“The Prime Minister’s chat messages are insufficiently archived,” concludes the independent regulator, who launched an investigation after de Volkskrant in May revealed that Prime Minister Rutte had been deleting text messages every day for years. It is no longer possible to say whether much relevant information about the formation of political decisions has been lost as a result. ‘The Inspectorate cannot verify how often chat messages have not been archived that were eligible for this under the Archives Act’, the report states. ‘After all, many chat messages have been deleted.’
Rutte acted in violation of the Archives Act, because he based himself on a directive from the Ministry of the Interior. That directive states that ministers may decide at their own discretion whether chat messages are deleted or stored. The Inspectorate concludes that this instruction from the Ministry of the Interior is contrary to the Archives Act and must be amended quickly.
The fact that Rutte deleted his text messages every day for years was revealed because de Volkskrant had requested his chat messages invoking the Government Information (Public Access) Act to investigate how decision-making had come about during the corona crisis. Then it became clear that few text messages had been saved.
Real-time archiving
During a lawsuit, the state lawyer explained that Rutte was doing ‘real-time archiving’. What the prime minister himself thought was relevant to keep, he forwarded to his officials. If the message was too long, he ‘paraphrased’ it through. Then the Prime Minister erased all messages sent and received, because otherwise his Nokia would become too slow and cluttered.
Experts such as professor of archival sciences Charles Jeurgens and professor of administrative law Wim Voermans already concluded in May that Rutte’s conduct was in violation of the Archives Act, but the prime minister himself did not want to hear about it at the time. ‘I have acted from A to Z in the spirit of the law and in line with the law’, he stated decisively during a parliamentary debate.
A part of the House nevertheless submitted a motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Rutte, because deleting the text messages contrasted sharply with the new administrative culture promised by the VVD leader, in which more attention would be paid to transparency and accountability. Rutte in turn denounced the mistrust of the House and believed that people turned away from politics as a result.
The Government Information and Heritage Inspectorate is also critical of ‘the information management’ of Rutte’s Ministry of General Affairs. The internal service responsible for properly storing documents receives insufficient support, an ‘overarching vision’ is lacking and two crucial vacancies, including that of Chief Information Officer, are constantly being filled.
Hugo de Jonge
De Volkskrant has tried to retrieve the deleted text messages from Rutte during the corona crisis by requesting the correspondence from other ministers. But Minister Hugo de Jonge (ex-VWS, now Housing) and other relevant ministers refuse to release messages with Rutte. Disclosure would jeopardize the ‘unity of cabinet policy’. According to experts, the refusal of De Jonge and other ministers is also contrary to current legislation, but the Inspectorate has not looked into it.
Under Rutte’s leadership, the Ministry of General Affairs has long had a reputation for being very reluctant to report. For example, the investigation into the Allowances Affair revealed that there were hardly any minutes of meetings. According to Rutte, this was because his ministry is so small.
Earlier it appeared that a text message that then Unilever CEO Paul Polman sent to Rutte in 2018 had disappeared. The prime minister refused to disclose the message related to the abolition of the dividend tax, but had to confess after parliamentary questions that the text message had been deleted. At the time, there seemed to be an incident. It only became clear this year that Rutte had been deleting his text messages daily for years.
The Ministry of General Affairs will investigate where the instruction for saving chat messages should be adjusted. Prime Minister Rutte announced this on Monday in response to the critical inspection report. Pending that investigation, “the chat messages of the other cabinet members are also kept at their ministries for security and archiving purposes”.
Rutte’s ministry ‘completely’ adopts the recommendations of the Government Information and Heritage Inspectorate, the prime minister writes in a letter to the House. A number of recommendations have already been implemented ‘or are currently being implemented’, others will be taken up shortly.