Calls for kirkyard project investigation

March 21, 2019 at 12:10 pm

OIC issued an unreserved apology last month in response to the upset caused to families, who claimed that they had received no warning that headstones would be taken down.

As reported in today’s The Orcadian, an OIC councillor has called for an investigation into why hundreds of Orkney gravestones were laid flat without notification to families.

With work officially set to begin this week to return some headstones to their former state, Councillor David Dawson confirmed on Tuesday that he has asked the council’s internal audit team to examine the work of the controversial kirkyards safety project.

“What I’m looking for is to identify any failures in process, or if the process is deficient in any way, or if there were any human errors or shortcuts taken,” Councillor Dawson explained.

“Nothing is going to be swept under the carpet with this. I intend to get a full and transparent picture of what went wrong and where it went wrong.

“It’s pretty clear from what the UK Ministry for Justice Guidelines states, you will see clearly that we didn’t follow guidelines. I’m not going to speculate what exactly went wrong, or where, or why, but a lot of questions have been asked.”

OIC also could not confirm how many headstones were laid flat in the initial project, or how much money will be spent on the restoration programme.