A senior civil servant with a £1.5 million pension plan retired after advising colleagues to delete Covid WhatsApp communications.Despite his involvement in one of the most significant scandals during Nicola Sturgeon's tenure as First Minister, Ken Thomson was also awarded a CBE. This year, Ms. Sturgeon was the target of intense criticism after it was revealed that she and her top government servants had erased their texts during the outbreak. The families of Covid victims accused them of a cover-up, but they maintained that the mass deletion was in accordance with government directives.Mr Thomson, who retired late last year, had been appointed to further the cause of independence and in 2022 he was accused of bragging that breaking up the UK was his job.
Last night Tory MSP Murdo Fraser said: ‘This news is a slap in the face to those who lost loved ones during the pandemic.‘The SNP should be focused on giving bereaved families answers rather than lining the pockets of those who helped ministers hide the truth from the public.’Messages retrieved by the UK Covid Inquiry revealed that Mr Thomson, formerly the Scottish Government’s director general for strategy and external affairs, was a key player in the deletion row.
In 2020 he told colleagues in a WhatsApp group called Covid Outbreak: ‘Just to remind you (seriously) this is discoverable under FOI [freedom of information]. Know where the “clear chat” button is.’ Mr Thomson added: ‘Plausible deniability are my middle names. Now clear it again!’He also wrote in 2021: ‘I feel moved at this point to remind you that this channel is FOI recoverable.’ He included a zipped mouth emoji in his message.
According to official accounts, Mr Thomson and five other senior civil servants have pension benefits worth more than £1million.
Mr Thomson’s £1.5million pension pot is estimated to give him an annual sum of £65,000-£70,000.
At the Covid Inquiry, Mr Thomson was asked whether the messages showed him encouraging people to delete messages to ‘defeat’ FOI requests. He replied: ‘No.’
The Scottish Government said pay and pensions for senior civil servants ‘is reserved to the UK Government’.
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