The former head of GCHQ has called for an end to the government handling crises over WhatsApp, saying the platform might suit gossip and informal exchanges but is inappropriate for important decision-making.
Sir David Omand, who ran the UK intelligence service before becoming the permanent secretary of the Home Office and the Cabinet Office, criticised the way government was conducted in the pandemic and said future crises should be handled with “proper process”.
Speaking in evidence to a new parliamentary inquiry and as the UK heads into a general election year, Omand said the complexities and nuances of “any decent strategic analysis … cannot be conveyed in a WhatsApp exchange”.
His intervention will put pressure on the government to ensure decisions are properly made and recorded in the future. It will also strengthen demands for Labour, which is ahead in the polls, to set out its plans.
Keir Starmer’s party has promised to overhaul the government ethics system and improve transparency but has not set out how it would rethink Whitehall’s decision-making process and the business of government.
The inquiry into strategic thinking in government was ordered after the pandemic by the liaison committee, which holds the prime minister to account.
Omand, who is also a professor of war studies and a senior adviser to a cyber-investment business, said in his evidence that ministers and officials often engaged in “gossip” and “informal exchanges” as they gathered for cabinet meetings, which helped let off steam when pressure had built up.
“It is understandable that WhatsApp messages might fulfil a comparable function during lockdowns that limited much face-to-face contact,” he said.
“But to judge by the evidence now made public by the Covid-19 inquiry, such exchanges (leaving aside the vile misogyny) had become the foreground means of forcing outcomes not just sharing background mood music.
“That Covid rationale no longer applies, if it ever did. It is essential to have a proper decision-making process if we are to survive a crisis in good order.”
He added: “There is little point in devoting effort to identifying strategic opportunities and strategic threats and risks if, when the time for action comes, there is no proper process for weighing decisions against strategic goals and adjusting course accordingly.
“The complexities and important nuances of any decent strategic analysis … cannot be conveyed in a WhatsApp exchange.”
The use of WhatsApp by ministers has been under intense scrutiny since it emerged that Boris Johnson’s government used group chats to make decisions and discuss issues of critical national importance in the pandemic.
The extent of such communications emerged in a leak to the Telegraph of tens of thousands of messages to and from Matt Hancock, the former health secretary, as well as during the Covid inquiry in which messages in a group chat called “Number 10 Action Group” were revealed.
In one message, Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s top aide, described the prime minister as “careering around on WhatsApp as usual creating chaos and undermining everybody”.
Scrutiny of government decision-making has also been hindered by Johnson and Rishi Sunak having lost their WhatsApp messages covering crucial stretches of time.
The government initially resisted having to hand over messages between ministers, senior officials and others to the Covid inquiry, saying it would be “an unwarranted intrusion into other aspects of the work of government”, and into individuals’ “legitimate expectations of privacy and protection of their personal information”.
Johnson’s former head of communications, Guto Harri, told Radio Wales earlier this year that the UK government was “largely run by WhatsApp”.
The Cabinet Office has published guidance allowing the use of WhatsApp and other “non corporate” communications channels as long as “significant government information” is officially recorded. This is information that “materially impacts the direction of a piece of work or that gives evidence of a material change to a situation”. It means that many discussions deemed not to be significant do not have to be reported back.
Omand also criticised the decision during the pandemic to rip up the tried-and-tested structure for responding to civil emergencies in favour of an “ad hoc management … run from a few offices in No 10”.
During the Covid era, Johnson’s government sidelined the usual Cabinet Office Briefing Room A (Cobra) process of emergency crisis management in favour of a new system of committees.
Omand said: “Without prejudice to [the Covid inquiry’s] future findings, I suggest that it was not sensible, whatever the frustrations, to scorn that system, well understood in Whitehall, local government and the devolved administrations, in place of ad hoc management of a major crisis from a few offices in No 10.
“One of the advantages that seems to have been lost thereby is the disciplined process that would have introduced consistency, a measured challenge to conventional wisdom, and the commissioning of strategic thinking on the wider impact of measures being contemplated, including in the longer term after the crisis period had passed.”
In response to Omand’s evidence, a government spokesperson said: “In the modern age, ministers and officials will use a variety of channels of communication for discussions and there are appropriate arrangements and guidance in place for the management of electronic communications.
“The guidance is very clear that significant government information should be captured into government systems and gives clear advice on how that should be done.”
In separate evidence to the liaison subcommittee, another former permanent secretary, Jonathan Slater, called for government strategic thinking to be subject to more public scrutiny in real time.
The former chief of the Department for Education said: “If parliament wants civil servants to produce long-term, evidence-informed, cross departmental strategic work, the thing that would make the biggest difference is to subject this work to the cold light of day.”
The Institute for Government also called for more transparency around the government’s strategic work, so mistakes could be avoided. The thinktank said its research found a “stark contrast in the transparency of economic evidence used to inform ministers’ strategic thinking during the Covid-19 pandemic, compared with the transparency of scientific evidence”.
