STEPHEN DAISLEY: We're governed by a born-to-rule elite...and the WhatsApp scandal shows EXACTLY how out of touch they are
Against stiff competition, one of the most outrageous happenings inside Nicola Sturgeon 's government was the routine deletion of messages during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The revelation came in evidence before the UK inquiry into the management of the global health crisis. One after another, senior figures in the Scottish Government admitted they had deleted WhatsApps and other messages.
Sturgeon had erased her digital missives and so had John Swinney. National clinical director Jason Leitch described 'WhatsApp deletion' as 'a pre-bed ritual'. Senior civil servant Ken Thomson posted on message threads that their contents were 'discoverable under FOI' and advised: 'Know where the "clear chat" button is.'
In office, Sturgeon seldom missed an opportunity to highlight where Scotland's government was outperforming England's, but here was one regard in which she was happy to be unexceptional. Senior Westminster figures got rid of their messages and their Holyrood counterparts were no better.
Why am I raking up this ancient history when the world is exploding all around us? Well, because an important announcement was slipped out on Friday - usually a quiet day in Scottish politics - and I think it deserves a little noise.
Deputy first minister Kate Forbes confirmed that her ban on ministers and civil servants using unofficial messaging apps to do official business was now in effect. The prohibition was initially trailed before Christmas and reflects concern about rules and practices at the height of the pandemic.
Now, six months on, WhatsApp and similar platforms have been removed from government-issued phones, with the (common sense) exception of services that deal with public safety and emergencies, which will get longer to make the transition.
Speaking on Friday, Forbes said: 'The use of mobile messaging apps increased during the pandemic as staff worked remotely in unprecedented and difficult circumstances. Having reflected on our working practices, we are now implementing changes to the use of such apps.'
However, the Scottish Government should not be allowed to issue a lowkey update and then press on with other business. Let's recall how we got here.
Because ministers aren't alone in having 'reflected' on their working practices. In addition to Lady Hallett's inquiry, and the negative public response to top officials wiping their communications archives, message retention was put under the microscope in the Martins Report.
Former Channel Islands Information Commissioner Emma Martins was tasked with reviewing the Scottish Government's information protocols and what she found was lamentable.
There was 'little to evidence a consistent and widespread knowledge, understanding, or application' of the policy on messaging apps, 'including rules around retention, exportation, and deletion'. There was 'insufficient evidence of a proactive strategy' on records management and 'an abundance of missed opportunities and early warning signs'. Martins concluded that it was 'impossible to take any comfort from the policy'.
The report recommended a fresh approach to messaging apps that ensured 'all government communication is conducted in a managed environment' and that systems have 'appropriate security and data retention facilities'.
Banishing external communications platforms from government phones is certainly a step in the right direction, but why is it a step that's needed at all?
It's no coincidence that the minister rolling out these changes is one of the few who did the right thing when it came to pandemic-era communications. Whatever else her critics might say about her, Forbes understood her obligations to transparency and public accountability.
Even after she was told to begin deleting messages with her private office two years after the outset of the pandemic, she retained all WhatsApps to and from Cabinet colleagues and government officials. Her integrity meant Lady Hallett's inquiry was able to access conversations at the most senior levels that would otherwise have been lost to the erase button.
But that same integrity must compel the deputy first minister to be honest about this policy. Among the various security and data protection advantages of in-house communications networks, there is also the greater monitoring capability they hand to administrators. In plain language: it's harder for a user to delete messages from an in-house system than from WhatsApp or Telegram.
On the most charitable reading of this policy, it's an admission that those in the most senior roles in the Scottish Government are inept in the proper use and storage of communications. A less charitable reading is that the Scottish Government does not trust its personnel, ministers and civil servants alike, not to scrub information that could be of national importance. That is a desperate state of affairs.
As Emma Martins stated in her report, 'something went wrong for the Scottish Government' and the issue was one that 'runs much deeper than a single policy document or checklist'. An organisation, she said, needed 'those operating within it to share a basic set of values'. Abiding by the rules was 'not a tick box exercise' but 'a way of thinking', which must be 'embedded into everything', not to avoid 'the threat of sanction' but because 'it is the right thing to do'.
Tel:ling ministers and officials to use only permitted messaging systems, to treat data with care, to retain communications or log their salient points - these are all well and good but the very fact that the people running the country need to be told this speaks to an institutional problem inside the Scottish Government.
Systems and safeguards are only as good as the willingness of those who use them to abide by their spirit as well as their letter. The citizenry should feel reassured that public servants have the integrity to do the right thing without needing it spelled out to them. That they are storing messages properly because they recognise their obligations to scrutiny and transparency, not because a spreadsheet is monitoring their compliance.
Kate Forbes did the right thing during the pandemic but her messaging policy can only succeed if there are enough like her in government, and that seems unlikely. A government marinated in spin and cynicism for so long isn't about to mend its way because of new rules. You need people in public life who are there for the right reasons.
After 18 years of the SNP in charge, transparency and openness have been thoroughly sidelined. Going through the motions is not the same as genuine accountability, it's working to a policy rather than a moral principle.
This administration talks a lot about its commitment to open government but time and again it is shown to be a hollow promise. We have a born-to-rule elite with altogether more confidence in their abilities than is merited and this arrogance has engendered a conviction that the public deserves to know only what their betters want them to know.
This is no way to run a democratic government, but it is not a problem that can be tweaked away. It can be addressed only by a blunt and bracing assessment of the calibre of politicians and policymakers coming into Holyrood and a conversation about how we can do better.
The WhatsApp deletion scandal was a low moment for devolved government in Scotland but it would be foolhardy to assume that the problem has been solved. Holyrood requires a new culture of integrity, transparency and accountability. The work of creating this culture cannot be undertaken by those responsible for the past two decades. It calls for a new government under new leadership.
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