Clown, bad blood and mandarin’s ‘indiscretion’: High level private DUP text messages revealed The most senior civil servant in the department responsible for the RHI scheme as it ran out of control later […]

The most senior civil servant in the department responsible for the RHI scheme as it ran out of control later privately told a senior DUP figure that Arlene Foster’s special adviser had been “decisive” in delaying cost controls.

The evidence was among numerous text, email and WhatsApp exchanges between the DUP’s most influential aides and senior civil servants from the period where the scandal was on the brink of toppling Stormont.

Many of the messages, which those involved have been compelled to produce under the sweeping powers of the public inquiry into the cash for ash scandal, were revealed today at the RHI Inquiry and more will be published over coming months as most of those involved are called to give evidence in public.

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The messages provide an unprecedented insight into how the DUP – a party which values privacy and discipline – manages a crisis.

Details of the high-level communications emerged today as senior counsel to the inquiry David Scoffield QC opened phases three and four of the four-phase inquiry.

Discussing their top official, minister and Spad referred to ‘clown’ The inquiry revealed how in a WhatsApp conversation, the then DUP economy minister, Simon Hamilton, candidly expressed displeasure at the actions of his department’s most senior civil servant, Andrew McCormick.

In a discussion with DUP Spads, the minister said he finds it “hard to stomach McCormick’s pleas of professionalism when he has clearly been so indiscreet”.

Mr Hamilton’s Spad, John Robinson, then weighed in to say that Dr McCormick was “unable to sleep” over the realisation that former DUP minister Jonathan Bell had covertly recorded conversations with him. Mr Robinson, who is now a DUP press officer, said he had met Dr McCormick in the department and “he said he was unable to sleep over this. I sense he’s worried. I think he’s made a complete clown of himself on this tape”.

Another DUP Spad, Richard Bullick, responded to say that Dr McCormick “would be made to go it alone to Nolan” and Mr Hamilton replied: “I think you’re right, John.

“His concerned reaction suggests he has said things he knows he shouldn’t have.

“This could be very bad for him. And us.”

Mr Scoffield took Sir Patrick Coghlin and his panel to a text message exchange in the early hours of 19 December 2016 – four days after former DUP minister Jonathan Bell had broken ranks with his explosive television interview with Stephen Nolan in which he had alleged that DUP Spads had worked to keep the lucrative scheme open against his wishes.

Due to those months of delay, and amid a frenzy to get into the scheme there were more applications in one week in late October – by which stage the lucrative scheme would have been capped, had cost controls not been delayed – than in the entire first 18 months of the scheme.

The texts behind Foster’s speech

The text message discussion related to a crucial speech which the First Minister was to make to the Assembly later that morning in which she was to address, and attempt to rebut, what her then party colleague had alleged.

In a message just before midnight on 18 December, Andrew McCormick – who had been the permanent secretary of what is now the Department for the Economy at the time when the scheme imploded – advised Mrs Foster’s senior Spad Richard Bullick about what he thought she could say to the Assembly.

Dr McCormick said: “I feel I need to say one last time that my broken record point should be a show-stopper.

“The investigation will find too much that will [show] that JB [Jonathan Bell] had a point re last summer.

“The January combination of me at the PAC and John Crawford’s name [Mr Scoffield said this was a reference to a relative of Mrs Foster’s Spad, Andrew Crawford, whose position as an RHI applicant was not known at the time] looks like too big a risk to me.

“Either you must have a super plan tucked away or you must have concluded there is no way to manage. Hope I’m wrong.”

Crawford’s influence ‘decisive’

Mr Bullick replied to say: “Thanks for this. I thought following discussion yesterday the emerging pic was that JB was a passenger who watched on as discussion took place with TC [Mr Bell’s Spad, Timothy Cairns] and officials.

“He did not oppose change in date. TC made reference to party but at our end there was no ministerial role in the matter although clearly TC was speaking to others in the party and that is the basis on which I have been drafting.”

Dr McCormick replied: “The draft is all true, but misses the fact that AC’s [Andrew Crawford’s] influence was decisive. I fear that saying ‘Jonathan Bell should have stood up to him’ won’t be enough. It’s not what it is. It’s what it looks like. Sorry, need some sleep.”

