Having another look through the legal docs now available, I've been trying to work out at what point Evans was asked to give a precognition statement to allow their counsel to assess whether the allegation of bias on the part of the PS had merit with regards to the procedure & the appointment of the IO.
There's a meeting noted which took place on 10th Nov where counsel understood that the PS had agreed to, or at least had been asked to, provide the precognition statement. It wasn't even about disclosing it to the court, but to aid counsel's understanding of her knowledge of any prior contact when the decision was made to appoint the IO. There's a later note about that, on 11 December, where someone "isn't convinced" that providing a precognition from the PS would be helpful or necessary - but mainly in respect of the interpretation of paragraph 10 of the developed harassment procedure on 'no prior contact'. Later (round about the 16/17 December), we see that instead of a signed, truthful, precognition statement from the PS (who was one of those 'in the crosshairs' of Salmond's action) they provided a note of 4 short paragraphs which didn't give counsel the information they needed to be able to respond to various points they were required to.
Counsel were asking for a signed, truthful, precognition statement from the PS on the appointment of the IO with regards to what knowledge the PS had on the extent of the IO's prior contact, to help them address the claims of bias from Salmond's side. Internal discussions with the PS in government were 'unconvinced' this would help. And the whole time the PS knew she'd had prior contact with the complainants before she had finalised her decision report.
One of the emails that turned up in disclosure was one of the complainants emailed responses to the PS in response to her email on the announcement of a review of the sexual harassment policy "an email that we had not previously seen from Ms A to the Permanent Secretary of 3 November 2018 indicating support for the Permanent Secretary’s announcement of the review of harassment policies and expressing views on the content of that review, were also to be disclosed."
And separate to this, the email chain that was redacted, was done so without seeking any advice from Scotgov's own lawyer tasked to redact documents. Someone went 'rogue' on this and made their own in-house lawyer (Sarah Davidson I think?) and external counsel have to apologise to the courts etc. That action allowed Salmond's side to truthfully state they did not believe that the duty of candour to the court had been fully complied with.
External counsel were being deliberately hampered to the point of professional embarrassment by civil servants, including the head of the civil service, which resulted in the eye wateringly expensive commission & diligence exercise over the Xmas period 2018.
I cannot fathom how the LA & the FM could have accepted being placed in that position & why neither of them were willing or able to make a decision at any point prior to the start of that commission, to pull the plug purely on the basis that the cost to the public purse was excessive & only necessary as a result of the conduct of civil servants - who appeared to be trying their best to sabotage the whole case with their refusal to give factual statements & going rogue on disclosure documents.
The more I'm reading the documents, the more I'm absolutely staggered by the actions of those involved.