Transcript of Module 2B Public Hearing on 06 March 2024.
(10.00 am)
Lady Hallett: Ms Jung.
Ms Jung: My Lady, the first witness today is Dr Quentin Sandifer.
Lady Hallett: I’m sorry that you I think came yesterday and then we had to ask you to go away. I’m sorry to muck you about.
The Witness: I’m very grateful, my Lady, that you’ve allowed me to start this morning, rather than yesterday.
Dr Quentin Sandifer
DR QUENTIN SANDIFER (sworn).
Questions From Counsel to the Inquiry
Ms Jung: Good morning, Dr Sandifer, thank you very much for coming again to assist the Inquiry.
Could you start by giving us your full name, please.
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Quentin Sandifer.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And is it right that you have provided a witness statement to assist this module, which is at INQ000267867, dated 4 September 2023?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That is correct.
Counsel Inquiry: You also provided a corporate witness statement in Module 1 at INQ000192266; is that right?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That is correct.
Counsel Inquiry: You also gave evidence in Module 1.
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. Are both of those statements true to the best of your knowledge and belief?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Could I start, please, by asking you about your qualifications. Is it right that you qualified as a medical doctor in 1985, and that you’ve been a fully registered medical practitioner since 1986?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That is correct.
Counsel Inquiry: You’re also a registered specialist in public health medicine and have a Master’s degree in public health from the University of Wales, Cardiff?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: You hold a certificate in leadership in multi-agency emergency response and recovery command and co-ordination, following completion of an exercise gold in March 2015?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s right.
Counsel Inquiry: You also hold other degrees, awards and fellowships that I won’t go into.
Is it right that, as far as your past career is concerned, that you trained in general practice in the UK, you worked in Canada as a family practitioner between 1990 and 1992, you then returned to the UK and undertook public health training in Cardiff?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Between 1997 and 2004 you worked for a health authority local health board in Swansea, first as a consultant in public health medicine, and then as a director of public health?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s right.
Counsel Inquiry: Between 2004 and 2012, you worked for strategic health authorities, primary care trusts and local authorities in south east England and London in public health leadership roles?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s right.
Counsel Inquiry: You then returned to Wales in October 2012 to take up the post of executive director of public health services and medical director at Public Health Wales?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s right.
Counsel Inquiry: And you were in that role from October 2012 until 27 November 2020, which is when you retired?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s right.
Counsel Inquiry: During the pandemic, were you also the lead strategic director in Public Health Wales?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I was, yes.
Counsel Inquiry: And it’s right that after you retired in November 2020, you didn’t have any more involvement in the response?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That is right.
Counsel Inquiry: For completeness, is it right that following your retirement that you were re-approached by Public Health Wales and that since January 2021 you’ve been working as a part-time consultant, with the title Consultant Adviser on Pandemic and International Health?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct, and you will see in my statement that I’ve explained what each of those roles involved.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you, Dr Sandifer.
I would like this morning to deal mainly with the initial few months of the pandemic, going into the detail of what was happening in that crucial period.
Before I do, there’s just a couple of short matters I’d like to ask you some questions on.
You say in your statement that you attended very few decision-making committees, groups or forums dealing with or impacting upon the Welsh Government’s response to Covid-19. You also say that you attended very few ministerial meetings during the pandemic.
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct. Oh, sorry.
Counsel Inquiry: Sorry. So the question is: bearing in mind your role as lead strategic director leading an unprecedented response to this pandemic, do you think you should have been more involved in decision-making forums and have attended more ministerial meetings?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I don’t. I think the important point to remember is that I had direct communication and very regular communication throughout the pandemic response with the Chief Medical Officer, and where relevant I was brought into discussions. For example, in May, about the setting up of the Test, Trace, Protect programme, which might have been attended by ministers, or, for example, the meetings that took place in September and early October about local restrictions.
Public Health Wales is separate from the Welsh Government, it’s not a part of government, it’s not an executive agency of the Welsh Government. So it is entirely appropriate that I should provide my advice through someone like the Chief Medical Officer, rather than directly to the minister, unless the minister expressly asked me to do so.
Counsel Inquiry: But in a pandemic such as this, do you see any benefit in either yourself or the chief executive of Public Health Wales having a direct line to ministers, sitting around the table with them answering questions as and when they arise?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Well, the chief executive, as she explained yesterday, does have a direct line of communication to ministers, usually in the company of the chair. So – but to answer your question, I don’t think that’s absolutely necessary. I make the point that my responsibility, as I saw it, was to give strategic leadership, professional strategic leadership, within Public Health Wales to the response and to communicate my advice accordingly to Welsh Government, and the appropriate forum for doing that was through the Chief Medical Officer.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
We heard through Dr Cooper yesterday that a lot of the communications with the Chief Medical Officer were in the form of informal quick catch-ups, I think she said about half an hour, and that those were not always recorded. Do you think that there should have been a more formalised structure for your meetings with the Chief Medical Officer for Wales?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Well, as you are seeking to understand exactly what was happening in those early weeks, allow me to just share some context.
So the meetings that Dr Cooper referred to that you’ve just referenced were purposely intended to be informal quick catch-ups, and they were established from Monday 27 January, held two or three times a week, and it was essentially an exchange of information: where were we, what were we going to do next, and how could we, Chief Medical Officer, assist you?
But I was in direct communication with the Chief Medical Officer right from the very beginning.
Now, to come to your particular point about recording of those, well, of course it would always be preferable, if we could, to record the discussions that were taking place. But by the end of January I was in my office at 7 o’clock in the morning and, with most of my team, rarely left before about 9 or 10 o’clock at night. It was absolutely frantic, and I barely had a moment to stop and take breath. I simply didn’t have the time, myself, to record and, to be honest, there was so much going on I didn’t think that it was the most appropriate use of people’s time for me to re-direct staff that we were already mobilising for other activities in order to simply take notes. That’s not to diminish their importance, but to try to communicate across to this Inquiry the extent of the work and the activities we were undertaking.
Counsel Inquiry: In relation to that, whilst it’s understandable that you were seeking to deploy resources as best you could, is it right that the Public Health Wales emergency response plan did envisage that there would be a logger who would make a record of all key decisions and discussions?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That is true, and we applied that loggist, that’s the correct title, to our silver group and, indeed, to our incident management team that we established from the 23rd. And those were the meetings that I felt were the ones that we really needed to record.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Can I ask you about the Health Protection Advisory Group, please. This was another vehicle through which you had contact with the Welsh Government that we didn’t cover with Dr Cooper yesterday.
Is it right that this group was a non-statutory committee that was established and chaired by the Chief Medical Officer for Wales?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: It was, yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Is it also right that that group went into abeyance and then was re-established during the pandemic?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes, and I clarified the reasons for that in my Module 1 testimony, but for the record we had a change of CMO in 2016, the then CMO retired and Dr Frank Atherton was appointed in the August. The HPAG, the Health Protection Advisory Group, which the CMO had established many years earlier, simply was suspended and then when Dr Atherton had, I think, fully established himself in his role, he recognised the need for it and re-established it in 2018, as we describe in my statement.
Counsel Inquiry: Is it right that members of HPAG, prior to the pandemic, included officials from the Welsh Government, health boards, local authority, Public Health Wales, the Health and Safety Executive, and other bodies?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: When it reconvened during the pandemic, the membership expanded, didn’t it?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: It did. It’s worth perhaps noting that it was reconvened on 7 July 2020.
Counsel Inquiry: That’s right. Do you think that, bearing in mind what was happening prior to that date, that it should have been reconvened earlier?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I’ll be honest with you, I was surprised that it wasn’t reconvened earlier. We held a meeting on 17 December, 2019 that is, and I would have normally expected it to have met again in about three months’ time, but I don’t know why it wasn’t reconvened, but that was a surprise to me.
Counsel Inquiry: We heard yesterday about lots of different groups that Public Health Wales and the government were involved with. What did HPAG add to the other structures?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Well, what it added – what it could have added is it would have brought together a wide range of statutory partners with a common interest in public health protection, not just the emergency response but public health protection broadly, around the table for a discussion. The fact that it didn’t meet until 7 January, I don’t think in any way impeded our response through those first six months.
Lady Hallett: 7 July?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Sorry, 7 July, my Lady, I apologise.
Lady Hallett: Okay.
