Scottish Ministers - No Notes, No Minutes No Records
The Scottish Government’s modus operandi under Sturgeon is ‘no notes, no minutes, no records’ - in order to make it as difficult as possible to hold the First Minister and other government ministers to account.
Remarkably, Scottish Ministers seem to keep poorer records than your average corner shop.
Coronavirus: Sturgeon had 'no written briefings' on Covid for months
By Tom Gordon and David Bol - The Herald
Coronavirus: Sturgeon had 'no written briefings' on Covid for months
NICOLA Sturgeon received no written briefings from her chief advisers on coronavirus during the first months of the global pandemic, the Scottish Government has admitted.
Despite chairing Scottish emergency committee meetings on Covid, the First Minister received only verbal updates from her chief medical officer and national clinical director.
The Government said the advisers also shared no written briefings with Health Secretary Jeane Freeman at the time.
At the daily briefing, Ms Sturgeon insisted she had received “lots of briefings and lots of advice” in other ways than writing, and said she and Ms Freeman were “completely focused on this”.
However Scottish Labour said the absence of regular, detailed written briefings was “unbelievable and deeply disturbing”.
Ms Sturgeon was previously accused of a “dereliction of duty” after it emerged she missed six UK-wide emergency ‘Cobra’ meetings on the Covid threat in January, February and early March.
The latest revelation emerged after Labour MSP Neil Findlay made a freedom of information request for the briefing suppled to the First Minister between January 24 and March 9.
At the time, the deadly impact of the virus had already been seen in China and Italy.
Scotland’s first confirmed case of coronavirus was announced on March 1.
Mr Findlay asked the Scottish Government for a copy of any briefing, written advice, or report written by the National Clinical Director [Professor Jason Leitch] and/or the Chief Medical Officer [then Dr Catherine Calderwood] and/or anyone in their team(s) in relation to Scottish preparations and planning for Covid-19 that were produced between the 24th January and 9th March.”
The Government said no such written briefings existed.
The official replying to the Lothians MSP said: “I have completed my search and confirm that no reports/ briefings were shared by the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) or the National Clinical Director (NCD) to either the Cabinet Secretary for Health & Sport (Cab Sec) and/ or the First Minister (FM) on the subject you requested during the time period identified.
“In fast moving situations such as the response to Covid-19, new information constantly emerges and existing data continuously updated.
“Senior officials such as the CMO and NCD need to distil this information quickly and make sure that Ministers are briefed as new information is presented.
“To ensure this is done expediently, sometimes briefings will be presented verbally.
“This was the case in relation to Scottish preparations and planning for Covid-19 between the 24th January 2020 and 9th March 2020.”
Asked about the freedom of information response and lack of written briefings, Ms Sturgeon said: “I haven’t seen the FoI. I’m happy to have a look at it.
“What I can say categorically is I got a great deal of direct briefing from the chief medical officer at the time, the interim chief medical officer who was deputy chief medical officer at the time, and from others as appropriate across the Scottish Government.
“I started to chair meetings of the Scottish Government Resilience Committee specifically on Covid round about the 28th or 29th of January.
“So the Scottiish Government generally and me in particular with the Health Secretary were completely focused on this.
“There’s a range of different ways and means by which ministers receive advice. Sometimes it’s in writing, sometimes it’s in discussion.
"I’m sure that’s been the case since time immemorial and will continue to be the case, particularly in a very fast moving situation.
“That’s the general response I would give you, but I’m happy to look at the particular freedom of information request, and if there’s more I want to add to that I’m happy to do so.”
Mr Findlay said: “The assertion that neither the CMO nor the National Clinical Director provided ministers with written advice during such a critical period is both unbelievable and deeply disturbing.
“How can experts advise the government without issuing written advice?
“The Scottish Government talk about wanting to be open and transparent, yet once again they refuse to publish minutes of key meetings between the former CMO and her UK counterparts. Covid-19 is one of the biggest health crises of the last 50 years – the public must be able to scrutinise the advice and decisions made.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson later appeared to contradict the text of the FoI repsonse, saying it FoI referred only to briefings received by the CMO or NCD which were then passed to the First Minister’s of Health Secretary’s office.
“That is not the route by which briefing would be received by the First Minister and it is therefore wrong to suggest or infer that no briefings have been received on the basis of the material in this response.”
No Fault, No Blame, No Records - No Accountability!
Scotland's Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) is part of the Scottish Government and with every day that passes the people in charge are giving the notion of 'good government' a bad name.
.
No Fault, No Blame and No Records (16/02/21)
Alex Massie pokes fun at the latest Scottish Government scandal while making a very serious point - how can fault be admitted and yet no one be at fault?
"Remarkably, if revealingly, lawyers for Whitehouse and Clark have claimed that meetings to discuss the case chaired by Mulholland went unminuted. Or, at the very least, any minutes have not been released. If so, if confirmed, that is worth more than a raised eyebrow. Once again, where is the accountability and how could anyone sensibly think that a prudent basis upon which to proceed?"
Apparently the costs of this catastrophic failure are likely to rise towards £100 million which is an eye-watering sum of public money - with not a thing to show for such enormous expense.£100 million would pay for a large chunk of Glasgow's outstanding equal pay bill, for example, but yet again there is zero accountability from public officials and their political masters despite their hugely costly 'mistake'.
The other shocking aspect of this malicious prosecution is that yet again there appears to be no proper written record of crucial meetings - something which has come back to haunt the First Minister and the Scottish Government during the Salmond inquiry.
Siri, Define 'Criminal' (10/02/21)
Scotland's Lord Advocate (a member of Nicola Sturgeon's cabinet) admits a Crown Office prosecution was malicious forcing the public purse to pay out £24 million in damages and costs.
Yet no 'criminality' was found, so they say, but how can that be - do they think we're all daft?
Because the definition of malicious is 'characterised by malice or intended to do harm'.
