THE INVESTIGATION

Scotland’s most senior civil servant, Permanent Secretary Leslie Evans, will not resign after Alex Salmond made a series of serious allegations about her professional conduct, according to the government. Evans was accused by the former first minister on Friday of abject failures before, during and after the government’s inquiry into two harassment complaints against him. Her involvement with the complainers and the failure to ensure the inquiry was fairly conducted ensured it would be ruled unlawful, but Salmond claims senior officials at the government and SNP then worked to ensure and encourage his criminal prosecution in the hope it would mean their failures were buried.

Salmond, who claimed during his evidence that Evans had broken the civil service code, said that after a hearing at the Court of Session in January 2019: “I used the normal language and suggested that perhaps the permanent secretary should now consider her position. I did that because I knew that she had claimed ownership of the policy.

“Somebody has to accept responsibility for a calamitous occurrence and defeat. As I said in the earlier session, it was not a botched policy but an unlawful and unfair policy tainted by apparent bias, according to the court ruling.”

The Scottish Government said Evans would not resign and that civil servants had acted with integrity and impartiality throughout.