There’s a process by which some public bodies, established with good intentions, turn rogue over time. It exploits the trust and goodwill of the public towards institutions they’d always been urged to respect.

The Standards Commission for Scotland is the latest public institution whose customs and practices have been called into question. Last week, its attempts to block vital evidence from being presented at a disciplinary hearing against Glasgow Councillor Fiona Higgins, were ruled unlawful by a senior Scottish judge sitting at the Court of Session. Ms Higgins, whose council ward includes some of the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Glasgow, is a former teacher who had spotted some troubling discrepancies in the local authority’s planned education cuts. When she’d asked some questions about this, she was subject to a complaint to the Standards Commission on the grounds that she’d made a senior council officer "uncomfortable". The Standards Commission is one of those public bodies, like the Forestry Commission or the Crofting Commission, of whom we are vaguely familiar. Having been set up in 2000, it was regarded as a totem for the newly-devolved Scotland we all hoped for.

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Its framework is governed by the Nine Nolan Principles of Public Life as they affect local councillors, members of public bodies and MSPs. These are supposed to include Accountability and Stewardship, Openness, Honesty and Respect. In seeking to get answers about why the Glasgow public were being apparently misled about the extent of........

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