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”.
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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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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