Common practice

Beyond all the political attacks on Nicola Sturgeon (John Mclellan, Scotsman, 23 January) and unsubstantiated inuendo on the use of Whatsapp messages during Covid, we should acknowledge that the regular deletion of potentially insecure Whatsapp messages remains government policy throughout the UK.

On 12 December the UK Covid inquiry heard that, “to date the core participants had not received a single Whatsapp from the Welsh Government” and on 7 November Mark Drakeford told the Senedd that “during the Covid period many colleagues may have had deletion instructions on their phones as nobody was focused on whether these messages might be required at some distant point”.

The guidance for Scottish Government officials was to delete Whatsapp messages after a month. Removing old messages was considered good practice. This changed after the ‘Do Not Destroy’ notice in August 2022. Whatsapp was never looked on as a significant form of communication for decision-making and all relevant messages were uploaded to the government record.

Among the factors many commentators have ignored is that the UK inquiry is already in possession of Jeane Freeman’s Whatsapp messages. Jeane Freeman was the Scottish Government Health Minister from 28 June 2018-20 May 2021, including the critical period where the most crucial decisions were made relating to pandemic management.

Even though the Scottish Government did not get control and only partial control over pandemic strategy, until months after Covid had spread everywhere, it still managed to ensure significantly lower infection and death rates and, critically, far lower infection and death rates in care homes by getting the vaccine in those places first. This was partly due to the clear messaging by Jason Leitch and Nicola Sturgeon but mainly down to our wonderful Scottish NHS and care staff.

Mary Thomas

Edinburgh