Scottish Government missing Covid WhatsApp messages: The key questions which must be answered now

We need answers now

The furore over Scottish Government ministers and officials apparently deleting WhatsApp messages during the pandemic is only set to intensify.

Reports in the Sunday Mail suggested messages from former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and deputy John Swinney were among those not to have been retained. At best, this appears to be outstanding incompetence, at worst it would be a deliberate attempt to cover-up key discussions around some of the most contentious decisions during the Covid-19 response. The problem is, we do not know.

There are key questions which must be answered now. The First Minister must come to Holyrood this week to give a detailed statement on what on earth has gone on.

Specifically, he must answer:

Why was it seemingly left to individual discretion whether to retain formal and informal WhatsApp communications?

It quickly became obvious that there would be UK and Scottish inquiries into the Covid response and that all evidence relating to decision-making would need to be retained. Who decided that this should not include all WhatsApp messages in Scotland when the same were apparently being archived by the Westminster government?

Was there advice issued to ministers to auto-delete WhatsApp communications?

It seems incredulous that so many ministers and officials could have come to the conclusion to apply the setting independently.

If so, what is the motivation for auto-deleting messages?

If they are informal communications which are not relevant to the inquiry then why would they have been destroyed? Suspicion is only likely to grow either fairly or unfairly until this is answered.

Was the policy around WhatsApp communications changed after the ‘do not destroy’ notice issued by the UK inquiry, and if not why not?

The Covid inquiries both north and south of the border have some time to run. But we cannot wait to have these questions answered. We need clarity urgently, not more obfuscation. And we need it now.