Ms Jung: So prior to that date, then, was there a different forum in which all of those statutory partners could come together in a similar way?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes. So, again, I explain this in my statement. We convened the Public Health Wales public health strategic co-ordinating support group – I know it’s a rather clunky title, but –
Counsel Inquiry: Yes.
Dr Quentin Sandifer: – what I agreed back in 2014 during Ebola represented the best characterisation of its intent.
Now, the purpose of that group was effectively to enable us to bring together all the strategic partners involved in an emergency response, who would otherwise be convening in separate strategic co-ordination – co-ordinating groups, bring them all together in one room and then we could discharge the responsibilities and the requests of us in one place rather than in four places.
The practicalities for a small public health team of servicing four strategic co-ordinating groups in the midst of an emergency of the scale that we were dealing with just meant that it was untenable by even the middle of March for us, by which time all four SCGs were in place, to have supported them properly as individual organisations.
The Welsh Government were entirely happy for us to reactivate a tested process that we’d used during Ebola and that’s what we did from 23 March.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Can we move on, then, please, to the initial period of the pandemic.
Can we display INQ000147237, please.
Is this the first briefing that Public Health Wales sent out in relation to, at the time, an unknown pneumonia from Wuhan City, and this was based on a similar briefing that had been received from Public Health England; is that right?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: Can we see there the intended audience included Public Health Wales protection teams, CDSC consultants, scientists, and microbiologists, health board directors of public health, medical directors and also – that was for dissemination to emergency departments and leads of infection prevention and control, and, at the bottom, also the Welsh Government.
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: Was that briefing circulated to everyone on that list?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes, it was.
Counsel Inquiry: Can we see, then, below, please, in the background information section, that:
“On 31 December 2019, [the World Health Organisation] was informed by the People’s Republic of China of cases of pneumonia of unknown microbial aetiology associated with Wuhan City … China … At the last report to WHO on 03 January 2020, there were 44 cases of which 11 were reported as severely ill.”
In the next paragraph we can see that on 5 January 2020, 59 cases were reported, including seven critically ill patients, but no deaths:
“The first case became unwell on 12 December 2019 [with] the onset date of the last case [being on] 29 December 2019.”
And it says:
“Current reports describe no evidence of significant human-to-human transmission, including no infections of healthcare workers.”
What was the significance, if anything, of that?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Okay, well, I think the key point is the absence at that time of evidence of significant human-to-human transmission. So we had a new infection, unknown aetiology, and it had not, apparently, transmitted from one person to another.
Counsel Inquiry: It also says that:
“… influenza, adenovirus, SARS CoV and MERS CoV [had] been ruled out.”
But it says:
“It [was] possible that this cluster [represented] the emergence of a novel pathogen.”
What was the significance of that, please?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Well, clearly in East Asia, with its past history of infections, particularly avian influenza, SARS-CoV-1, MERS, those were the obvious candidates that needed to be investigated first, and of course those had been, by that time, ruled out.
Investigations, as it says, into other pathogen causes were ongoing, and that suggested that the emergence of this new cluster was caused by a new pathogen.
Counsel Inquiry: The fact that it may have been a novel pathogen, did that mean that it was possible that we wouldn’t have any existing medication or vaccinations available for it, and that it was likely that there wouldn’t be any existing immunity in the population?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct. I mean, we had at that stage yet to characterise what that new pathogen was, but a working assumption is that if you don’t know what it is, it is a new pathogen, then it is very likely that existing therapies might not work, that you won’t have a vaccine and that the population could be naive to this pathogen.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Over the page, please, is it right that whilst the cluster was not thought to be avian influenza, that had been reported in the region, and so there were some recommendations of how to treat cases if avian influenza risk factors were present. But below that, it says that if those factors were not present, that:
“The patient should be managed in respiratory isolation, using the local personal protective equipment protocol for airborne infections, incorporating a fit tested FFP3 mask and eye protection.”
And it goes on to say testing was to be undertaken in containment level 3.
So is it the case that from the very beginning, whilst it was not known what kind of virus this was, out of an abundance of caution it was being treated as if it was an airborne high-consequence infectious disease?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes, and that’s what you would expect to be the case. And what you see there is a clear statement, what we would expect in infection prevention and control terms from any NHS organisation in the UK – this was obviously taken from a Public Health England document – anywhere in Wales and the UK, should that – should this disease present itself.
Counsel Inquiry: In Module 1 we heard that pre-pandemic Wales did not have, itself, any isolation units. As at 8 January, can you tell us, had that situation changed?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Sorry, just to make absolutely clear, we did not have in Wales a high-consequence infectious diseases –
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Dr Quentin Sandifer: – unit. All our acute hospitals had isolation facilities, but, as you will also recall from my Module 1 evidence, an audit conducted in 2017 had suggested that not all of those isolation units satisfied our expectations.
So I guess the key point here is we were treating this as a new high-consequence infectious disease, and we would respond accordingly within Wales, which meant that we would normally move the patient, if that was our suspicion, to a unit in England.
Counsel Inquiry: So just to be absolutely clear, Dr Sandifer, is it the case that, as at 8 January 2020, first of all there were no HCID units within Wales?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: And secondly, that there were no satisfactory isolation units in Wales?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: No, that second point is not correct. What I’m perhaps not saying very clearly is we had isolation facilities in all acute hospitals, but our audit had suggested that further work was required in some of those settings to achieve, for example, a level of negative pressure isolation within the room that one would expect.
Counsel Inquiry: So, just to amend my question in that case, there were no isolation units that were satisfactory to be able to house HCID patients?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I would put it this way: that we would not – that we might temporarily place a patient in an isolation unit in an acute hospital in Wales, but with the expectation that they would move to an appropriately equipped high-consequence infectious diseases unit elsewhere.
Counsel Inquiry: And how many level 3 containment laboratories were in Wales at that time?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: The exact number I’m not sure, but containment level 3 was in most of our principal laboratories, so I know that for certain Cardiff, Swansea and Rhyl in North Wales had containment level 3 laboratory facilities.
Counsel Inquiry: Page 3 of this document provides further information about Chinese New Year falling on 25 January. I don’t believe that information was contained in the Public Health England briefing. Why did you think that that was significant enough to include in the Public Health Wales briefing?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Because I was well aware, personally, and I think it’s generally well known, that within China you will see a very large movement of people returning home for the Chinese New Year, and that likewise could also be associated with very large international travel.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Can we move on to 9 January, please, and display INQ000147259, please.
Is this an email that you received, Dr Sandifer, from Dr Giri Shankar, who was the professional lead consultant for health protection at Public Health Wales, and this email included a summary of an incident management team meeting convened by Public Health England that he had attended earlier that day?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: Did that email set out the main points arising from that meeting, which I’ll just take you through? At paragraph 1b is it right that WHO had reported that morning that a novel coronavirus had been isolated from one of the affected cases?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes, that was the new information, and we now understood that this novel virus appeared to be of the coronavirus family.
Counsel Inquiry: And it was potentially zoonotic?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: At that time there was still no evidence of human-to-human transmission or evidence of transmission to healthcare workers; is that correct?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s right.
Counsel Inquiry: At paragraph 2, can we see that Public Health England had decided to respond to this as an “enhanced incident” because of it being a novel coronavirus, with as yet unknown consequences?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: And it says that the agent and incident was being managed as a high-consequence infectious disease –
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: – which I think you say was an appropriate approach?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Just pausing there, so we have now the identification of a novel coronavirus. The Inquiry heard in Module 1 that coronaviruses generally were known to cause mild respiratory illness, also known as the common cold, however it’s right, isn’t it, that there had been two past global outbreaks caused by coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-1 and MERS CoV, which had caused severe disease which was transmissible from person-to-person and which were both classified as HCIDs; is that correct?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: So how much of a concern was it to you to learn that a novel coronavirus had been identified?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I think I just simply noted what the situation was at that time. Clearly I was thinking: well, is this a variant of the SARS or a MERS? We were all thinking that. But I don’t actually think that would have fundamentally changed any of the decisions or actions we were taking then. What we were doing is reporting what we were observing. It should be said we were still dealing with something in one city in one province in China, reporting that, here, in the context of the United Kingdom, and specifically here in Wales.
