ALEX Salmond ordered a new formal photograph of his cabinet after complaining the first ones were “not of adequate quality”.

The First Minister’s exacting style was evident at just his second cabinet meeting in 2007, according to files released by the National Records of Scotland today.

The minutes show the SNP leader was keen for his new government to be presented to the public in the best possible light. 

The minutes of the cabinet meeting of 29 May 2007 record: “The First Minister said that the pictures of the Cabinet taken at Bute House on 17 May, and used by the press in their coverage of the first Cabinet meetings, were not of acceptable quality and asked that arrangements be set in hand quickly to secure an appropriate formal photograph.”

Mr Salmond also drummed the importance of cabinet meetings into his team.

Inviting them to approve the minutes of their first meeting a week earlier, he “reminded colleagues that he expected them to read each week’s minutes carefully, as once approved they stood as the formal and permanent record of the Cabinet’s deliberations”. 

The minutes of May 29 also reveal Mr Salmond considered putting himself forward for questioning by the conveners of Holyrood’s committees, as prime ministers do at Westminster. 

Recording a discussion on parliamentary business, the minutes state: “In the spirit of consensus government, the First Minister might offer to appear before the Holyrood Committee Conveners’ Group on a regular basis”.

The cabinet agreed that parliamentary business minister Bruce Crawford should convey this to his counterparts in the other parties “at the first opportunity, and should discuss details of possible First Minister attendance at the Conveners’ Group further with the First Minister”.

Mr Salmond went on to become the first ever First Minister to appear before the group - but he took more than six years, until September 2013, to do it.

“This is an historic occasion, which should be marked,” he said at the time. 

It was also notable for being his sole appearance before the group, as he resigned the following year after defeat in the independence referendum.