Civil servants tried to tone down critical NHS report
Scottish Government accused of control freakery
The Scottish Government has been accused of control freakery after it emerged senior civil servants attempted to water down a critical report on the NHS produced by Scotland’s public spending watchdog.
Nicola Sturgeon’s administration came under fire after correspondence between the government and Audit Scotland revealed the lengths to which officials went in an attempt to change the wording of the report.
The correspondence, which has come to light under Freedom of Information legislation, discloses that civil servants described drafts of the report as “alarmist” and unbalanced.
Officials, including Paul Gray, chief executive of NHS Scotland, and Christine Mclaughlin, the director for health and finance, objected to the tone of the independent analysis conducted by Audit Scotland.
They attempted to make changes to the report before it was published. Their attempts to replace extracts with their own text painting the Scottish Government in a more positive light were largely rejected by Audit Scotland.
Their complaints have come to light just two weeks after Ms Sturgeon was criticised for questioning Audit Scotland at First Minister’s Questions.
Audit Scotland’s report “NHS in Scotland 2016” was published in October last year and said increasing costs, staffing pressures and cuts were putting pressure on the health service. Shortly before its publication, Ms Mclaughlin met Audit Scotland to discuss a draft of the report.
A government note of the meetingsaid:“reportincludes a lot of subjective, alarmist and sometimes clumsy language e.g. NHS are resorting to, struggling...”
In the final version of the document the term “resort to” was dropped. The word “struggling” was retained. There were 35 requests for changes for accuracy and a further 51 “points of clarification”.
Shadow health secretary Miles Briggs said: “This is the behaviour of a control freak SNP government rattled by its own shortcomings.”
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “Audit Scotland is responsible for the content of its reports. It is normal practice for Audit Scotland to share draft reports in advance to allow the Scottish Government to provide comments or clarification on points of accuracy.”
An Audit Scotland spokeswoman said the report was subject to the usual fact checking processes and any changes made did not “alter our independent conclusion that the NHS in Scotland faces major challenges as a result of rising demand and cost pressures”.
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