Counsel Inquiry: The Inquiry heard that very few cases of SARS and MERS reached the UK during those outbreaks. Are you able to assist us as to how many cases, if any, reached Wales?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I don’t think there were any SARS-CoV-1 cases in Wales, I’m not absolutely sure on that point, I wasn’t working in Wales at that time.
With the 2015 outbreak of MERS CoV in South Korea, and indeed through the period since MERS CoV was first identified, I think from memory we had two contacts, suspected contacts, in Wales during those years, and those I believe were ruled out as confirmed cases.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
At paragraph 6 of this document, can we see there under “Diagnostics” it says:
“PHE’s Respiratory Virus Unit have a well-developed and well-tested Pan-coronavirus assay that should detect most coronaviruses.”
Am I right in understanding that your evidence is that Wales did have at this time level 3 labs which would also be able to test for coronaviruses –
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: – once PHE had developed that assay?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Sorry, so we just need to separate out. PHE had the assay at that date –
Counsel Inquiry: Yes.
Dr Quentin Sandifer: – 9 January. We had laboratories that could conduct this test, but we didn’t have the assay for this – for coronavirus here in Wales at that time.
Lady Hallett: Could you just explain what you mean by assay?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: So this is the test itself, if you like, the diagnostic test, my Lady.
Lady Hallett: Thank you.
Ms Jung: Over the page, can we see there a reference to the situation being “rapidly evolving”?
“… there will be lots of changes to guidance, [advice], documents etc. [Public Health England] have asked for co-operation from [the devolved administrations] on this and offer quick turnaround on issues that require 4 nation agreement.”
Is that right?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s right. And it might be just worth us all – me just reminding us here, Public Health England were designated the national focal point for the UK Government under the International Health Regulations (2005), so they would have received any notification to the WHO, and they, therefore, would have taken the lead in sharing that information and any immediate action that arose from that within the United Kingdom.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Can we then display, please, INQ000147262.
This was the briefing note on 10 January 2020 where Public Health Wales was relaying the information that had been passed on the previous day by Dr Shankar; is that right?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct, yes.
Counsel Inquiry: On page 2, the last paragraph, can we see there the advice on what to do with patients with respiratory symptoms and the reference to transferring them to a single occupancy room, preferably a respiratory isolation room, ideally under negative pressure.
So is it right that, as at this date, patients were being transferred to England to be held in HCID units? Do you think that the briefing at this time should have advised health boards to start preparing their own isolation units which would have been sufficient to house HCID patients?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Sorry, could I just correct something you said?
Counsel Inquiry: Yes, of course.
Dr Quentin Sandifer: The UK Government was not asking for patients to be transferred from China. What this statement –
Counsel Inquiry: No, no, sorry, this is in relation to patients from – in Wales.
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: So you are advising, aren’t you, that if there are any patients in Wales who have symptoms –
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: – that they should be held in isolation units, preferably negative pressure ones, and you’ve told us that those patients would have had to have been transferred from Wales to England –
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: – is that right? So my question was: do you think, at this time, you should have been advising health boards to start getting ready to have their own satisfactory units to be able to house HCID patients?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: So this briefing was intended to alert the health boards to the fact that the isolation rooms which would have met the requirements we were asking for, that they ought to take notice of what was happening and be aware that they might need to use those isolation rooms.
Counsel Inquiry: Is it right that the – sorry – the first suspected case in Wales was on 16 January 2020?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: You provided a briefing note to the Public Health Wales board on that day. In fact, I think – sorry, let me just correct that: the suspected case was on the 15th, and you reported it on the 16th; is that right?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct, and at that time –
Counsel Inquiry: Yes, and that patient was a 67-year old female Welsh resident in North Wales whose husband worked in Wuhan City, and she was in fact transferred from a hospital in Wales to specialist facilities in Liverpool; is that right?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: She was transferred, yes, to a specialist facility in Liverpool.
Counsel Inquiry: And you’re right to say that that was negative.
Dr Quentin Sandifer: The test was negative, yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Yes.
You had or Public Health Wales had its first meeting with the Chief Medical Officer of Wales on 21 January 2020. That was 12 days after the novel coronavirus had been discovered. Do you think that was soon enough?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: So just to wind back a little bit, the UK IMT, established and chaired by Public Health England from 9 January, was attended by members of my team, Dr Giri Shankar, whom you’ve referred to, as well as a senior medical officer from Welsh Government. We were having daily conversations at that and from that time with the Welsh Government senior medical officer and other senior officials in the Chief Medical Officer’s team, and those were happening on a daily basis.
Now, I can’t remember the first time I spoke to the Chief Medical Officer about this, but in case there’s any misunderstanding from your question, there was regular daily communications already taking place between my senior team and the Chief Medical Officer’s team.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
It’s right, isn’t it, that on 22 January 2020 Public Health Wales invoked its emergency plan at an enhanced level?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: We know that Public Health England had been responding to this at an enhanced level since 9 January. Do you think that Public Health Wales should have moved to that sooner?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: No, I don’t think necessarily. Public Health England, you know, in the face of a potential high-consequence infectious disease alert, it was entirely correct that they would immediately go to an enhanced level. As I say, we were in daily contact, not just – we were in – attended the daily IMTs, the incident management teams, with Public Health England, and the reason we stood up our public health emergency response plan on the 22nd is because the sheer volume of work that had by then arisen from that engagement as a member of the four nations IMT necessitated us to start thinking beyond the immediate resources of our public health protection service.
Counsel Inquiry: The Public Health Wales response plan had envisaged a silver group being established at the same time as –
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yep.
Counsel Inquiry: – an enhanced level response being invoked. Why wasn’t that done on the same day?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: So, I don’t think that there’s – any particular significance should be attached to a six-day difference. What we were doing, as I say – apologies if I keep repeating myself – is we were in daily contact with Public Health England, we were in daily contact with the Welsh Government, work was building up, we necessitated therefore additional – well, envisaged additional resources would be required to support us, we invoked the emergency response plan, we established our own IMT on the 23rd, again at enhanced, consistent with Public Health England, but we could see that that group itself would necessitate additional tactical level support. And so, you know, we were talking about, over the period of the weekend, bringing together additional support, and that was established in the form of the silver group.
So the fact that silver group didn’t actually – wasn’t established until Tuesday, as far as I’m concerned, had no material impact on our response. We were delivering the response. The silver group was an additional element that would assist us with that, and it was better to make sure that we could establish that.
And just to be clear, when you establish something like a silver group, it’s not just a case of convening a meeting, we have to put human resource behind that, and that resource has to be rostered in a way that it’s sustainable for it to be able to deliver the functions set for that group. So this was not just the case that, “Oh, we just better convene a group”, it doesn’t work like that.
Counsel Inquiry: You mention there the Public Health Wales IMT, which was established on 23 January, and is it right that that was set up to assess and manage the information and consequential actions arising from the Public Health England-led IMT, and to undertake Welsh-specific surveillance and risk assessment and to provide public health technical advice on plans for responding to possible cases in Wales? Do you think that it would have been helpful to set up this Wales-specific IMT prior to 23 January, and had it been, would there have been a bit more of a head start on making Wales specific plans?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: No, and no to both, to be quite frank. The point that I’m repeatedly trying to make is that we were undertaking all the actions that I think were required, and that an IMT in due course formalised, right from the beginning. So I don’t think it would have made any difference to have declared an IMT at the same time, for example, as Public Health England. We were doing what we needed to do already.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Can we look at another briefing that was sent out on the same day, 23 January.
This is INQ000147265.
We’ll just wait for that to come up.
Can we see there the intended audience, as well as the previous intended recipients, this time also included GPs, health boards, the Welsh ambulance service trust and port health authorities, as well as the Welsh Government? Can you see that?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I can, yes.
Counsel Inquiry: If we look at the last paragraph of that page, we can see there it says:
“Due to the enlarging geographic area affected, and evidence of human-to-human transmission, it is increasingly likely that suspected cases (those with an appropriate clinical picture and travel or contact exposure) will be identified in the UK, including Wales.”
Is that right?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: On page 2, can we see a section titled “Recommendations and actions”:
“Health boards should ensure their preparedness for a possible case of [this novel coronavirus], including provision, training and appropriate use of personal protective equipment, and isolation facilities. The current guidance is for assessment in an airborne isolation unit in hospital, followed by testing and a period of isolation (at home or in hospital) whilst awaiting the results.”
