The government has got itself into a complete mess over the Covid inquiry. There is no one to blame but itself.
As I noted yesterday, the government set the terms for this inquiry, demanding that it investigate the decision making that took place. Since the quality of that decision making is the basis of concern given that it led to so many seemingly unnecessary deaths, this is hardly surprising.
Absolutely anyone with the slightest knowledge of how decision making is reviewed will know that it starts with an appraisal of formal minutes and then moves to the letters, notes, emails and other electronic communications that help explain how a policy evolved. To presume it stops at the formal minutes is absurd: almost everyone knows that meetings rubber stamp what has already been decided, meaning that the focus of attention was always bound to be elsewhere.
It should be no surprise to anyone as a result that the inquiry team want government ministers' notes and WhatsApp messages, given that this was how they communicated. And yet, seemingly incredibly, ministers have been taken by surprise by this. As a measure of their own lack of real world experience that is significant.
The difficulty for ministers is that they cannot win from this.
Blaming Boris Johnson will not work. These events happened during this parliament and Sunak was his number 2 at the time, and a key decision maker. The buck cannot be passed.
Claiming the inquiry does not need the data will not work. Setting up an inquiry to found out what happened and then saying it does not need to know looks like a massive admission of guilt.
And going to court just risks defeat, which is likely as the judiciary are mostly likely to a) side with one of their own and b) read the law as Lady Hallett has done and agree that she has the right to this data.
Meanwhile, seeing a minister head to jail for refusing to comply with requests will not be a good look.
Worse, the defence looks very weak. To claim that documents cannot be disclosed because this impinges on the free speech of ministers and would impair future decision making appears to make little sense. First, ministers were at work. Rules of free speech do not apply. What is said at work may be used by your employer as evidence. Making sure it does not cause offence is rule number one. Ensuring it is competent is rule number two. Presuming it will be shared is rule number three. And recognising it is not your own is rule number four. If ministers were unaware of these basics, that is their problem.
What is more, if ministers knew the decision making was so bad they should not have set up the inquiry in the way that they did. They must have been able to take advice on the terms of reference from people who could have predicted this would happen. The feeling that everything happening here points to incompetence is overwhelming.
So what will happen now? My prediction is delay, piled on claims of lost records and phones, to be followed by diary clashes preventing appearances by key witnesses, to be followed in mid- 2024 by an adjournment to ensure that the inquiry does not conflict with the election. Ministers are bound to think that essential given how bad all this is going to be for them.
My suspicion is that few ministers who were in office during this period will survive this unscathed. Whether some will face further penalties will be the appropriate question to ask.
As importantly, if the inquiry reveals the indifference to life that I suspect existed I hope the Tories will be shattered, maybe for good.
That would not be the end though. What we really need to know is how we get good governance. And at the core of that is accountability. It seems that the Tories never presumed that this existed: they give the impression that they believed they could make decisions and not be responsible for them.
They were wrong. If government is about anything it is about responsibility. And so it is about accountability. At the heart of that is transparency. Each is fundamental. Labour should take note. Unless they understand this they too are not fit to govern.
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Maybe I’m a bit dim but I do wonder how ministers are allowed to use WhatsApp and other media platforms to discuss matters of state/make decisions. Everything should be through official internal government channels surely so that it can be recorded and scrutinised if foul play is suspected?
I have to say also that the way Blair ran his ‘sofa cabinet’ with New Labour and what he did over the Iraq war has had more of a deleterious effect on British politics than is often acknowledged.
I also am very sceptical about ‘cabinet style’ of government and how it can be abused by bad actors who are under the influence of outside lobbyists.
The WhatsApp approach is staggering, but with more records maybe than Blair
The use of whatsapps seems to be justified (or attempted to be) by referencing the speed in which decisions where needed and the general sense of chaos and uncertainty at the time. I’ve seen multiple journalists, on both sides of the political spectrum, make this kind of mitigating point.
That said, if you use whatsapp on a corporate device (perfectly common) then it’d be backed up, unless you opted out of that, and records preserved. So in of itself, this choice of communication shouldn’t preclude records being maintained, and backed up both locally and in ‘the cloud’ so realistically no chance of ‘being lost’.
Unless individuals chose to use their own personal devices, and change the default backup options, or perhaps delete the records. Which would be a far more questionable thing to do, in my mind, and points to a tacit acknowledgement of potential wrongdoing.
It is my understanding that the government have official WhatsApp accounts separate to any private ones which means that if they were stupid enough to use them from private stuff that’s tough. Unfortunately I can’t find the reference in the Guardian article I read yesterday.
The Ghastly Gas-Lighting Party continues true to form!
I am not sure I agree with:
“Meanwhile, seeing a minister head to jail for refusing to comply with requests will not be a good look.”
It would certainly look good to me.
I was writing from their perspective!
“Setting up an inquiry to found out what happened and then saying it does not need to know looks like a massive admission of guilt. ….. As importantly, if the inquiry reveals the indifference to life that I suspect existed I hope the Tories will be shattered, maybe for good.”
