Some pretty devastating stuff in the papers this morning about Michael Gove's Department of Education and the use of personal emails.
The Financial Times journalist Chris Cook has unmasked the controversy after putting a Freedom of Information request into the minister's department to find information on a discussion about replacing personnel in the department.
However civil servants were unable to find the messages when asked to retrieve them for it appears that all conversation was made via Googlemail.
The story appears to have surfaced following an email sent in February from Dominic Cummings, who is Michael Gove's chief political aide.
He wrote to colleagues stating that he "will not answer any further e-mails to my official DfE account".
He then went onto say that
"i will only answer things that come from gmail accounts from people who i know who they are. i suggest that you do the same in general but thats obv up to you guys – i can explain in person the reason for this."
The Department has immediately responded by saying that the request related to Conservative Party business rather than that of the Education Department.It also says that the FT story gives an entirely misleading impression of Mr Cummings's email.
The story is not going to do away.The Information Commissioner has contacted the top civil servant at the Department for Education after being passed emails by the Financial Times and Shadow secretary Andy Burnham will be raising his concerns with the cabinet secretary.
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