Scotland's First Minister has denied deleting WhatsApp messages related to the Covid-19 pandemic, following reports that his predecessor and senior officials may have done so. The First Minister stated that he has retained his messages and is willing to hand them over to the Covid-19 Inquiry. It is unclear whether other officials have deleted their messages.
Scotland ’s First Minister has said he has not deleted WhatsApp messages relating to the Covid-19 pandemic, following press reports his predecessor and senior officials may have.
Press reports in recent days suggested former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, national clinical director Professor Jason Leitch and chief medical officer Dr Sir Gregor Smith may have deleted messages either manually or through the use of the app’s auto-delete function.Speaking to the PA news agency on Monday, the First Minister said: “I don’t know why there’s been press reports suggesting I’ve deleted my WhatsApp messages, that’s not true.
“They will have to answer for themselves, I can’t answer for the former first minister, I haven’t seen her statement to the Covid Inquiry,” he said. Asked why a blanket policy was not installed to ensure ministers and officials saved all messages from after the announcement of an inquiry – which Scotland was the first in the UK to do – the First Minister said it would be “very difficult” and would have gone against Government social media policy which suggested the deletion of messages after 30 days.
Asked if the deletion of messages could damage the credibility of both the Scottish and UK-wide inquiries, the First Minister did not answer, saying instead that any decisions would have been logged in the Scottish Government’s records management system. Later on Monday, a Scottish Government spokesman said messages created in order to conduct government business should be uploaded to the system of record which then makes conversations available to the Scottish Government.
Scotland First Minister Whatsapp Messages Covid-19 Pandemic Deletion Inquiry Officials
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