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Nicola Sturgeon and her deputy deleted all their pandemic WhatsApp messages, the Covid Inquiry has heard.
At a hearing in Edinburgh on Friday, the inquiry was told that former prime minister Ms Sturgeon had kept “no messages whatsoever” about the pandemic and that John Swinney, her deputy, had used an “auto-delete function”.
Ms Sturgeon has repeatedly refused to say whether she deleted her WhatsApp messages after the inquiry complained that key decision-makers failed to hand over the information.
However, during evidence from Lesley Fraser, the Scottish Government’s corporate director, Jamie Dawson KC, chief counsel for the Scottish inquiry module, revealed that all of Ms Sturgeon’s messages had been deleted.
Referring to a schedule of what messages could be given to the inquiry, he said: “Under the ‘Nicola Sturgeon’ box, it says that messages were not retained, they were deleted during normal inbox cleaning or a phone change , not being able to. to retrieve messages.
“What would suggest is that at the time that request was made, Nicola Sturgeon, the former First Minister of Scotland, had no messages regarding the management of the pandemic.”
Ms Fraser replied: “That’s what it suggests to me.”
Mr Dawson continued: “When we asked the Government if it kept any such message on its corporate record, you provided us with none.”
Ms Fraser replied: “Right.”
Asked if that meant the inquiry did not have access to Ms Sturgeon’s messages about her management of the pandemic, Ms Fraser said the former first minister would have reported anything important to her private office .
She said: “Ms Sturgeon worked with her private office to ensure that her views and instructions were clearly understood and may have been informed by some of the exchanges she had with her chief of staff or others. minister but she would have communicated that to her private office and that is the instruction that would have gone out of that private office and kept.”
Asked if she “knew that happened”, she said: “That’s how government works, it’s necessary.”
Pressed on the Government’s knowledge that talks had been added to the official record if neither the Government nor Ms Sturgeon had access to the messages, she said: “I don’t know, unless I’ve seen the all information.”
The inquiry was shown a document about how Whatsapp was used during the pandemic and what messages were retained.
It revealed that Ms Sturgeon admitted she used Whatsapp to exchange information and views with colleagues but claimed “anything significant that required action” would be raised at formal meetings.
Ms Sturgeon occasionally used Whatsapp with Mr Swinney and also with Humza Yousaf, the current Prime Minister, as well as Liz Lloyd, her most senior adviser.
The following was added to the document: “Messages were not retained, they were deleted when inboxes were regularly cleaned or when phones were changed, all substantive issues were recorded in emails from the Private Office. Autodelete was not active. Messages cannot be retrieved. Nothing in return.”
According to the same schedule, Mr Swinney did not retain any documents despite communicating with Ms Sturgeon, Jeanne Freeman, the then health secretary, and Mr Yousaf “for the purpose of raising urgent information and preparing for formal meetings”. .
“Messages would be deleted through auto-delete functions or by manually deleting themselves as is done on a regular basis,” the document said.
The inquiry made repeated requests to the Scottish Government
The revelation came during evidence at the inquiry from Lesley Fraser, the Scottish Government’s corporate director general, who was responsible for managing records.
She said Ms Sturgeon and Mr Yousaf, Ms Sturgeon’s successor, had repeatedly committed to the principles of “openness and transparency and to co-operate fully with both the UK and Scottish Covid-19 inquiries”.
Ms Fraser also agreed with Mr Dawson KC, lead counsel for the inquiry’s Scotland module, that this was a “bond of honesty with the people of Scotland”.
He said the inquiry had been forced to make repeated requests to the Scottish Government about its records management policies, with some information only provided in the “last few days”.
Ms Fraser said the “core document” was her records management policy and a “supplement” was made available in November 2021 which explained in detail how to deal with mobile phone messages.
But Mr Dawson argued that the Scottish Government’s difficulty finding the policies “suggests that retention does not work very well”.
Ms Fraser said: “Ministers would be able to see the mobile messaging policy – it’s not a secret policy.
“It is written from the perspective of civil servants because civil servants are the ones who have responsibility but the best practice guidance would apply to ministers in the same way.”
She added that ministers would be “aware of the need to speak to their private office” about what they needed to meet the November supplement.
But the records management policy states that information should only be kept for as long as is needed to support the Scottish Government in its business needs and legal obligations. This gives ministers the latitude to decide what to keep and what to delete.
Chair of the inquiry frustrated
A frustrated Baroness Hallett, the inquiry’s chair, interrupted Ms Fraser to say she was “not following” and to ask what should happen to WhatsApp messages between the two ministers “in no uncertain terms”.
She questioned whether ministers should act on policies that “seem to destroy them when they are not needed” or “tell civil servants or the private office about them”.
Ms Fraser said they would inform their private offices to take action “as a result of the conversation we had”.
But Lady Hallett said that process might not record “the rationale” for the decision and countered with Ms Fraser that she agreed “it’s one of the things that should be recorded”.
“So in other words things could go wrong if ministers delete their WhatsApp messages without telling their private office everything that was discussed,” said Lady Hallett.
She said she did not find the rules or principles “clear” and questioned whether they conflicted with the requirement to retain such messages for Freedom of Information requests.
Ms Sturgeon has repeatedly refused to reveal whether she had deleted messages and the Inquiry was only able to obtain a small number of her messages through her colleagues’ phones or records.
According to a submission from the Scottish Trades Union Conference, a WhatsApp exchange between Ms Sturgeon and her chief adviser, Ms Lloyd, showed the former first minister criticizing the UK government over changes to the furlough scheme.
“They really are showers,” Ms Sturgeon wrote on 31 October 2020.
“[Person A] a catering company laid off all their workers yesterday and put the company into liquidation due to a reduction in employment. He says today’s announcement may have changed that, but it’s too late.”
Ms Lloyd said: “Yep, one of my friends lost her job yesterday and half of her colleagues were making someone else redundant. Not a tip.”
A spokesman for Ms Sturgeon said yesterday: “For the benefit of everyone affected by the Covid pandemic, Nicola is committed to full transparency of both UK and Scottish Covid inquiries.
“Any messages she had, she handled and dealt with them in accordance with Scottish Government policy. Nicola has provided a number of written statements to the UK inquiry – hundreds of pages in total – and welcomes the opportunity to give oral evidence to the inquiry again this month when she will answer all questions put to her.”
The SNP has been contacted for comment.
