UK Covid Inquiry exposes the difficulties thrown up by WhatsApp in wake of Nicola Sturgeon, John Swinney and Jason Leitch revelations

Officials say they followed Scottish Government advice by regularly deleting messages

The UK Covid Inquiry is exposing some of the difficulties thrown up by mobile messaging services such as WhatsApp.

Professor Sir Gregor Smith, Scotland’s chief medical officer, told a hearing in Edinburgh on Monday that he deleted messages “on a frequent basis”.

The inquiry was shown an extract from a group chat in which he advised colleagues: “Delete at the end of every day.”

The Scottish Government's use of WhatsApp has come under scrutiny

Last week, it emerged Nicola Sturgeon and her former deputy, John Swinney, had both failed to retain messages, while Jason Leitch, Scotland’s national clinical director, told civil servants in one Covid messaging group: “WhatsApp deletion is a pre-bed ritual."

Sir Gregor explained he was following the Scottish Government’s own official guidance, which says the “salient points of any business discussions and/or decisions” on mobile messaging apps should be transcribed and officially logged, with messages then deleted “at least monthly”.

This guidance was introduced in November 2021, but it appears to have been inconsistently followed. Both First Minister Humza Yousaf and Kate Forbes, the former finance secretary, have said they kept their messages. Clearly, some officials did too – or we wouldn’t be able to see their chats now.

The problems here are fairly obvious. The guidance leaves officials and ministers to decide for themselves what should be saved, and what can be deleted. In the context of a public inquiry into one of the most extraordinary events in modern history, that is clearly unsatisfactory.

If we want to know what was really going on behind the scenes, we need access to as much information as possible. But messages submitted to the inquiry show officials making jokey references to clearing chat logs.

In one sense, these exchanges demonstrate the informal nature of WhatsApp. As lockdown took hold, conversations that would have taken place in the office over a cup of tea were instead being held over mobile apps.

But they also indicate a worrying attitude to transparency.

In officialdom, WhatsApp and its ilk seem to exist in a strange middle-ground between emails and water cooler chats. Conversations there are semi-official – on the record, but only in-as-much as any “salient points” are retained.

It seems likely the inquiry will have something to say about all of this. At any rate, the Scottish Government’s policy clearly needs a rethink.