Pressure is growing on Wales' First Minister Mark Drakeford over comments he made to the Senedd claiming the Welsh Government had acted on advice from the auditor general when it took a health board out of special measures.
Mr Drakeford has denied misleading the Senedd when he claimed this year, amid all the renewed troubles the Betsi Cadwaladr health board is facing, that the original decision to remove it from special measures in 2020 had been taken on the advice of the auditor general.
Yet Plaid Cymru has now released a further letter it has been sent by the Auditor General Adrian Crompton in which he says he wrote explicitly to the Welsh Government in 2020 to ask ministers to stop claiming they were acting on his advice. The letter states: " I wrote to the Welsh Government to indicate that it was unhelpful for the Minister to imply that he had received direct advice from me or my staff on the escalation status of the Health Board. In making those representations I emphasised that neither I nor Audit Wales staff acting on my behalf can directly advise Ministers".
