Forwarded e-mails from ministerial e-mail addresses to personal email addresses: FOI release

Information requested

Number of times government ministers have forwarded e-mails or documents from their ministerial e-mail addresses to their personal e-mail addresses in calendar years 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 to date?

Please provide the data broken down by the name, and role of the government minister for each year. If the same individual held two different ministerial posts, please provide the figure for that individual separately for each ministerial post they held.

Please also provide a breakdown of the number of e-mails forwarded which contained documents, vs the number of e-mails which did not for each government minister/individual.

Response

Please find below a table outlining a breakdown of emails sent by a government minister to their personal emails account(s) including whether they contained an attachment.

Ministerial Post	With attachment(s)	Without attachment(s)
First Minister	0	1
Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture	3	3
Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care	0	1
Minister for Business	1	0
Minister for Higher and Further Education; Minister for Veterans	2	1
Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport	2	0

The emails included in the above table all relate to 2025, except 1 email which is dated 2022.

It is important to note that on appointment, government ministers are provided with a government device which can be used to conduct their business as they see fit. On occasions, due to logistical reasons, this may include forwarding an email to their personal account(s).

In addition, it may be helpful to explain that Ministerial Mailboxes are primarily transactional – managing incoming and outgoing emails. Government related information is recorded to the SG Corporate Records Management System by the respective policy area. Emails held by Private Offices are typically retained for a maximum of three months.

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