An investigation will be held into the Scottish Government’s use of WhatsApp and informal messages.

David Hamilton, Scotland’s information commissioner, said evidence revealed at the UK Covid Inquiry raised “significant practice concerns” around the retention of informal communications from the pandemic.

Hamilton is former chairman of the Scottish Police Federation (SPF) – an organisation whose leadership Humza Yousaf branded a “disgrace” in a frustrated message exchange from June 2020 which was shown to the inquiry.

Yousaf, who was justice secretary at the time, was exchanging WhatsApp messages with fellow minister John Swinney where he “vented” his anger about the SPF’s approach to the pandemic, saying “they have shown an arrogance and retrograde thinking”.

During Lady Hallett’s inquiry, it emerged a number of ministers – including former first minister Nicola Sturgeon – and senior officials deleted WhatsApp messages from the pandemic.

Want to see more SNP fails? – Health Matters