| 11 mins read
SUMMARY
- The Covid Inquiry revealed that across the UK, there were ‘substantive discussions’ of important policy decisions through texts and messages, including ‘the “circuit breaker” lockdown in September 2020, with the use of WhatsApp impacting upon the quality of decision-making.
- Chat apps have created a new document trail. But frequent use of WhatsApp undermines transparency, as politicians and officials can avoid proper record keeping and freedom of information (FOI) requests.
- The UK government has already updated its guidance. However, it seems likely that these issues will recur.
The Covid Inquiry has offered a unique chance to see how decisions were made at the very centre of governments across the UK. Amid the revelations, and confirmations, of chaos, dysfunction, and a ‘toxic’ culture, it has disclosed not only what was decided but also how – and the extent this was done via personal phones, texts and WhatsApp messages.
Politicians were at pains to deny that this was a case of ‘Government by WhatsApp'. Boris Johnson asserted that ‘the WhatsApp messages do not represent government decision-making’. Nevertheless, the inquiry concluded that, across the UK, from London to Edinburgh and Belfast to Cardiff there were ‘substantive discussions’ of important policy decisions through texts and messages, including ‘the “circuit breaker” lockdown in September 2020; the viability of population segmentation; mandating face coverings; and the reduction in social distancing’.
The frequent use of WhatsApp and similar channels highlights one of the fears of supporters of transparency, namely that officials and politicians may avoid proper record keeping and later freedom of information (FOI) requests by taking discussion into hard to reach or hidden places.
So far, the evidence points two ways. On the one hand, chat apps have created a new record and document trail, even if inadvertently. On the other, the inquiry has revealed a pair of perverse incentives: a temptation to avoid record keeping, and a temptation to lose or delete.
The benefits of politicians using WhatsApp
For politicians and officials, informal systems like WhatsApp offer quick, convenient and easy ways to communicate. This was especially the case during the pandemic when, as the former Wales First Minster Vaughan Gething put it, ‘WhatsApp essentially became a substitute for conversations you have in a corridor’.
This also brings unexpected benefits for the advocates of openness. WhatsApp has created a record that otherwise would not have existed. In the past, any ‘conversations in the corridor’ could go entirely unrecorded. WhatsApp has given us a treasure trove. The inquiry itself ‘received approximately 250 different WhatsApp group or one-to-one conversations from over 24 custodians’, while Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s ‘Lockdown files’ contained more than 100,000 messages.
The dangers of politicians using WhatsApp
The inquiry highlighted some potential downsides. The Inquiry has suggested that use of informal messaging impacted upon the quality of decision-making and how well ministers understood the advice being given.
But perhaps the biggest danger for politicians is the high risk of embarrassment. As Boris Johnson explained ‘we have all, too, made ill-judged, hasty and unguarded comments to our closest confidantes…that considered…before a new audience, we regret’. Previously ‘those ephemeral conversations, thoughts, quips and questions have evaporated and remained unscrutinised’. Nicola Sturgeon agreed that WhatsApp was used ‘to share views about things, and using language that perhaps wouldn't have been done in different forms of communication’.
The messages presented to the inquiry certainly confirm this, revealing infighting, toxic and sexist language, and desperation by officials over the ability of Johnson and others to do their job.
Do politicians use WhatsApp to avoid record keeping?
The first problem is how WhatsApp messages become a proper record. The guidance on recording ‘informal’ communications is clear. Ever since the then Education Secretary Michael Gove attempted to use private email to avoid FOI in 2012, the advice from the Information Commissioner’s Office has been explicit that ‘information held in non-corporate communications channels may be subject to FOIA if it relates to the public authority’s official business’.
WhatsApp or similar messages should therefore be transferred to the official record. The latest UK guidance explains how this is to be done: you must ‘copy, forward, screenshot or export it to a government system, OR Record its substance in a message, note or document on a government system’.
