THE new chair of the Scottish Police Authority has defended Justice Secretary Michael Matheson for questions the judgment of her predecessor over the botched plan to reinstate beleaguered Chief Constable Phil Gormley.

Susan Deacon, who took control of the body who oversee Police Scotland’s £1 billion budget, told Holyrood’s Justice Committee the SNP minister would have been “failing in his duty” had he not intervened.

Acting Chief Constable Iain Livingstone also criticised the previous SPA leadership, saying they had, effectively, cut him out of the loop over what was happening with Gormley.

Last November, the SPA voted to allow Gormley to come back to work, despite allegations of bullying and an investigation by the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (Pirc) into claims of misconduct.

Matheson found out about the SPA decision two days after it had been agreed and less than 24 hours before Gormley was due to start.

He then spoke to Andrew Flanagan, the then Chief Executive of the SPA and asked if due process had been followed, and that if SPA had checked with both the force leadership and the Pirc, into whether this was appropriate.

Shortly after that call, the SPA stood Gormley down again.

Lawyers acting for the Chief, who has denied the allegations of bullying, calling them “vexatious and opportunistic,” accused Matheson of acting in an “unlawful” manner.

Deacon, making her first appearance in front of a Holyrood Committee since taking on the job, said her predecessor’s handling of the affair had been found “wanting in many, many ways”.

She was concerned about the process, she told SPA board members on her very first day that: “we simply would not under my watch be handling these matters in the same way in future”.

She added: “I’ve looked quite carefully at that particular meeting that has become the matter of considerable public attention and I found it wanting in many, many ways in terms of its process.

“And I will just add since this is also a matter of some considerable debate that had I been in the cabinet secretary’s shoes, and I have walked in these types of shoes in the past, then I would have asked questions about process as to how that decision had been made and personally I think the Cabinet Secretary would be failing in his duty had he not asked those questions.

“I will also say for the record that if at any stage in my tenure as chair of the SPA the processes that I follow required to be questioned in that way by a Cabinet Secretary then I would regard that I would have failed in my duty as chair.”

Meanwhile, Livingstone told the committee he had asked for an update from Flanagan after the November 7 meeting and the following day was told that “deliberations were ongoing”.

He said he was then told by Flanagan on November 10 the SPA had taken the decision to extend Gormley’s leave. “But I wasn’t told actually that there had been a decision, a reconsideration and then another decision,” he said.

Deacon added that while she was working to address criticisms of the SPA, it will likely “take many months for the SPA to really be operating in the way both in systems, cultures, practice, governance structures and so on that I think it needs to do.”