You can tell a lot about ministers by the state of their briefs

Published on Friday 12 June 2009 10:10

ALEX Salmond likes to be supplied with photographs of people he's going to meet; Finance Secretary John Swinney must be addressed as "Minister"; and Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson is a stickler for spelling and grammar.

Meanwhile, Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop is keen to hear from officials how her speeches go down; and civil servants working for Housing Minister Alex Neil are banned from using the phrase "I am afraid" in letters.

The foibles of Scottish Government ministers are revealed in a series of internal documents published under Freedom of Information legislation.

The documents, known as "ministerial preferences", give guidance to officials on preparing briefings, parliamentary answers, speeches or letters for ministers.

They detail how quickly ministers speak – Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead is rated the fastest at 180 words per minute while Community Safety Minister Fergus Ewing is the slowest at 85wpm – along with their choice of font and type size for speaking notes and the deadline for getting reports into the "boxes" they take home to read in the evenings and at weekends.

The guidance on the First Minister's requirements tells officials that briefings for meetings or events Mr Salmond is to attend should include "a list of people the First Minister will meet, with short biographical notes – particularly on political background – and photographs if possible. This should include a table plan if appropriate."

The guidance stresses Mr Salmond's need for ammunition when he is answering questions in the chamber.

"All briefs should contain verbatim third-party quotes, with sources, which support the Government's approach. These can make all the difference to the success or not of a brief."

It also urges civil servants to suggest people to whom Mr Salmond could send congratulations "in recognition of sporting achievement or artistic achievement and other success".

But the guidance says the First Minister's office receives huge amounts of correspondence, including around 500 e-mails a day.

And it asks: "Please do not send e-mails to the First Minister's office for his attention 'in case' they are of interest."