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Ministers should be banned from deleting their phone messages that discuss policy and decision-making in a bid to end “Government by WhatsApp”, the Covid families’ campaign group has said.
The Covid inquiry heard last week how former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon routinely deleted her WhatsApp messages at the height of the pandemic, while Boris Johnson’s own missives from that period have disappeared because his old phone was switched off.
The UK Covid Bereaved Families for Justice group has submitted 27 recommendations to Lady Hallett’s inquiry in response to the Module 2 hearings, which covered decision-making in Westminster, as well as the evidence currently being heard about the Scottish government’s response to covid.
One key proposal would be for Government guidance requiring WhatsApp messages to be retained, which is currently limited to civil servants and special advisers, to be extended to ministers.
The Covid bereaved group says: “Where informal mechanisms such as Whatsapp are used for relevant or related discussions, the decisions reached, individuals involved and rationale should be summarised and documented using formal processes and captured on government systems.
“Responsibility for this in relation to key decision-making rests primarily with private offices, but is shared with all officials, Spads [special advisers] and ministers.
“Ministerial communications in relation to Government business should only take place via authorised devices which should be secure, backed up and subsequently accessible to authorised persons.
“Relevant records should be stored on a secure system backed-up by HMG IT. Disappearing message functions should not be used for WhatsApps relating to Government business, and messages should not be deleted manually.”
At hearings in Edinburgh this week, the Covid inquiry was told that Scotland’s national clinical director Prof Jason Leitch told a fellow official during the pandemic that “WhatsApp deletion is a pre-bed ritual” after being warned that its contents were “FOI-recoverable”.
Nicola Brook, a solicitor at Broudie, Jackson Canter representing bereaved families, said there needed to be a “clear policy” telling ministers to retain WhatsApp messages.
She added that there was “obviously a gap” that ministers were not being told “if you send an informal message, if it relates to a decision, you are supposed to record that on the official record”.
Ms Brook said: “What we’re seeing is that people are using their own judgments about what is a decision and what is a discussion about a decision.
“And when you see people saying this is ‘FOI-able – delete’ – that seems to be a clear attempt to defeat an FOI that might be made [and would] defeat the purposes of the FOI.”
The families’ group is also calling for a dedicated Cabinet minister for resilience, so that when a new pandemic or other major national crisis emerged it would have the full attention of that individual.
Resilience and civil contingencies currently fall under the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster at the Cabinet Office, whose responsibilities are as diverse as national security, flooding and the electoral system.
Another recommendation is for ministerial responsibility for disabled people to be held by a Cabinet minister in the Cabinet Office, after the Covid families campaign said this group were treated as an “afterthought” during the pandemic.
The government should put funding into bolstering the UK’s test, trace and isolate capability in case a new virus emerges that does not immediately display symptoms, as with Covid-19, the group said. This would include financial support for self-isolation so that those who could not afford to stay off work when they were ill did not spread the virus.
Ms Brook said the Covid bereaved were also concerned that Lady Hallett’s report on Module 2, which will deliver a verdict on how Mr Johnson and Rishi Sunak responded to the pandemic, would not be published until 2025.
Naomi Fulop, a founding member and spokesperson for the families’ group, said: “Our concern is that the length of time taken for the reports to come out means a delay in action be taken.
“We need to know now whether that test and trace capacity and capability is there. The next pandemic can happen anytime.”