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Covid inquiry in Scotland: Were vital WhatsApps deleted to avoid Freedom of Information rules? [1]

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Date: 2024-02 

One of Scotland’s top medical advisers has denied intentionally deleting crucial pandemic communications in an attempt to hide them from the public.

The UK’s Covid inquiry is now into its second week of hearing about how the Holyrood devolved administration handled the crisis.

Attention has increasingly focused on messages between senior figures and a controversial policy that encouraged them to be deleted.

This has included repeated examples of key figures being reminded to erase WhatsApp messages, prompting inquiry chair Heather Hallett to question the motivation of such an approach.

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“There might be a suggestion in some of the messages that some of the people wanted to delete messages to avoid the messages being subjected to a Freedom of Information request,” she told Jason Leitch, Scotland’s national clinical director, who has been giving evidence to the inquiry.

“That would be wrong, wouldn’t it, deleting a message to avoid a Freedom of Information request?”

She added: “When the Scottish Covid inquiry was announced, did your following of the policy change?

“Did you seek any advice about deleting messages or did you continue to delete messages in accordance with the policy as you saw it?

“You didn’t seek any help as to whether you should, given there would be a judge who had the right to demand the production of documents and information?”

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/covid-19-inquiry-scotland-whatsapp-sturgeon-leitch-freedom-of-information-foi/

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