Was this the first time that Public Health Wales had formally asked health boards to start preparing these isolation facilities in Wales?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I go back to my previous comment, with reference to the briefing on the 10th, by drawing attention to the need for any patients with – suspected of having this infection to be cared for or housed in, as you put it, an isolation room. We were already signalling that intent two weeks earlier. All we were doing is providing additional clarification to that.
Counsel Inquiry: At …
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I mean, could I just again reference my Module 1 – remind you that we had conducted training, an update refresher training for the health boards and the ambulance trust in September 2019, on managing high-consequence infectious diseases and the use of personal protective equipment. And so, if you like, this paragraph is just simply to remind them that there were a large number of people in health boards that could deal with these cases, pending their transfer, of course, to another facility, and to start to prepare themselves accordingly.
Counsel Inquiry: Could I just refer back, please, to your evidence in Module 1.
If we could bring up the transcript at PHT000000 – I think it’s eight 0s – PHT0000000014. It’s the transcript from 4 July 2023, at page 78.
Can we see there that you say that:
“… in January 2020, as it became clear to us in Public Health Wales the novel coronavirus represented a very serious threat, we as an organisation entered into discussions with the Welsh Government and – with one of our local health boards, to discuss how we could establish very quickly a high-consequence infectious disease unit at that hospital, in advance of and in readiness for potential patients if novel coronavirus came to Wales.”
So in your Module 1 evidence you were saying that you had entered discussions with one health board; is that right?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s right, the University Hospital of Wales, just down the road from here.
Counsel Inquiry: Can we turn to your statement in this module at page 35, paragraph 145, three lines up from the bottom you say:
“… I was acutely aware that we lacked the authority to direct the NHS in Wales … to establish capacity and capability to support initial assessment and sampling of suspected cases.”
Then at page 38, paragraph 157, you refer to:
“Rapid scaling up [requiring] a system response under national leadership, with authority to direct, supported by access to reserve workforce, including volunteers, that can be mobilised quickly.”
Is it right that, without the national strategic leadership in place at this time, that Public Health Wales was not in a position to direct the NHS or local health boards to prepare in the way that they needed to be doing?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I mean, let me just start by stating that paragraph 157 is obviously a reflection after the event, so this is me looking back and summarising what I strongly believe now, but even at the time.
The challenge we were facing, the previous point that you highlighted, the “authority to direct” comment, was with reference to the fact that during the week beginning 27 January we were asking, asking directly, health boards to begin to prepare themselves so that if we had a suspected case they were able to appropriately sample, assess and sample that patient, hold them whilst the sample was taken, tested by our laboratories, and then if we confirmed the infection we would have arranged for the transfer of that patient to a high-consequence infectious disease unit.
Now, in order to do that, we were having discussions and we were asking them to do that, but at that stage by the end of January we were becoming very, very concerned, we’d had by then a second suspected case, also tested negative, and I was looking for some urgency. And quite frankly I can’t tell the chief exec of a health board or an NHS Trust in Wales what they must do, and what was in my mind was that that was a function that the director general/chief exec of the NHS in Wales could have done, and that is what I’m referring to by national leadership, is from the Welsh Government’s Health and Social Services Group.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Can we look at INQ000147264, please.
This is a written report that was presented in private session to the Public Health Wales board the day after the briefing that we looked at before. At page 4, paragraph –
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I’m sorry, if I could just correct that.
Counsel Inquiry: Yes.
Dr Quentin Sandifer: A quirk of the Word processing software is that it was actually written on the 22nd for the board meeting on the 23rd, but unfortunately, by the time it was captured by my board secretary, it had auto-dated to the 24th in the top right of the document. So just to be clear –
Counsel Inquiry: I see, so it’s written on the 22nd –
Dr Quentin Sandifer: For a board meeting on the 23rd.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you for that clarification. So this was presented to the board on the 24th. If we look at page 4, please –
Dr Quentin Sandifer: On the 23rd.
Counsel Inquiry: On the 23rd, sorry.
On page 4, paragraph 5, can we see there that there’s reference to there being no confirmed cases in the UK, but there had been five possible cases in the UK, including Wales, at that time; is that right? Two had tested negative and three, the tests were awaited for?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: So when the briefing went out, then, the day after you had written this, to the Welsh Government, why didn’t you include the information that there had already been five suspected cases including some in Wales? Do you think that that information would have been significant information to include in the briefing to the government?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: The government already knew that, we were in discussion with them at the time.
Counsel Inquiry: What about the NHS and the health boards?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I guess we could have added, I don’t think there was a – quite frankly, I’m not quite sure what the additional significance of adding that in, but clearly we – if we didn’t add it in then that’s an oversight, but I don’t think it was a material matter.
Counsel Inquiry: Do you think that they might have acted with any more urgency if they thought that there were already cases in Wales that were suspected?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: So there was one case, suspected case, that had already been tested negative as of this date. The second case was on the 25th, so after this date. I don’t think it would have made any significant difference. I mean, as I said, we were meeting with the health boards the following week, and we were trying to explain to them what the – what we then thought they should be doing, and I don’t think that simply adding that line in would have made any difference to those conversations.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Dr Quentin Sandifer: We didn’t hold any information back, to be absolutely clear here, we didn’t withhold any information from the health boards.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you, and I’m not suggesting that you deliberately withheld any information.
Is it right that on 24 January 2020 there was the first confirmed case in Europe?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes, in France.
Counsel Inquiry: And if we display INQ000147245, please.
On 24 January 2020 you received an email from a Welsh Government official, David Goulding, who was the health emergency planning adviser; is that right?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: And at the bottom of page 1, can we see there that he says:
“Public Health Wales is part of the LRF structure and have in the past arranged a Wales briefing of LRF partners, facilitated by Quentin. This was at the height of the EBOLA risk and I don’t think we are at that point. If necessary, [Public Health Wales] could consider a similar approach to briefing LRF representatives.”
At the top of the page, can we see another email where he says:
“Hi Quentin
“See attached emails. I don’t think we are at the point of needing a meeting, similar to what you did before but thought to alert you to the possibility.”
Following this email, did you have a meeting with the local resilience forums?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Okay, so we just need to unpack a few things and what was happening at the time.
So first of all, this email from David Goulding was prompted by an approach that I – my deputy made to him at my request. My deputy was acting as a direct liaison between Public Health Wales and Welsh Government. Essentially I asked him to embed himself part-time in Welsh Government so he could, in real time, keep them abreast of what we were doing and feed back to us in turn what Welsh Government, Chief Medical Officer’s team were doing.
As of the 24th, as you correctly pointed out, France had reported the first case in Europe, and it occurred to me that we might want at that stage to start thinking about public health emergency planning, using civil contingencies. So my deputy had approached David, and I got a response back, as you see in this email.
Now, that paragraph in bold at the bottom references the structure that we talked about earlier, the Public Health Wales public health strategic co-ordinating support group, which we did establish in due course, as I explained.
We were already briefing the LRF co-ordinators directly, however, by this time.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
If we look at page 2, can we see there it says:
“The 4 nations is treating this as an enhanced public health incident and arrangements are in hand for dealing with potential cases and the NHS has plans for high consequence infectious disease. The risk to the UK is assessed as low.
“I don’t see this event as it is currently moving from being in the public health outbreak management space and into civil contingency/multi-agency emergency response.”
Did you agree with Mr Goulding’s view that this event was unlikely to move into becoming a civil emergency?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Well, as I say, this email was prompted by the fact that I was asking him, as the health emergency planning lead, whether, in light of the events elsewhere in Europe, we ought to start thinking about civil contingencies and emergency response, and this was his opinion.
I think it was at 8.04 in the morning on 24 January, we could have had a debate around that, but, you know, my mind was already in the space of perhaps we needed to start thinking about civil contingency, and this is the response he gave me. I don’t think it was as black and white as: okay, there’s a case in France, stand up our emergency plans in Wales.
Counsel Inquiry: This email in the first line refers to the four nations treating this at this stage, 24 January, as an enhanced public health incident.
Do you think that if Public Health Wales at this stage had escalated it to a major incident, as far as Public Health Wales was concerned, that the government might have taken it more seriously?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I don’t think so. I think Dr Cooper addressed this question yesterday. A Public Health Wales response plan directs our internal Public Health Wales actions. If we had gone to a major incident, we were just simply saying we desperately need to mobilise more resources internally. Well, we were doing that anyway, and I don’t think that that would have signalled to anyone outside the organisation that they in turn ought to take different action. I think it would only simply have confused the situation.
