THE committee set up to investigate how misconduct allegations against Alex Salmond were handled by the Scottish Government is to raise issues concerning the “preservation of evidence” with the First Minister.

Convener Linda Fabiani announced the move after MSPs were told Scottish Government computer systems “automatically delete material” not saved onto the corporate record system after a period of time. Permanent Secretary Leslie Evans wrote to the committee to say she has “instructed the halting of the automated deletion of some users’ content”.

Fabiani announced the committee would write to Nicola Sturgeon, saying this would “be relevant to the preservation of evidence which maybe relevant to the remit of

this inquiry”.