WhatsApps not deleted during pandemic – Kate Forbes

Scotland’s former finance secretary did not delete any of her WhatsApp messages with senior Scottish Government ministers and officials until January 2022 when all major Covid-19 decisions had been made, an inquiry heard.

Kate Forbes told the UK Covid-19 inquiry, currently sitting in Edinburgh, a “junior member” of her private office told her it was Scottish Government policy from January 2022 for all messages within the private office to be deleted going forward, and she “acquiesced” because she believed it was an instruction.

She said she believed it only applied to the junior member of her private office and did not recall the policy applying to anybody else in and around the cabinet or government.

That surprises me and this would be the first of me hearing it

Ms Forbes, SNP MSP for Skye, Badenoch and Lochaber, said she provided her messages to the inquiry “in the spirit of being completely open”.

Use and retention of WhatsApp messages by senior Scottish Government ministers and officials has proved contentious, with First Minister Humza Yousaf making an “unreserved” apology for the Scottish Government’s “frankly poor” handling of requests from the inquiry for WhatsApp messages to be handed over.

Apologising while giving evidence to the inquiry last week, he said he accepted this would have caused “serious grief and retrauma” for those who lost loved ones during the pandemic.

The inquiry has also seen evidence from two of the country’s top clinicians – national clinical director Professor Jason Leitch and chief medical officer Professor Sir Gregor Smith – referencing deleting messages in exchanges with colleagues.

Mr Yousaf has announced an external review into his Government’s use of mobile messaging.

Questioned further on Tuesday about record retention, Ms Forbes said she was “surprised” to learn that meetings of the Scottish Government’s gold command group had no minutes.

She said: “That surprises me and this would be the first of me hearing it.”

Counsel to the inquiry Jamie Dawson KC said: “The reason we think that is the case is we have obviously asked the Scottish Government for all of its papers concerning these matters and although we have cabinet minutes, we don’t have minuted records of either of those groups.

“It becomes difficult to understand what the ultimate decision-making process was when there is no record of how those decisions were taken.”

Ms Forbes responded: “I can understand that frustration.”

She also told the inquiry she could not recall being aware of epidemiological evidence about coronavirus available to the Scottish Government when she became finance secretary in February 2020.

Asked by Mr Dawson if she was aware of “emerging evidence” available to the Scottish Government from epidemiologist Professor Mark Woolhouse about the basic threat of the virus and what it might mean for Scotland.

She said: “Not that I recall being aware of, no, beyond what might have just generally been discussed in the public domain.”

The MSP also said she could not recall anything relating to Covid-19 being in the budget she presented to parliament on February 6 2020, that had been prepared by her predecessor Derek Mackay.