We were responding, consistent with Public Health England, at enhanced level, mobilising rapidly within Public Health Wales, engaging with, directly with Welsh Government, and engaging, by then, also with health boards. I’m not sure it would have made any difference.
Counsel Inquiry: How would it have confused the situation?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Well, because if one organisation, at this stage, with one case, that might not actually be generally known to people, one case in Europe, confirmed that earlier in that same day, they would have perhaps asked themselves: well, what’s Public Health Wales doing suddenly activating its emergency response plan at a major incident level? What I needed really was, if you like, a clearer signal that what we were discussing already with them, that they were taking the necessary actions, as we’ve discussed in reference to the paper the previous day before the briefing that I had sent out.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
The very next day there was the second suspected case in Wales; is that right? At that time, was the testing for that being done in England or in Wales?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: It was in England at that stage. All the test samples were going from Wales to Colindale laboratory in North London.
Counsel Inquiry: So by this stage Public Health England had the assay; why wasn’t it being done in Wales at this time?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Well, as has, I think, already been covered, but I’ll happily just remind everyone, we got the genomic sequence for this virus, new virus, in late January. We also ordered primers and probes, which are the necessary elements that you need, my Lady, to make a test.
We ordered those on 16 January and the laboratory in Cardiff was already starting to develop a Welsh assay, and that process continued through till the 31st, by which time we were then using that as a test alongside the Public Health England test, so at the same time as we were sending a test to Colindale we were undertaking the same test in our laboratory.
But the previous week we had approached the Chief Medical Officer and said: look, we’ve started to develop a Welsh test, it’s not clear to us how quickly the UK test will be rolled out across the UK, turnaround times for getting test results was now approaching about 48 hours, so therefore could we use this test that we have developed – which was giving us the same results by the way, as we applied it, from the end of January, to those received from Public Health England – could we start to apply that?
And as the Chief Medical Officer explained on Monday, he sought some assurances from us. Some of those assurances were basic actions that we would have taken anyway. We produced a full set of standard operating procedures, we would do that for any introduced new test. But we agreed and indeed did submit a paper to NERVTAG, which was considered on 3 February, and then by the end of that week, 7 February, the Chief Medical Officer was satisfied that the Welsh test was okay, and he approved it in a letter to the Chief Medical Officer, and we therefore stopped sending tests to England at that point, and immediately our turnaround time fell from 48 hours to a few hours, depending on how quickly the sample got to the lab.
Counsel Inquiry: So from 7 February you were conducting tests in Wales?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: In your view, could that process that you’ve just described have been done any faster?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Not really. I mean, there’s an awful lot of work starting from a sequence provided by the World Health Organisation to developing the actual test itself, and our consultant clinical scientists who led this I think did an absolutely cracking job pulling this together in less than a fortnight.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Sticking to 25 January for now, on this day the World Health Organisation issued a statement outlining the importance of being ready at local and national levels for detecting cases, testing samples and clinical management. From your point of view, how ready was Wales at the local and national levels?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Sorry, at what date are we now?
Counsel Inquiry: This is 25 January.
Dr Quentin Sandifer: At 25 January we were, as an organisation, Public Health Wales, you know, fully engaged in the preparatory work for this, and we had – and the following week we were, as I say, engaged in the discussions. So if a case had arrived we would have managed it, I am very confident, in an appropriate and effective way. But as regards to the overall state of readiness, that was still work in progress.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Can we move on to 26 January, please, the next day.
And INQ000252016.
These are the minutes from a meeting that Public Health Wales had with the Welsh Government on this day to agree strategic aims and actions; is that right?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yeah, this is Sunday 26 January, and I suggested to the Chief Medical Officer that we got together now and agreed our overall strategic approach to what we were observing elsewhere still at this stage. I emphasise that last point. So he brought a couple of his senior colleagues, I had a couple of my senior team, and we sat round the table and asked ourselves: well, what were the strategic aims we should be aiming for at this stage?
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
If we look at agenda item 2, we can see that at this time there had been 52 cases tested in England, all negative, and two tested cases in Wales, also negative. Is that right?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s right. The second negative case result had only just come through that morning.
Counsel Inquiry: If we look at page 2, in the first section, can we see there that there was a discussion about a proposal being circulated for the case definition to be amended to expand the affected geographical area? So was it anticipated that that would increase significantly the number of suspected cases in Wales and in the UK generally?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes, so the case definitions are discussed at a UK level, led by Public Health England, and that in turn, on the basis of information that was coming out of the WHO. So, yes, the answer to your question is every case definition invariably expanded the potential numbers of people that could present as suspected cases.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
At page 5, at the top of the page, can we see that:
“Any confirmed case would be expected to be managed outside of Wales as guided by the Imported Fever Service to HCID units.”
So at this time any positive cases were still being sent outside of Wales?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Would have been sent, any confirmed cases would have been sent outside of Wales to an HCID unit in England.
Counsel Inquiry: Can we see in the middle of the page it says:
“Cross Government not meeting over [the] weekend.”
Bearing in mind that this was a rapidly evolving situation, you’ve told us the hours that you and your colleagues were working, do you think it was appropriate for that meeting not to have taken place over the weekend?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I think this is a matter, as you say, it’s an update from Welsh Government, it’s a matter for Welsh Government to answer.
Counsel Inquiry: Page 6, item 6, can we see there that it’s stated that this is an “NHS incident at present … can be strategically managed accordingly and doesn’t currently require Civil Contingencies response”? So at this stage the government still did not think that it was a civil emergency?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: At page 7, action log item 2, which was in relation to testing and isolation capacity and so on:
“Agreed to remain with reactive approach.”
Do you think that at this stage the decision to remain with a reactive approach was the right one?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I mean, with hindsight and reading these notes again, I’m not quite sure I understand what we’re saying. I’m assuming what this refers to is that we need to be alert to and respond to suspected cases in the way that we had already been doing for a fortnight by that – almost a fortnight by that stage, and I’m assuming that is what we’re referring to.
I mean, I had already enquired, as you know and we’ve discussed, with Welsh Government whether we ought to start thinking about civil contingencies, and I – as we’ve already discussed – had received a response.
Counsel Inquiry: Do you think you and the government should have been more proactive at this stage?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: So, absolutely, my point being that we were proactive. There is nothing else that Public Health Wales could or needed to have done at this stage. The decision to have activated civil contingencies was a decision for Welsh Government.
Counsel Inquiry: It’s right, isn’t it, that on 27 January 2020, and this is after you say the momentum had started changing, that two additional backup strategic directors were appointed and you became the lead strategic director at that stage, and it was the next day, 28 January 2020, when the silver group was established? You’ve told us that you don’t think that would have – establishing that any sooner would have made any difference; is that right?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That was, if you like, an action that we needed, that we took internally in order to support – tactically to support the response that we were already mobilising within the organisation. The fact that we got that process in place, properly established, at that date, I think is neither – you know, even with reflection, I don’t think it would have made any difference if we had simply convened that immediately when we invoked the plan.
Counsel Inquiry: It’s right, isn’t it, that on 30 January the World Health Organisation declared a public health emergency of international concern, and the UK had its first two cases of Covid-19, which were announced on 31 January?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: Can we look at, please, INQ000147267.
This was you updating the board about the WHO declaring a PHEIC, and the UK risk level being raised from low to moderate, and you were expecting the case definition to change; is that right?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: If we look at section 2, the first paragraph, can we see that it was agreed, it’s towards the bottom of the first paragraph:
“It is agreed that, at the present time, this is a ‘health led incident’ and Public Health Wales, alongside Welsh Government, is leading the response.”
So even after Covid-19 has been declared to be a public health emergency of international concern, is it right that the government was still seeing this as a health-led incident and was not taking charge of leading the national response?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: It is the case that Welsh Government was considering this a health-led incident, and that the principal leadership, as I could see it, was coming from the Chief Medical Officer.