Dr Crawford has always denied that he tried to delay cost controls.

Then just before 6.50am, Dr McCormick sent a text message to the Head of the Civil Service saying that he had sent Mr Bullick “an insert for the statement that would tell the truth about the delay”.

Not long after that he sent a message to David Gordon, then the DUP-Sinn Féin jointly appointed director of communications for the Executive, to say: “I’ve had another go.”

Mr Gordon responded to highlight “the iceberg” he said they were sailing towards and Dr McCormick replied: “Yes.”

‘The straight and simple question’

Mr Scoffield said that that text message exchange appeared to be relating to an email exchange going on slightly earlier that morning.

Providing draft amendments for Mrs Foster’s speech to the Assembly, just before 6.30am Dr McCormick emailed Mr Bullick to say: “I knew at 5.30 that I’d had all the sleep I was getting.

“I’ve inserted in the draft a few paragraphs that essentially say what I told Simon and John in September – that I would have to say at the Public Accounts Committee if pressed on this issue – the first bit could have been filibustered three or four times but I knew I had to be ready for the straight and simple question: Who asked for the delay?

“The day will inevitably come when the PAC does ask me…Minister Bell may have been passive but it would be wrong to attribute the drive for the delay to him and in September I had no knowledge of the identity of the applicants to the scheme.”

Mr Scoffield set out evidence which indicates that at that point Mrs Foster’s speech included the line that the view that the scheme was funded directly from the Treasury, with no financial penalty for Stormont if it overspent “led to the view that maximising the uptake of the scheme would actually be beneficial because it would lead to additional money coming to Northern Ireland from the Treasury.

“The discovery that this idea had been false and misguided from the very inception of the scheme in 2011 was one factor which led the permanent secretary to initiate a fact-finding investigation about how some critical aspects of the scheme were managed by the civil servants…in any case, it is never appropriate to seek to maximise spending from the public expenditure programme in this kind of way”.

Stormont viewed overspend as not its problem

Dr McCormick suggested to Mr Bullick that Mrs Foster should go on to say: “The permanent secretary believes that this misconception lay at the heart of the debate on 8 July 2015 when officials submitted their advice and 3 September when their position was confirmed.

“Officials were becoming increasingly concerned that the urgent decision sought in July was not being taken. I accept that it was not Minister Bell who wanted the delay.

“The permanent secretary has told me that he was told during that period that others in the party were pressing to have the scheme kept open longer.”

In the event, Mrs Foster did not say that as suggested by Dr McCormick.

Mr Scoffield said that the actual speech which Mrs Foster delivered to the Assembly was “extremely carefully worded” and picked up on some of the suggestions from Dr McCormick but not all of them.

He said that the inquiry panel would have to take a view on whether Mrs Foster’s statement to the Assembly “displayed the candour which could be expected in the circumstances”.

Just over a week later, on 28 December, Mr Gordon sent an email to Mr Bullick in which he discussed the potential release of Mr Bell’s recordings of his conversations with Dr McCormick.

‘The real story’

Mr Gordon told the senior DUP Spad that “an Andrew McCormick statement or even interview before then could preempt some of this, although it does mean dealing with the real story of how cost controls were delayed in 2015 and the political input into that – AC, etc.

“In an ideal world, you would get the AC story out and dealt with this week and spike the BBC and Bell guns. Easier said than done, I know.”

Mr Scoffield said that after reading that email, the inquiry had asked Mr Gordon and Mr Bullick “what ‘the real story’ was” and that both had provided statements about the matter in which they were in agreement that the real story was simply “referring to Dr McCormick’s version of events” which neither Mr Gordon nor Mr Bullick said they were in a position to either verify or dispute because they were not involved at the time.

The exchanges do, however, show that senior DUP figures were aware of the allegation that Dr Crawford had been involved in attempting to delay cost controls but that Dr Crawford remained in post as a DUP Spad until that claim became public about a month later.

The evidence presented to the inquiry today indicated that Dr McCormick’s view of Dr Crawford’s involvement was formed from a mixture of some awareness at the time but that sense was confirmed by a conversation with Timothy Cairns in December 2016.