Scottish Government ‘had no real strategy’ for Covid in early 2020 – inquiry

The Scottish Government “had no real strategy” for the pandemic in the early part of 2020, the UK Covid-19 Inquiry has found.

Baroness Heather Hallett released a more than 700-page report on Thursday on the Government decision-making during the pandemic and found the devolved administrations’ response early in 2020 as being “inadequate” and too reliant on the UK Government.

The report found that it took too long for the issue to be escalated to the highest levels of Government, with the first mention to Scotland’s Cabinet coming at the end of January.

In her evidence to the inquiry, former first minister Nicola Sturgeon said “a considerable amount of work” had been done between January and March to prepare for a possible pandemic.

“The Scottish Government Resilience Room had been activated,” the report said.

“However, in this early period, there appears to have been no real strategy other than monitoring the situation.”

The Scottish Government Resilience Room (SGoRR) is the equivalent of the Cobra meetings held to respond to serious issues by the UK Government.

The report added: “The devolved administrations failed adequately to conduct their own planning with regard to the implications of Covid-19.

“Although the inquiry acknowledges that they were entitled to rely upon advice and assistance from the UK Government in combatting an unknown common threat, the devolved administrations became too dependent on the UK government response, which resulted in each devolved administration being significantly underprepared for what was to come.”

According to the report, the devolved administrations “failed to escalate consideration of the emerging crisis to the highest levels of government” early enough.

Ms Sturgeon has admitted since the pandemic she believes that things should have moved quicker in those early months, but stressed she had come to that view in hindsight.

Speaking to journalists at the Scottish Parliament on Thursday, the former first minister said: “I said as much in my own evidence to the inquiry, that I think if we could go back and have our time again, certainly I would have wanted to see lockdown introduced earlier than it was, at least a week earlier than it was.

“What I would say, though, in acknowledging that, is that I don’t think that was down to some negligence or lack of care at the time.

“We were, at the time, taking decisions based on the best information and advice that we had.”

Asked if she felt the Government was “too reliant” on Westminster, Ms Sturgeon she did not just allow Boris Johnson’s administration to make decisions for them, but there were financial considerations that had to be made.

“We were not too reliant on the UK Government in the sense that we were happy just to leave the decisions to it, that certainly was not the case on my part,” she said.

“But in point of fact, we were reliant on the UK Government to do certain things because we didn’t have the power to do them at our own hand.

“I couldn’t have taken Scotland unilaterally into lockdown because I did not have the financial powers to introduce, for example, a furlough scheme.

“So we were reliant on the UK because of the separation of powers between central Government and devolved administrations.”

The report also highlights the concerns of epidemiologist Professor Mark Woolhouse, who repeatedly contacted then chief medical officer Dr Catherine Calderwood, worried that Scotland was not prepared for a pandemic.

Prof Woolhouse was unhappy with the responses from Dr Calderwood – who would later resign after she was caught flouting restrictions to travel to her second home.

He sought the help of former English chief medical officer Professor Dame Sally Davies, urging her to “get Catherine to listen to me, because she’s not listening”.

But Nicola Sturgeon backed Dr Calderwood’s response, saying she “took (the virus) seriously”.

The former first minister added that the “buck stopped with me” on the response.