Counsel Inquiry: How seriously do you think the Welsh Government was taking this threat at this time?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I think 31 January, even at the time, it really felt like a seminal moment. I mean, the Chief Medical Officer of the United Kingdom standing up and saying “We’ve got the first two cases in the UK” just about a month after it was first reported by China to the WHO, it just felt to me like this was an inflection point in the whole, as we would subsequently call it, the pandemic, in the emergence of this outbreak.
And I personally was starting to get very concerned now about the extent to which I could see, beyond the Chief Medical Officer, a response from Welsh Government.
Counsel Inquiry: You’ve told us that the testing in Wales was established on 7 February –
Dr Quentin Sandifer: It was approved on the 7th.
Counsel Inquiry: Sorry, approved on the 7th –
Dr Quentin Sandifer: We were already applying the test from 31 January in parallel with the test in –
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you, so after that date it was done exclusively in Wales?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: After 7 February it was done exclusively in Wales.
Counsel Inquiry: And in your statement you say that at that point the challenge then returned to community sampling. Could you just briefly explain what that challenge was, please.
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yeah, so I think Dr Cooper described this really well. It’s an end-to-end process, somebody has to take a sample, a microbiological sample, our laboratory would conduct the test, and then that result needs to get back to the clinician who ordered the test.
Now, that front end requires clinicians in health boards to take a sample, and, as I’ve already said in my evidence this morning, we had begun that discussion earlier in that week, the week commencing 27 January, with health boards, in order to try to get them to take on that responsibility.
Now, the significance of that is that the first two cases or suspected cases, sorry, to correct myself, the first two suspected cases were attended by senior staff from the health protection service in Public Health Wales. And indeed, whilst we were having those discussions with health boards, the whole of Wales, the whole geography of Wales, was dependent on a handful of senior consultants from my team being able, in response to concerns about a suspected case, attending the patient, anywhere in Wales, clinically assessing them, taking a sample, and getting that sample back to Cardiff.
It was that front end of the process – which was unsustainable. You know, a handful of people could never do that if this was to start now increasing in any numbers in Wales. And we had no idea how quickly this might spread, even at that stage.
So that’s the reference that I made before and now to the mobilisation of testing – sorry, sampling capability.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Is it right that on 10 February 2020 the Chief Medical Officer for Wales issued a letter to health board chief executives requesting that every health board develop community assessment and testing plans, and that each health board must have coronavirus testing units separate from emergency departments, and that those arrangements were to be operational as soon as practically possible, and by no later than Friday 14 February?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes, and that was in response to our frustration and concern at the pace at which the health boards were putting together their sampling capacity. And, if you like, the Chief Medical Officer’s letter represented the direction which I thought he had the authority to give rather than me.
Counsel Inquiry: Should that have been issued earlier than it was?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: It might have been helpful if that had been issued at the beginning of February. Or even, if I had decided not to bother to try to have a conversation and see if we can get this by negotiation with the health boards, we could have done it the previous week. But I think, frankly, that would have been inappropriate. Certainly after the 31st, when we’d had the first two cases, I think that did represent a turning point, and maybe the following week, some direction at that stage would have been really helpful.
Ms Jung: Thank you.
My Lady, would that be a convenient point?
Lady Hallett: It would, certainly. 11.30-ish, 11.31.
(11.16 am)
(A short break)
(11.31 am)
Lady Hallett: Ms Jung.
Ms Jung: Thank you, my Lady.
Dr Sandifer, could I start, please, with a correction. When we were discussing the meeting that took place between you and the Chief Medical Officer for Wales on 26 January, do you remember we looked at the minutes for that meeting?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: And I put to you that the action in relation to testing and other things was to remain with a reactive approach. I’m told that that specific action was in relation to communications, but the agenda item also related – also was in relation to diagnostics and case management. Do you know what the actions were in relation to those?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: So, thank you for that clarification. That would make sense, reactive communication, and I’m assuming that the second part is with reference to the fact that our laboratories were ready to respond to test any suspected cases.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Is it right that the gold group was set up on 25 February, and that was two days before the first confirmed case in Wales?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: Do you think that should have been set up earlier?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I don’t think so, at the time, as strategic director, it’s the discretion of the strategic director when to establish the gold group. The reason that I hadn’t was that I was discharging all the functions of the strategic director sufficiently without necessitating convening a gold group. But by 25 February, the sheer scale and volume of the actions and activities we were involved in prompted me at that stage to convene the group when I did. So I didn’t think it was necessary beforehand because I was pretty well doing that full-time anyway.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Can we look at INQ000252365, please.
This is an email thread that was put to Dr Chris Williams last Friday, and it’s an email thread regarding PHE modelling work between Dr Williams, Andrew Jones, yourself and Rob Orford.
Can we see there it says, in the middle of the page, this is in fact you saying:
“We should avoid calling it a STAC – it isn’t – and what we need is the same level of urgency as it seems is happening in PHE/DHSC.”
What did you mean by that?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Okay, so the first part is, I’m afraid, me being a little pedantic. STAC stands for a scientific technical advisory cell. It’s a construct described in emergency planning guidance to support strategic co-ordinating groups. Those were being established at this time, but what I understood Welsh Government was doing was establishing what came to be known as TAC and TAG. So I was being a little pedantic in making that –
Lady Hallett: Like myself.
Dr Quentin Sandifer: The second part is probably the more relevant here. Below that you will see reference to work that was being undertaken in Public Health England, and I just felt that the response that I was seeing in Wales at that time to the specific actions that Public Health England were taking was not commensurate and that we needed more urgency.
Ms Jung: Thank you.
Can we look at INQ000309871, please.
This is an email that you sent to Dr Rob Orford and Dr Tracey Cooper on 23 March 2020 regarding testing, and you said:
“Above all else I am really worry that National politics could trump public safety and need in Wales and we end up losing out badly in Wales.”
What did you mean by that? What was your concern about national politics trumping public safety?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: So this was around the time that we were in discussion with Public Health England about access to tests from Roche. I had been party to some of the discussions with Dr Cooper, and I had been copied in to most of the emails, and at this date I had thought that there was an agreement for 5,000 tests to come to Wales. However, as a little bit further down you’ll see, we didn’t have that in writing.
Now, my concern at this stage was that we were going to lose those tests, which of course subsequently events showed we did and we got about 500 tests, and I was probably stepping out of line by speculating whether there was anything at UK Government level that might be behind that, and emphasising my concern about the implications of losing that test capacity on public safety and need in Wales.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Could I ask you about the Emergency Coordination Centre (Wales), please. Is it right that you asked the Welsh Government in January 2020 whether they were going to stand one up?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes, on 24 January, we’ve discussed that point, we would have been the first signal that perhaps they were invoking civil contingencies.
Counsel Inquiry: Can we look, please, at INQ000255778.
On 3 March 2020 did you receive this email from Andrew Jones which sets out:
“This is not a civil emergency situation but ECC(W) is operating in support of the health agenda. This is being kept under review and any change in activation arrangements will be shared as a matter of urgency.”
This email was then forwarded to you and Dr Shankar the same day, and it said the same thing; is that right?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yeah, I was astonished at this. I mean, we’re at the beginning of March, and Welsh Government resilience team were telling us that they didn’t think we were approaching, if we weren’t already there, a civil emergency.
Counsel Inquiry: Do you know why they were taking that approach?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I think that question needs to be directed to Welsh Government. What they will point out, because I’ve read others’ statements, is that they had convened the – a Civil Contingencies Group on 4 February. We hadn’t received notice of that meeting in advance, but Dr Jones – sorry, Mr Jones, who was my liaison, just happened to be there when that invitation came in, and he joined Chief Medical Officer’s staff at that meeting. So we knew that there had been a first meeting, which would have suggested a level 1 activation of the pan-Wales response plan.
We subsequently learned that ECC(W) apparently had been stood up, although over time, through February, it appeared to us that appeared to be operating more as a health desk and not in terms of the functions, as I read them, in the pan-Wales response plan, and the purpose for that email chain was that I asked Andrew to go back and say: hang on, are we in? Are we actually using civil emergency powers at this moment? And here is the response.
Counsel Inquiry: Can we look, please, at a document that was produced by Public Health Wales, INQ000147246.
This is called “Covid-19 as a ‘major (health) incident’: Points to consider”. If we look over the page, we can see that at the top it says:
“This paper summarises the current situation of Covid-19 in Wales and provides an evidential summary of considerations to guide Welsh Government in any decision on the declaration of a Major Incident for Health in Wales.
