Ministerial Code row raises record-keeping questions

If you are wondering why a two-page letter matters, start with the basics. On 5 June 2026, Sir Laurie Magnus, the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards, wrote to Alex Burghart MP and said he did not see grounds for the investigation Burghart had requested. The request was about whether the Office of the Prime Minister had followed record-keeping guidance and rules around non-corporate channels such as WhatsApp. (gov.uk) Magnus said the allegation, as put to him, depended on supposition rather than factual evidence. He also drew a firm line around his job: his remit is about the conduct of individual ministers in specific matters, not a wider trawl through how No.10 or government offices operate more generally. Because of the public interest, he said he was publishing his reply. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk)

That might sound technical, but it opens a bigger question you can actually use when reading any Westminster row: what is the Ministerial Code, and who gets to say when it has been broken? GOV.UK says the Code gives ministers guidance on how they should act and arrange their affairs, and it says ministers are expected to maintain high standards of behaviour. (gov.uk) There is an important catch here. The Code may set the standards, but the Prime Minister remains the ultimate judge of whether a minister has breached them and what should happen next. In practice, that means the system includes independent advice, but not an independent final decision-maker. (gov.uk)

The Independent Adviser’s role is narrower and more specific than many people assume. According to the official terms of reference, the adviser is appointed by the Prime Minister, is expected to provide impartial advice, and can deal with ministers’ interests, alleged breaches of the Code, and confidential advice when ministers ask for it. The GOV.UK organisation page says the role has existed since 2006, and Sir Laurie Magnus was appointed in December 2022. (gov.uk) **What this means:** the adviser can investigate alleged breaches, but only within a defined frame. The Prime Minister can refer a case, and the adviser can also start an investigation after notifying the Prime Minister. In this letter, Magnus said he was not persuaded there was enough factual basis to open one, and he also said broader questions about No.10’s record-keeping practices sit outside his remit. (gov.uk)

Now to the part that often gets lost when people hear the word WhatsApp. The government’s own guidance says ministers and officials are generally expected to use government systems for government business. If non-corporate channels such as WhatsApp, Signal, private email or SMS are used for significant government business, the record-keeping duty does not disappear. The guidance says significant information should be copied, forwarded, screenshotted or exported into a government system, or its substance should be recorded there in a note or document. (gov.uk) The same guidance says information marked SECRET or TOP SECRET must not be shared via those non-corporate channels, and departments should make sure ministers and senior officials work with private office staff so that office routines support record keeping. So the argument here is not simply about whether a minister ever used an app. It is about whether important official information was captured properly afterwards. (gov.uk)

That is where private office guidance becomes important. Cabinet Office guidance says recorded information about a department’s official business, wherever it is held and whether created by ministers or officials, is a public record belonging to the Crown. It adds that accurate record keeping is especially important in private offices, where major decisions are made, and says officials should keep records of substantive meetings and decisions even when they happen through non-corporate channels such as WhatsApp. (gov.uk) **What this means:** record keeping is not just clerical tidying at the end of the day. It is part of how a government can later explain what it decided, when it decided it, and who was involved. Without that trail, Parliament, historians, inquiries and the public are left trying to piece together power from fragments. This is an inference from the official guidance’s emphasis on public records, lawful information management and keeping records of substantive decisions. (gov.uk)

The June 2026 letter does not say record keeping inside No.10 no longer matters. It says something more precise. Magnus wrote that he was unable to address comments about record keeping within Downing Street or the government’s general use of WhatsApp because those issues concern broader operations, not the individual conduct question he says his remit covers. In the same letter, he noted that Alex Burghart had referred to concerns from the Intelligence and Security Committee, and that Darren Jones had told Parliament on 19 May 2026 that he shared those concerns and had announced a forthcoming review of non-corporate communication channels. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk) So if you are reading headlines on this story, it helps to separate two questions. First, was there enough evidence for the Independent Adviser to open a Ministerial Code investigation into the Prime Minister on this request? Magnus’s answer was no. Second, are there still wider questions about how government records are captured when unofficial channels are used? The letter itself suggests yes, because it points to an ongoing policy issue beyond his own office. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk)

This is why record-keeping rows deserve more attention than they usually get. They are really arguments about democratic memory. If official decisions move into disappearing messages, private inboxes or badly managed chats, the public record becomes thinner, and trust becomes harder to rebuild. The Ministerial Code system can deal with some conduct questions, but the official documents also show its limits: standards, administration and information management do not always sit neatly in one office. This final point is an inference drawn from the Ministerial Code, the adviser’s terms of reference and the record-keeping guidance together. (gov.uk) For readers, the useful habit is a simple one. When a Westminster story mentions WhatsApp, deleted messages or missing paperwork, ask not only who sent what, but whether the record was preserved on the proper system. In this case, the immediate investigation request was turned down, but the larger civics lesson remains: in government, good records are part of good government. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk)