Information Commissioner to probe 'deeply concerning' and 'pre-meditated' WhatsApp message deletion by Scottish Government officials

The UK Covid Inquiry heard neither Ms Sturgeon nor her former deputy John Swinney kept messages

Nicola Sturgeon is at the centre of a growing political storm after the UK Covid Inquiry was told she failed to retain any pandemic WhatsApp messages “whatsoever” in what has been described as a "cynical and pre-meditated decision" to delete key information.

A hearing in Edinburgh was told the former first minister’s messages were deleted “in routine tidying up of inboxes or changes of phones”, while her former deputy, John Swinney, used an auto-delete function.

Meanwhile, Jason Leitch, Scotland’s national clinical director, told civil servants in one Covid messaging group: “WhatsApp deletion is a pre-bed ritual."

Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon speaks to press outside her home in Glasgow. Picture: Wattie Cheung/Getty Images

Opposition politicians reacted with outrage to the revelations, branding it one of the biggest scandals in Scottish political history.

David Hamilton, the Scottish Information Commissioner, and a former inspector with Police Scotland, told The Scotsman: “Some of the material presented in today’s Covid inquiry session is deeply concerning, and will be considered further by my office.”

Ms Sturgeon previously refused to tell journalists whether she had kept her messages, but insisted she had “nothing to hide”.

In a statement issued on behalf of the Scottish Covid Bereaved group, lead solicitor Aamer Anwar described the deletion of the WhatsApp messages as being on an "industrial scale", adding it was a "devastating betrayal of the many promises made by the Scottish Government for full transparency and disclosure".

Nicola Sturgeon

He said: "The deletion of WhatsApps can only be described as a cynical and pre-meditated decision and now Ms Sturgeon and others must answer as to their motivation for deleting messages and failing to comply with a ‘do not destroy’ notice.

"Secondly the question of ‘when’ is critical, because if auto-delete or manual deletion pre-existed the announcement of the public inquiry in August 2021, why was an order not then issued to stop any further deletion of WhatsApp?”

The Scottish Covid inquiry, which is separate to the UK probe, issued a "do not destroy" order at the beginning of August 2022.

Jamie Dawson KC, counsel to the UK inquiry, which is sitting in Scotland for three weeks, referenced a document provided by the Scottish Government about the retention of WhatsApp messages during a hearing on Friday.

He said: “Under the box ‘Nicola Sturgeon’, it says that messages were not retained, they were deleted in routine tidying up of inboxes or changes of phones, unable to retrieve messages.

“What that tends to suggest is at the time a request was made, Nicola Sturgeon, the former first minister of Scotland, had retained no messages whatsoever in connection with her management of the pandemic.”

The lawyer said Mr Swinney’s position “was that messages would have been deleted by auto-delete function”, or deleted manually. Mr Dawson added: “So the former deputy first minister’s position appears to be that he had messages set up on an auto-delete function.”

The inquiry heard Prof Leitch’s comment was sent to other officials in a WhatsApp group in May 2021.

Ken Thomson, the former director general for constitution and external affairs and manager of the Covid co-ordination directorate at the Scottish Government, had reminded the group the channel was “FOI [freedom of information] recoverable”, before posting an emoji with a zip across its mouth.

Prof Leitch, who was a key figure during the pandemic, replied: “WhatsApp deletion is a pre-bed ritual." The Scottish Government previously said it was “not correct to suggest that the national clinical director deleted every WhatsApp message every day”.

Mr Thomson denied to the inquiry that he had encouraged colleagues to delete messages to evade FOI requests. In messages dating from August 2020, the senior civil servant pointed others towards the “clear chat” button, later adding: “Plausible deniability are my middle names. Now clear it again!”

He told the inquiry Ms Sturgeon did not take decisions using “informal messaging” and it would be “very rare that she would message me at all”.

Since 2021, it has been Scottish Government policy to delete WhatsApp messages at least monthly, with any important points transcribed and officially logged. However, key figures, including First Minister Humza Yousaf and former finance secretary Kate Forbes, have nevertheless said they kept their messages.

Lesley Fraser, the director general corporate of the Scottish Government, told the inquiry that different messaging systems could have different security vulnerabilities, while messages could also contain sensitive personal information. She said: "Therefore that should be reviewed, got on to the record, and then deleted at the earliest opportunity.”

Asked if she would accept the Scottish Government’s document retention policies were not fit for purpose, Ms Fraser said she accepted there had been “hurt and frustration” as a result of missing WhatsApps.

She said the Government needed to “look again at this new digital trail that has been left by informal messaging and to consider what that means for the good operation of record management”.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said Ms Sturgeon and her former deputy “have huge questions to answer over their conduct in the wake of this devastating revelation”.

He said: “By deleting all their WhatsApp messages, they defied the inquiry’s clear instructions from June 2021 that all relevant messages had to be retained.

“Their actions may be illegal and beg a very simple question: what were they trying to hide? Shamefully and outrageously for families of those who died during the pandemic, we may never know. Nicola Sturgeon’s reputation, which has been tarnished by a series of scandals in the last year, now lies in tatters.”

He said Ms Sturgeon and Mr Swinney “must urgently answer questions in Parliament”. Both are expected to appear before the UK inquiry in person shortly.

Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said the WhatsApp revelation was “nothing short of horrifying”, adding: “Despite giving assurances to keep all correspondence, Nicola Sturgeon has completely broken her promise to the people of Scotland. This is nothing short of a shocking betrayal of the people of Scotland who suffered so much during the pandemic."

Alex Cole-Hamilton, the leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, said: “This is rotten to the core. Everyone knew from the start that there would be a public inquiry, so to delete messages on an industrial scale is shameful.”

He said even Richard Nixon “didn’t destroy the Watergate tapes” and described it as “one of the biggest scandals in Scottish political history”.

A spokeswoman for Ms Sturgeon said: “In the interests of everyone who has been impacted by the Covid pandemic, Nicola is committed to full transparency to both the UK and Scottish Covid inquiries.

“Any messages she had, she handled and dealt with in line with the Scottish Government’s policies. Nicola has provided a number of written statements to the UK inquiry – totalling hundreds of pages – and welcomes the opportunity to give oral evidence to the inquiry again this month when she will answer all questions put to her.”