Cllr James Dalgleish cleared by Standards Commission

Cllr James Dalgleish, who is Education Convener on The City of Edinburgh Council, appeared at a Standards Commission hearing on Wednesday, and was cleared of any breach of the Councillors’ Code of Conduct.

There were three potential grounds on which a breach could be claimed – confidentiality, courtesy and respect, and bullying and harassment, and the councillor was cleared of any wrongdoing on all of these.

This followed a complaint lodged by Edinburgh resident, Angela Chitzanidi, in April this year about an alleged breach of confidentiality by the Leith Walk councillor. Cllr Dalgleish had forwarded on an email from Ms Chitzanidi which she had sent the day after a September 2025 Education Committee meeting.

The Education Convener had forwarded the email from her – she is an employee of the University of Edinburgh – to the Complaints email address at the University, seeking that his own identity would remain anonymous.

It was led in evidence that Cllr Dalgleish had forwarded the email to what he described as a “generic” university email address within an hour of receiving it to try and ascertain whether this was a view of the university or intended as her personal view. The Panel decided that sending the email from her work address meant it was reasonable for anyone reading it to question it in this way. The circumstances also led them to believe that the email did not “carry a sufficient expectation of confidence such that it should reasonably be regarded as being of a confidential or private nature for the purposes of the Code”.

Cllr Dalgleish asked in the email whether the university would “condone” the language which the complainant used in her email.

The complainer said to Mr Dalgleish’s advocate, Ross Cameron, that she would not agree that there was no request in the email for her to be disciplined or reprimanded. She said: “This was sent to the university’s complaints address, so it was sent as a complaint. Therefore, the complaints process was used in order to handle this email, and the outcome of a complaints process would be for the complaint to be thrown out as it was in this case, or for me to be disciplined.”

Although there was no agreed statement of facts available for the hearing as it had been – according to the Commissioner – provided too late – few of the facts in the case were disputed.

The email from Ms Chitzanidi followed a meeting when transgender toilet provision was discussed by the committee. In evidence she confirmed that she has an interest in politics and in transgender issues.

Her email included her name, job title and email address – but these details were found to be publicly available on the university website, and the panel decided that by forwarding her email containing these details there was no breach of confidentiality.

She sent the email to eight councillors – all members of the Education Committee and another councillor, Cllr Euan Hyslop, afterwards with the recipient list freely available for anyone to see. This fact alone was mentioned in the decision as counting against any claim of confidentiality.

The panel also noted that the complainer lived in the Edinburgh council area, but it was a matter of discussion whether anything in the email could be considered confidential. If an email is sent from a constituent seeking help on a personal matter then it was distinguished that this type of request would have carried a higher level of confidentiality.

But the email which Ms Chitzanidi had sent to the councillors contained her political views, some wordy criticisms of the committee, and Cllr Dalgleish in particular who she described as “vacuous”. She also said that he was someone who lacks principle, political courage and competence and she said “shame on you who continue to prop him and his colleagues up”.

Mr Cameron asked the complainer if she agreed that she did not like Cllr Dalgleish, but she replied that she did not know him as a person but agreed that she did not like him as a politician.

Mr Cameron, again speaking on behalf of Mr Dalgleish, said that the email was not confidential in the first place, and that not every piece of correspondence between a councillor and a constituent could be described as confidential. He added, the complainant had “made a conscious decision to email from her university account which was a public email account with an address that was publicly available” and went on to say that “the more people who receive an email, the less likely I see it is to be confidential”.

The advocate also said that the contents of the email were “political advocacy” rather than conventional casework that a councillor would normally encounter.

Complainer

Ms Chitzanidi said: “I had read all the reports and I know the background and the context and I thought that what they were deciding was quite serious and I wasn’t happy about it, and I just wanted to express that I wasn’t happy about it. I wanted them to know that there’s people that are actually watching what they’re doing, and we know and we’re paying attention, and we’re holding them accountable.”

The meeting on 2 September covered the treatment of transgender children in schools in respect of the provision and use of toilet facilities, school away days and sports activities.

