunal judgement – the fact Mark Dodson and Robert Howat so comprehensively failed to act properly throughout the process of sacking Russell.
  
• It totally fails to reassure the very-many concerned club officials and members who, having read the Russell Affair judgement, realise all is not well within the walls of Murrayfield and are concerned at where the Union is headed.

Let's take a hard, critical look at the SRU statement; posted online on th SRU's official website at: http://www.scottishrugby.org/news/18/06/17/joint-statement-scottish-rugby-council-and-board, it reads:

The Council and Board of Scottish Rugby wish to offer some comments in addition to the earlier statement issued on Saturday 9 June (given below).

We acknowledge the findings of the recent employment tribunal. Both Board and Council believe the terms and outcome of the judgement require further and important consideration.

On Friday 8 June the Chairman of the Board, Colin Grassie, instigated a full review to look into the sequence of events that led to the tribunal and matters in respect of the employment tribunal findings.

This is being led by Senior Independent Non-Exec Director, and former Solicitor General, Lesley Thomson QC and will be concluded as expediently as is practicable. For the purposes of the process Ms Thomson will take independent advice and will have available to her any resources as required.

Board and Council will work through any findings and recommendations which will be incorporated into our activities going forward.

Further to recent comments made in the media in respect of the culture and staff at Scottish Rugby: these are characterisations that we as a Council and Board simply do not recognise or accept.

Our staff work tirelessly to deliver for rugby in Scotland at all levels. The values of our sport underpin our actions and culture as an organisation. Council and Board share this commitment to these values also.

We are fortunate to enjoy excellent relationships with The Scottish Government, sportscotland and all our many sponsors and partners. These enduring relationships are fundamental in enabling our sport to be successful on and off the pitch in so many ways.

The Council, Board and Staff at Scottish Rugby are committed, and aligned, to continuing to build on our current strong foundations and developing our sport at all levels.

This is demonstrated by Council and Board’s continued commitment to Agenda 3 in respect of which further documentation will follow shortly. The opportunity to debate this fully will arise at the forthcoming AGM.

In conclusion we wish to place on record our full support for our executive and staff.

Statement of 9 June 2018: “Scottish Rugby acknowledges the outcome of the tribunal and, while there are some areas of the ruling it disagrees with, there will not be an appeal. We will now be reviewing the judgement in detail and working with Mr Russell to conclude the process.

Scottish Rugby stands by its decision to change the leadership of the domestic rugby department given the fundamental importance this area of the sport plays in all aspects of game in Scotland."

That statement was issued on 18 June – apart from the final two paragraphs, which were released as a statement on 9 June – as a response to The Offside Line (TOL) and The Sunday Times (Scotland) publishing the Keith Russell interviews which revealed the disaster Russell's dismissal had been for the Union.

Now, just maybe, had the original 9 June statement revealed the matter was in hand and the decision had already been made to hold an internal inquiry into the matter, the affair might never have caught fire as it has.

Looking in-depth at the 18 June statement, my conclusion is: over-cooked and over-complicated, seemingly intended to baffle through waffle. Well done Matt Horler, Dominic McKay or whoever wrote it – to repeat myself, classic corporate PR bullshit.

The statement runs to 12 paragraphs, 423 words. If you remove the duplication and waffle, this whole statement could have been abridged into a snappy statement of less than 200 words, or even, something like this – which would certainly have re-assured the clubs and club members across Scotland:

The judgement in Keith Russell's Unfair Dismissal case demonstrates, the SRU handled Mr Russell's dismissal very-badly indeed. The judgement shows, Dodson and Howat acted like a pair of prats and cost us as a Union and you as the stakeholders a great deal of money.

We are reviewing their behaviour, prior to stringing them up by the balls from the Murrayfield cross-bars. However, unlike Dodson and Howat dealing with Keith Russell, we will go through a proper disciplinary process first. (That's 80 succinct words only, no more needed to be said.)

BUT, for me, and for one or two people to whom I have spoken over the past weekend, there is a more-worrying aspect of the SRU response. The Union has instigated an internal review of: “the sequence of events that led to the tribunal and matters in respect of the employment tribunal findings.”

 Lesley Thomson QC - who will lead the SRU internal enquiry

***pic courtesy of Fotosport - Dvid Gibson ***

An internal review is fair enough, and to be expected, and, given her track record, I have every confidence in Lesley Thomson QC's ability to lead it and to reach the proper conculsions. However, by her membership of the SRU Board, Ms Thomson is, I would suggest, conflicted.

Surely Dodson must have told the Board in the lead-up to sacking Keith Russell, something like:

• I can no longer work with Mr Russell – we are singing from different hymn sheets, he has to go.
  
• Hopefully, the Board would have asked - better before the sacking, but surely afterwards – Are we on solid ground legally? Have you followed employment law guidelines? Is he going quietly?
  
• Any negative answers, then the news Keith Russell was suing, should have had the Board asking – Do we have a strong case? Will we win it?
  
• Any doubt, and surely the Board should have been asking for some other face-saving alternative?
  
• If the Board did not ask this, or if Dodson didn't inform the Board, then that Board collectively, is guilty of falling down on the job.
  
• Who is a member of the Board and therefore bound by the doctrine of “Cabinet Responsbility”? Why Ms Thomson.
  
• How then can she properly conduct a review which satisfies the stakeholders?

By all means have a review SRU, but, perhaps a properly-independent one. Not one chaired by a probably conflicted  Board member; a greater degree of proper independence would have offered more reassurance to the main stakeholders – the clubs.

OR, is it, as we are becoming more and more convinced: a case of THE CLUBS DO NOT MATTER TO MURRAYFIELD?

Finally, a question for the stakeholders' – the clubs' – representatives at Murrayfield: the Council members, and in particular the 16 directly elected by the clubs to represent them.

The statement of 18 June re-affirms your collective support as a Council to the SRU's values and your commitment to these values – values which were nowhere to be seen when Dodson was acting illegally in sacking Keith Russell.

How can you continue to support such illegal action? And worse, how can you continue to support a man of whom there is clear evidence – he considers you a hindrance and an impediment to how he wants to run YOUR (and our) Scottish Rugby Union?

This story will run further than Forrest Gump (LOTS more to follow).