This raises a series of problems. Two legal academics concluded that the process was ‘impractical on a routine basis’, and one former special advisor agreed that ‘no minister is spending time screenshotting their thousands of WhatsApps and sending them into the official record’.
This has been made worse by the apparently deep confusion, inconsistency and faulty memories around rules for retention, particularly among senior politicians. Nicola Sturgeon insisted she acted in line with policy, but claimed to not recall a ‘Do not destroy’ email to Scottish government officials with the subject ‘Covid-19 independent inquiry record retention’. The head of the Northern Ireland civil service Jayne Brady spoke of a ‘disconnect in terms of their [politicians’] perception of what met the requirements of disclosure’ and the ‘explicit and clear…requirements’.
Do politicians intentionally delete their WhatsApp messages?
A second issue is how many messages have not appeared. Concerns were raised in the media over the numbers of WhatsApp messages that were apparently lost in the run up to the inquiry or simply not handed over.
The then government even launched a failed judicial review to block release of some exchanges. At least two prime ministers didn’t hand over all their messages. Boris Johnson failed to ‘provide…about 5,000 WhatsApp messages from the crucial early weeks of the pandemic as a result of the software “somehow automatically erasing” them’. Rishi Sunak claimed repeatedly that ‘having changed my phone a number of times over the last three years, I do not have access to the WhatsApp messages that I sent or received during the relevant time, and neither were the messages backed up’.
The Welsh Government ‘claims to have disclosed all material within its possession’ but an independent report described ‘the disclosed material’ as ‘belated and dubiously limited’. In Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon made a promise to hand over all of her messages, declaring ‘nothing will be off limits…emails, WhatsApps [and] private emails’, but later apologised when it was revealed she had already deleted them. The public were rather unconvinced.
The question of deletion became a recurrent trope of the Covid inquiries. The UK inquiry found that ‘a significant number of such messages were not retained, when they should have been – some deliberately, some accidentally and some in accordance with what owners believed was government policy’.
There was a keen awareness of freedom of information among politicians and officials, and it was a feature of numerous group chats and discussions, often mentioned alongside the topic of deletion. The clearest example, which helped lead to his resignation as First Minister, came when then Welsh Health Minister Vaughan Gething appeared to confess to deleting his messages to avoid FOI, and encouraging others to do so. In a ministerial group chat in August 2020 Gething wrote: ‘I'm deleting the messages in this group. They can be captured in an FOI and I think we are all in the right place on the choice being made’. In Wales, it was said that deletion had occurred across high levels of government with ‘senior special advisers suspiciously and systemically deleting communications’.
In Scotland similar WhatsApp chats were disclosed, with Kenneth Thomson, the Scottish government's Director General for Strategy and External Affairs writing ‘Just to remind you (seriously), this is discoverable under FOI. Know where the 'clear chat' button is’, and the National Clinical Director Jason Leitch stating ‘WhatsApp deletion is a pre-bed ritual’.
Martin Reynolds, Boris Johnson’s Principal Private Secretary, turned on his deletion settings less than a month before the Covid inquiry was announced, but when questioned in the inquiry said ‘I can guess or I can speculate, but I cannot recall exactly why I did so’.
What next?
The inquiry recommended that ‘Government business should be conducted using approved channels on official devices’. Officialdom has already taken account of some of these points. The UK government has already updated its guidance superseding individual departmental policy, with clearer lines of responsibility for recording. In the wake of an independent report in 2024, the Scottish government went further and announced it would ‘end the use of mobile messaging applications to conduct government business by spring 2025’. In 2025, a Private Member’s Bill in Scotland sought to amend the Scottish FOI law ‘to introduce penalties for the destruction of material that could be subject to public scrutiny’.
However, whatever the theoretical position, it seems likely that these issues will recur. The technology means that chat apps will retain their huge convenience and usefulness, while creating an extensive record of informal but important conversation. And the incentives will remain, for politicians and officials to avoid full scrutiny, by limiting their transfer to official documentation and failing to preserve their own private records.