We asked Cllr Dalgleish about the decision after the hearing and he confirmed he was relieved. He said: “It has not been a particularly nice process for anyone. I know it can affect people’s mental health and wellbeing this situation. I am glad that the Commission has cleared me of any wrongdoing. I now just want to get back to my work as Education Convener and to representing my constituents in Leith Walk.”

Work email

Ms Chitzanidi was questioned at some length over the use of her work email for this purpose. She confirmed that she even used her University email to correspond with her father and that although she had a Hotmail account it is only ever used for booking tickets.

While the University recommends that any member of staff “Do not mix personal and work content in an email” there does not appear to be any specific veto on sending emails of a personal nature on a work email address.

On 19 September the University of Edinburgh, contacted Ms Chitzanidi to say that an anonymous complaint had been received about her – and it related to the contents of her email. No action was taken against Ms Chitzanidi by her employer although Cllr Dalgleish’s concerns were considered by the university in an internal process.

She did not know at that point who had forwarded on the email but said she thought it had to be one of the councillors – and confirmed that it was without her consent.

She first made a complaint to the council and then having been told by the council that she could do so, she made a formal complaint to the Ethical Standards Commission on 6 February 2026 which was accepted for investigation on 21 April 2026.

Councillor Dalgleish

The basis of complaint against Cllr Dalgleish was that she had sent him a private and confidential email which he then disclosed to her employer. It was confirmed in evidence that the email was not marked private in any way. Ms Chitzanidi, a Research Computing Support Officer at University of Edinburgh, had also said that it was her belief that Cllr Dalgleish intended to intimidate and harass her.

The panel heard the submissions on confidentiality, courtesy and respect, but the Commissioner said at the beginning of the hearing he had found that there was no breach in relation to harassment.

It was suggested to the complainant that the terms of Cllr Dalgleish’s email were “bland” and it did not contain any abusive language, and in fact it did not contain the word “complaint” anywhere.

Cllr Dalgleish said at the hearing: “I believe some of the language that was used just wasn’t warranted. I think that the individual cod have put forward their point without the use of the language which they chose to use. I was a bit taken aback by that, but it is not the first time and will certainly not be the last time I have received emails from a constituent or other stakeholder who was unhappy with a decision.”

When asked about his own email to the university he explained: “My email was bland, sober, not emotive in any way. I didn’t want to curry favour, fear or favour in terms of the email I was going to send. I wanted it to be as neutral as possible, not to inflame and not to criticise. That would have been against everything I feel you should do as a councillor.”

Although the complainer agreed that the email from Cllr Dalgleish was inoffensive, she said that the context of the email was important. He had mentioned that her email was sent during work hours, and it mentioned the language she had used. She said: “I think that is all threatening.”

The Ethical Standards Commissioner tried during the hearing to make a distinction about the specific data being divulged in an email. He alleged that political and philosophical data are special category data or sensitive data and should be afforded more care. He asked this question of Cllr Dalgleish a couple of times, but the councillor said the difficulty had been not knowing whether the email came from a person in their personal capacity or representing the views of the university. The Commissioner also pursued a line that consent was key and he had “no lawful basis for processing the data in this way”.

Mr Bruce also said that her email “was never intended for wider circulation” except the councillors to whom it was sent. He said in summing up: “It certainly wasn’t intended for her employer.”

Every councillor in Scotland is bound by the Councillors Code of Conduct published by The Scottish Ministers. The complaint by Ms Chitzanidi was considered by Ian Bruce, Ethical Standards Commissioner who confirmed at the beginning of the meeting that he concluded that Cllr Dalgleish had breached the Councillors Code.

Regardless of his view – which he presented during the hearing – it is for the three person panel to make the final decision on whether the code has been breached.

The panel decision was delivered by Mr Bell at 2.30pm. He said that the panel of three had decided that forwarding the complainant’s email to her employer did not breach the councillors’ code of conduct. The email did not carry a sufficient expectation of confidentiality because of the work address used, it was not marked confidential and it contained criticism of various councillors and was sent to all members of the committee.

In addition there was no breach of the code by Cllr Dalgleish in relation to matters of courtesy and respect or bullying and harassment provisions.

The Panel will issue a written decision within 14 to 20 days.