Recent Scotsman reports have confirmed a prevailing culture of secrecy which is not there by accident. We learned how in February a freedom of information (FOI) request in relation to care home deaths continued to be blocked until after the election by the National Records of Scotland (NRS) following an intervention by the Cabinet Secretary.
We later read that another FOI request revealed, after the First Minister had appeared on TV rejecting suggestions that the “death rate” from Covid in care homes in Scotland was higher than in England, that the Scottish Government had been sent a bulletin a week earlier by the NRS stating that 46 per cent of Covid deaths had taken place in Scottish care homes compared to 28 per cent in England and Wales.
It was also revealed that a “communications framework” obliges Public Health Scotland to “risk manage” communications which “could be…
