Civil servants and ministers including Nicola Sturgeon deleted crucial messages during the pandemic following official guidance, it was confirmed today.
Guidance shown to the UK Covid inquiry in Edinburgh shows official Scottish guidance advising that WhatsApps should be “deleted” amid claims of a “culture” of removing messages from group chats.
“Messages are subject to freedom of information. Messages should be transitory and not used as the official record. Messages should be deleted as soon as they are no longer needed,” the guidance read.