“In preparing this paper and before declaring a major incident two essential questions need to be answered and this paper considers each in turn.
“1. Why declare a ‘major incident’ and why now?
“2. What would we expect from making a declaration of a ‘major incident’.”
You go on, don’t you, in this paper, to deal with three questions? We can see the first question there: why declare a major incident and why now? And you set out the factors that need to be considered.
Firstly, the current epidemiological situation, and you set out that the summary of confirmed cases in Wales as at 9 am on 11 March 2020 was that there was 19 cases confirmed from five different health boards. Two, a summary of contact tracing/monitoring as at the same time and date:
“109 individuals were under contact monitoring …”
Over the page. And of the 13 cases in Wales who have contacts under surveillance, the mean number of contacts per case was six, but this ranged from zero to 27.
Then factor 2, characteristics of the population exposed, you set out there that, in terms of demography, Wales has a higher proportion of the population aged 65 or over compared to the UK.
Over the page:
“Wales has a slightly higher proportion of the population aged 85 [or over] compared to the UK …
“Wales has 30,000 men aged 85 [or over] and 52,400 women aged 85 [or over].”
In terms of health status:
“Wales has a higher proportion of Census respondents reporting their health to be NOT good or very good compared to England …
“Wales has a higher proportion of Census respondents reporting having a limiting long-term illness compared to England …
“Wales has a high proportion of patients on a number of QoF registers including asthma and COPD, diabetes, coronary heart disease and stroke compared to the UK as a whole …”
Economic status:
“Wales has a lower proportion of people in employment compared to the UK as a whole …
“Wales has a higher proportion of people on short and long-term sickness absence compared to the UK as a whole …
“Wales has a higher proportion of people in Wales employed in service or sales roles compared to the UK as a whole …
“Wales has a higher proportion of lone parent families compared to the UK as a whole …”
And then dependency:
“Wales has a higher proportion of the adult population that provide care compared to England …”
Over the page, you say:
“This gives rise to an important question: Is the Welsh population more vulnerable than comparator populations that would necessitate earlier/different interventions?
“Objectively the demographic characteristics of the Welsh population and specifically the age profile of the population over 65/75, health and economic status, and dependency responsibilities are such that Wales may experience disproportionate levels of impact from Covid-19.”
Is that right?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: Factor 3, you deal with, later on in that page, state of the health system in Wales to respond to Covid-19, and you say in the last paragraph:
“The predictions for the population of Wales are for over 1.5 million symptomatic cases … with 200,000 requiring hospital admission … An estimated 18,000 will require mechanical ventilation at some point … with 25,000 predicted deaths.”
Over the page:
“Older people and those with comorbidities have higher estimated hospitalisation and mortality proportions, so the estimates for Wales referred to above may be higher than the above under the [reasonable worst-case] scenario.”
You go on to say that:
“Behavioural interventions are planned, including home isolation and household quarantine and cocooning of vulnerable people.”
And in the next paragraph:
“Nevertheless, and quite apart from any consider of a major incident declaration, given the demography and health status of the population of Wales, Public Health Wales strongly advocates early implementation of these three behavioural interventions and specifically commends urgent attention directed at the elderly population cared for in residential and nursing homes in Wales.”
Can we see that below that, on the same page, you go on to ask the second question:
“What would we expect from making a declaration of a ‘major incident’?”
You go on to give the definition of a major incident under the Civil Contingencies Act; is that right?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Mm-hm.
Counsel Inquiry: Over the page, you say:
“Declaration of a major incident in Wales would lead to the establishment of the Emergency Committee (Wales) and the establishment of 4 Strategic Coordinating Groups … across Wales.”
You explain that:
“At the time of writing all LRFs have started to form SCGs and Public Health Wales has attended or will attend all meetings arranged during the week commencing 9 March …”
Then you set out, don’t you, the benefits of declaring a major incident in response to Covid-19, and explain that:
“A recurring theme of lessons identified in multi-agency debriefs is that Major Incidents are not declared soon enough. Timely/early declaration would apply previous lessons.”
2, you say that in the middle of that paragraph:
“The response structures that support SCG decision making, [would be] made available. Examples include Tactical Coordinating Group, Multi-Agency Media Cell, [the] Mass Fatalities Coordinating Group, Logistical Preparedness Group and Recovery Coordinating Group. All these supporting structures and groups can benefit the response to COVID-19.”
Formal decision logs of actions would be kept, that’s paragraph 3.
And 4:
“SCGs would be able to make multi-agency decisions and use partnership networks on key areas such as ‘Communications’ and ‘Mutual Aid’ in a more effective manner than existing arrangements.
“Specific areas could include …”
And then you give some examples, such as domiciliary care and care of the vulnerable, closures of specific schools and events, consistent and effective use of PPE across agencies, and managing public anxiety, addressing any panic buying.
Over the page:
“Ensuring multi-agency consistency of communication/messaging on health, welfare, prevention and delay of the spread of COVID-19.”
At the bottom of this section:
“Set against this there are costs and consequences of setting up the above support infrastructure, which will require resource capacity … and may deflect or impact on the undertaking of necessary actions. It is assumed that the necessity to declare a major incident overrides these considerations.”
Then in conclusion, you say:
“Wales … is confronted by a pandemic … The known characteristics of Covid-19 and the known characteristics of the population of Wales suggest that the impact in Wales could be significant. Considerable preparatory work has occurred in Wales in the ‘containment’ phase but as we approach the ‘delay’ phase this will need to be expanded and accelerated.”
So does that document set out why Public Health Wales thought that the government should be treating this as a civil emergency?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yeah, I mean, we wrote this paper. It might be just helpful to just make a couple of points just to locate this in the narrative here.
So the WHO declared a pandemic on 11 March. Following our first case, on the 27th, announced on 28 February, we began to see case numbers rise, and by this week, of 11 March, those case numbers were rising exponentially.
What I didn’t know, I don’t think any of us knew, in fact I’m pretty sure none of us knew at that time, is that COBR had discussed the legislative basis for the response by then, I think on 2 March, and had decided against using civil contingencies legislation in favour of public health legislation. That quickly became apparent to us in the coming days, as we saw the Coronavirus Bill being developed, but at this stage, and in response to what we had been told by Welsh Government in the email we referred to earlier, I just felt we need to put our – lay our cards on the table and say to Welsh Government “This is how we see it, are you going to use emergency legislation?”
Counsel Inquiry: Was this your way of trying to persuade the Welsh Government to take its own course?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Is it right that the feedback that you received from the Welsh Government was that such a declaration would not be helpful?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That was given to me verbally via Dr Tracey, who had I think received a communication from Welsh Government.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Can I ask you, please, about the development of local plans.
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Mm-hm.
Counsel Inquiry: Is it right that Public Health Wales was asked to produce some guidance in relation to those, and those were received on 21 August 2020?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: We’d sort of asked ourselves. I mean, what I was looking at during the summer was at the state of preparedness of the health boards for what we could expect in the autumn and the winter. And I personally felt there was a mixed level of preparedness, so I put it to the Chief Medical Officer: we probably ought to ask the health boards for these prevention and response plans, and we’ll write the guidance for you. Which is what we did.
Counsel Inquiry: So in your view they were not all satisfactory?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: They were not all satisfactory. Some – there were a couple who actually, doing a very good job. But there were a few that were causing us concern.
Counsel Inquiry: And is it right that the Welsh Government had said that they would write to the health boards in relation to those plans, and then you were surprised to read a letter from the government.
Which is at INQ000147256.
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yep, so this is about seven weeks later. So Welsh Government wrote out, asked for the plans, we received the plans in mid-August. At the Health Protection Advisory Group on 24 August my deputy presented – I and my deputy had reviewed those plans, he presented our findings to that HPAG meeting. It was quite clear that further work was required, by all of the health boards, some much more than others, and so I was surprised then, you know, three weeks, four weeks later, that apparently the Welsh Government seemed to have stepped away from that plan –
Counsel Inquiry: From – and we can see that – I’m sorry.
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Apologies.
Counsel Inquiry: We can see that in the second paragraph, where they say that:
“Events have moved on rapidly since then. We had anticipated providing further feedback … however it has not been possibly to finalise that.”
Then it goes on to say:
“As such, we will not be providing formal feedback on your … plans. We are sorry for any inconvenience this might have caused.”
