A top environmental health official admitted yesterday that he was late in telling the Scottish Office of the serious scale of the E-coli outbreak which resulted in 21 deaths.

Mr Graham Bryceland - a key member of the outbreak control team - also admitted at the E-coli fatal accident inquiry that he got a fax from a high-ranking civil servant who was increasingly alarmed that he was reading about the outbreak in newspapers instead of in a full report from North Lanarkshire Council.

The witness agreed with depute fiscal Ian McCann that it was his duty under the environmental health code of practice at that time to inform central Government about a major disease outbreak.

Instead Mr Bryceland, the council's head of protective services, left it to Dr Syed Ahmed, a consultant in public health medicine who led the outbreak control team in November 1996. But it emerged at the inquiry that this consisted of a phone call which Dr Ahmed made on Saturday November 23 to a doctor at the Scottish Office.

The inquiry into the deaths in the world's worst E-coli outbreak heard that Mr Bryceland realised on Saturday that the outbreak of E-coli 0157 food poisoning was a major incident.

He agreed that it was really his responsibility as the local food authority to have informed the Scottish Office at that point. ''After a meeting of the OCT (outbreak control team) I asked Dr Ahmed if the Scottish Office had been notified,'' said Mr Bryceland. ''He said he had done, and I saw no need to make a second call.''

Mr Bryceland then admitted that he should have provided many details to the Scottish Office about the outbreak himself.

He agreed that he received a fax from Mr Stephen Rooke, chief food dairy officer in Scotland, which expressed alarm at media reports on the outbreak when no details had been supplied from North Lanarkshire to his office.

Other failures by Mr Bryceland emerged as he was questioned by Mr McCann as to why butcher John Barr was not asked about the size of his business or even the number of employees.

Mr Bryceland and members of the OCT visited Mr Barr's house in Wishaw on Friday, November 22, to reveal their fears that Barr's cooked meat and cooked meat products were suspected of starting the outbreak. Mr Barr, he said, told him that he supplied ''some local caterers'', and a list was to be provided the next day.

Mr Bryceland admitted he did not extract the John M Barr & Son file from his office later that night. He agreed it would have told him the business was more than just a butcher's and baker's shop. He read the file on Sunday, November 24.

That file would have revealed a high risk to consumers because of cooked meat production and given some indication that the butcher employed about 40 workers.

Reference was made to a report on food hygiene aspects by expert environmental health consultant Dr Lisa Ackerley, who said that environmental health officials should have made pursuing suspect meats along the food chain a priority. Dr Ackerley was also critical of Dr Ahmed for allowing Barr's to cook fresh supplies of meat products in the butcher's adjoining bakery, using fresh meat supplies, on Saturday morning when he had identified the shop as the source of the outbreak.

Mr Bryceland agreed with none of those points and said that Mr Barr had been co-operative.

But Mr McCann asked if Mr Barr was really co-operating when matters went from supplying ''local caterers'' on Friday to supplying 14 known outlets the next day. Mr Bryceland: ''The staff involved were of the opinion he was doing his best.''

The inquiry continues.