I think these two sentences catch the essence of the political aspects of the situation precisely. The next 30 hours, till 16.00 tomorrow, will possibly be critical. If basic sense prevails – a near first for this government – then Lady Hallett will get her way and the records, of all types, will be surrendered; if not then there is going to be a trial of strength between an independent judge and the executive of a nature and gravity which has never been seen before.
This time, if Lady Hallett sticks to her rights, I do not think that delay, obfuscation, and attempted redaction will be enough, for the Enquiry’s powers are sufficient to force the Executive’s hand. Only the most devious – indeed potentially criminal – outbreak of ‘lost’ phones, ‘automatically wiped’ electronic records etc. could, it would seem, rescue whatever it truly is that the government seems so suspiciously anxious to preserve. And if such a sequence should emerge to frustrate Hallett’s Covid enquiry, the political consequences for the Tories would surely be extermely dire.
In these circumstances, why – oh why – has the reaction to this emerging situation from Labour been – so far – so muted?
Two prominent ex-Tory ministers, Archer and Aitken, were jailed after the Tories 1997 election defeat.
The current rabble must be terrified and not just about Covid.
From – https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/legislation/public-records-act/pra-faqs/
Public Records Act – frequently asked questions…
What does the Public Records Act (PRA) do?
…..establishes that records include ‘not only written records, but records conveying information by any means whatsoever’ – so including electronic documents, emails, social media and databases, photographs and recorded film and sound information.
The Tories know they are in the doghouse so their only option is to drag the whole thing out as long as possible and maybe set up some easy scapegoats such as Matt Hancock as the main cause of their trouble. Hopefully this enquiry wont be the usual cover up and whitewash like Iraq, Grenfell, Leverson, etc and that Lady Hallet is made of strerner stuff.
Confessing my ignorance of what the Cabinet Office actually does, I checked the government’s own website.
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/cabinet-office/about
Included in the list of the Cabinet Office’s responsibilities:
. promoting the release of government data, and making the way government works more transparent
Maybe someone should remind them.
🙂
Lord Chancellor’s Code of Practice on the management of records issued under section 46 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000
Foreword
Importance of records management
(iv) Freedom of information legislation is only as good as the quality of the records and other
information to which it provides access. Access rights are of limited value if information cannot
be found when requested or, when found, cannot be relied upon as authoritative. Good records
and information management benefits those requesting information because it provides some
assurance that the information provided will be complete and reliable. It benefits those holding
the requested information because it enables them to locate and retrieve it easily within the
statutory timescales or to explain why it is not held. It also supports control and delivery of
information promised in an authority’s Publication Scheme or required to be published by the
Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (the EIR).
(v) Records management is important for many other reasons. Records and information are the
lifeblood of any organisation. They are the basis on which decisions are made, services provided
and policies developed and communicated. Effective management of records and other
information brings the following additional benefits:
• It supports an authority’s business and discharge of its functions, promotes business efficiency and underpins service delivery by ensuring that authoritative information about past activities can be retrieved, used and relied upon in current business;
• It supports compliance with other legislation which requires records and information to be kept, controlled and accessible, such as the Data Protection Act 1998, employment legislation and health and safety legislation;
• It improves accountability, enabling compliance with legislation and other rules and requirements to be demonstrated to those with a right to audit or otherwise investigate the organisation and its actions;
• It enables protection of the rights and interests of an authority, its staff and its stakeholders;
• It increases efficiency and cost-effectiveness by ensuring that records are disposed of when no longer needed. This enables more effective use of resources, for example space within buildings and information systems, and saves staff time searching for information that may not be there;
• It provides institutional memory.
(vi) Poor records and information management create risks for the authority, such as:
• Poor decisions based on inaccurate or incomplete information;
• Inconsistent or poor levels of service;
• Financial or legal loss if information required as evidence is not available or cannot be relied upon;
• Non-compliance with statutory or other regulatory requirements, or with standards that apply to the sector to which it belongs;
• Failure to handle confidential information with an appropriate level of security and the possibility of unauthorised access or disposal taking place;
• Failure to protect information that is vital to the continued functioning of the organisation, leading to inadequate business continuity planning;
• Unnecessary costs caused by storing records and other information for longer than they are needed;
• Staff time wasted searching for records;
• Staff time wasted considering issues that have previously been addressed and resolved;
• Loss of reputation as a result of all of the above, with damaging effects on public trust.
🙂
It is and will be a complete shambles, as usual with these types of enquiries in the UK. In contrast the Swedish enquiry has already been undertaken and reported, and will continue to add to their report as time goes on and they learn more!
Accountability transparency fairness responsibility and integrity.
I think the government needs to provide a lot of answers, not least the PPE scandal. And then there is a covid vaccination scandal brewing too.
As an inspiration to us all, I see the ferrets in the Conservative WhatsApp sack are still squabbling over whether to send data to the Pandemic Enquiry; even when backed by Statute and drafted by Government. This must be what the PM meant by “integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level”.