What’s the importance of having satisfactory local plans in the response to a pandemic such as this?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Right. I’m not quite sure where I begin to answer that one, to be honest. I –
Counsel Inquiry: We’ve only got a few minutes left.
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Okay. Well, I think I’d already set the context in the summer. We were looking ahead to almost certainly a second wave in the autumn/winter. I mean, I think, to give some acknowledgement to Welsh Government, we were by then in the thick of it with all these local protection arrangements being put in place around Wales. But nevertheless, we were looking ahead, and I was just concerned that our health boards’ public health functions were not necessarily geared up for what might come in the winter.
Counsel Inquiry: In your statement, you say that what you think was missing in the first few weeks from 8 January until 20 February was national strategic leadership and co-ordination from Welsh Government. Do you stand by that?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I do stand by that.
Counsel Inquiry: And are there any other reflections that you would like to tell us about?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I don’t think so.
Counsel Inquiry: Is there anything else that you think Public Health Wales could have done better or earlier?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I’m sure we could have done quite a few things better and earlier, and I set out some of my reflections in my statement, as do other – as has Dr Cooper. I don’t think I’ve anything to add to what I’ve already said.
Counsel Inquiry: In your statement you specifically mention the challenges that you faced in mobilising and expanding staff; is that right?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: That’s correct, and I was interested in the discussion – or, rather, the questions you were putting to Dr Cooper yesterday about that.
We are now in a much stronger position than we were, but I think this is more than just simply about resource in Public Health Wales, grateful as we are to Welsh Government for the additional investment; this is also about a system wide preparedness for the future. I allude to that in paragraph 157 with some reflection. I still think there’s more work to do to ensure that Wales and its system, public health system, is ready for a future pandemic.
Ms Jung: Thank you, Dr Sandifer.
My Lady, those are all my questions.
Lady Hallett: Thank you very much.
I think, Ms Foubister, you’ve got some questions, and then Mr Gardner.
Questions From Ms Foubister
Ms Foubister: My Lady.
Good morning, Dr Sandifer. I represent John’s Campaign and Care Rights UK. I’m going to refer to your witness statement, if it’s possible to bring that up.
That’s INQ000267867, and I’m going to look at page 12, paragraph 50.
You say in the bullet point in paragraph 50 that you chaired a gold meeting on 13 March 2020 to discuss stopping routine community testing, and closing down contact tracing in a managed way so as not to leave vulnerable people exposed.
Can I ask, what did you mean by a “managed way”?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: So those people that were already, if you like, in the system, that had been made known to us and we were conducting contact tracing, we needed to make sure we concluded that process for those individuals. As this is the containment to delay, and our response to the UK Government’s decision to move from containment to delay and what that practically would mean, essentially in response to the letter that the – or the link letter the CMO had produced on that.
Ms Foubister: And what factors were considered in relation to how this might impact vulnerable people?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: So, what we recognised is that, as we moved to hospital test – hospital testing, that we would therefore be stepping away from our community testing process and that we would therefore need to engage with the community through a broader range of activities through our professional communications, through the local health boards and their directors of public health, and of course we never withdrew contact tracing entirely because, in response to any local outbreaks or incidents, we would have responded to those as we would in any other public health – at any other time in a public health way.
Ms Foubister: I’m going to refer next to your paragraph 117, which is on page 28 of your witness statement. This kind of goes over towards the bottom. I’m going to look at the next page and paragraph 118 as well.
So in 117 you refer to a Public Health Wales advice note dated 24 October 2020, of which you were a contributory author, which was to inform Welsh Government decisions about steps to be taken after the firebreak.
Then over the page, looking at paragraph 118, you explain about halfway through this paragraph that:
“The … note acknowledged the harms from restrictions ([including] on personal mental health, [and] access to healthcare …”
So if we can turn to the advice note itself, which is INQ000147260.
And I’m going to look primarily at page 3 but it might be helpful to just look at the beginning of the section, which is at the bottom of page 2, if it’s possible to get the kind of split between those pages up.
Essentially, this note is talking about recommendations for post-firebreak, and what’s said at the bottom of page 2 is that whilst some regulation may still be required, this should only be used where, and then there’s three bullet points.
Looking at the final bullet point, this says:
“The harms arising from regulatory impacts on actions to health care, mental health, unemployment and consequent ill health and mortality have been calculated and the population health benefits of the regulations have been shown to exceed the harms caused on a Disability Adjusted Life Years … basis.”
So do you agree that this note recommends that further restrictions should only be imposed if those calculations have taken place?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Yes, I mean, it’s worth I think saying at this point a range of people were involved in the drafting of this, including Professor Mark Bellis, whose name was mentioned by Dr Cooper yesterday, and at that stage we had established our Population Health Group within Public Health Wales, which was examining the wider impacts of Covid on the population, and this was, as I recall it, a suggestion from the work of that group that we should clarify our expectations around this.
Ms Foubister: And was there ever a thorough calculation of the harms caused by restrictions on those –
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I don’t know.
Ms Foubister: – needing care?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: To be honest, I don’t know, but that might have been undertaking by the Population Health Group, but I don’t know for certain.
Ms Foubister: And if we wanted to find out, who would you recommend asking?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I guess we could get that information from within Public Health Wales, so I’m happy to take that away as an action from this Inquiry, if you wish.
Ms Foubister: Thank you.
Thank you, my Lady.
Lady Hallett: Thank you, Ms Foubister.
Mr Gardner.
Questions From Mr Gardner
Mr Gardner: Dr Sandifer, I ask questions on behalf of the Children’s Commissioner for Wales.
You briefly discussed your actions and the actions of Public Health Wales in the post lockdown, post first lockdown period, I just have two quick questions relating to those and to school closures and re-openings in particular.
So firstly can I ask: ahead of schools re-openings on 29 June 2020 what advice, if any, was requested and given by Public Health Wales?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I’m not sure, I wasn’t closely involved in the work that, any work that Public Health Wales might have been doing in that area, so I don’t know, sorry.
Mr Gardner: I’m grateful.
The second one perhaps follows on from questions just being asked in relation to the firebreak. In the statement, in your statement, just ahead of that, at paragraph 116, I don’t need you to turn to it, but you note that Public Health Wales did give advice on the firebreak.
For the benefit of the Inquiry, that advice is dated 12 October 2020, and is INQ000147258.
In that advice, it appears that it is recommended that a number of actions are taken, but it doesn’t appear that it is recommended that schools are closed, just universities. Do you remember that advice?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I remember that advice.
Mr Gardner: And can I ask, as schools were closed on 23 October 2020 for those Year 8 and above, would you suggest that that action was taken in line with Public Health Wales’ advice?
Dr Quentin Sandifer: I don’t know if we provided specific advice on school closures in respect of this advisory note. I note that that was the date of the start of the school half term, and I think that was a consideration that TAC or TAG had given in advance of introducing the firebreak. I’m not sure if Public Health Wales was asked or indeed gave any particular advice on that specific point.
Mr Gardner: I see, so it was simply just a – it wasn’t an omission or a deliberate address, it was –
Dr Quentin Sandifer: Not at all. The issue of the universities had been brought to our attention specifically with regards to – we had – a lot of students, obviously, had arrived in Cardiff, many of them perhaps as freshers, and, looking through the course of that term, what would be the position that we would recommend with regards to the universities, and that was what prompted us to put in the advice as set out in that advisory note.
Mr Gardner: I’m grateful, my Lady.
Lady Hallett: Thank you, Mr Gardner.
I think that completes the questions for you, Dr Sandifer. Thank you again for your assistance, and I do understand the long and very demanding hours that people like you spent trying to serve the public in responding to the pandemic, and please rest assured I shall very much bear the context in mind when I come to produce the reports.
But in the meantime, thank you again for all you and your colleagues did.
The Witness: Thank you very much, my Lady.
(The witness withdrew)
Lady Hallett: Yes, Ms Cowen.
Ms Cowen: My Lady, may I please call Shavanah Taj.
Ms Shavanah Taj
MS SHAVANAH TAJ (affirmed).
Questions From Counsel to the Inquiry
Lady Hallett: I hope we haven’t kept you waiting, Ms Taj.
Ms Cowen: Ms Taj, could you please state your full name.
Ms Shavanah Taj: Shavanah Taj.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you for assisting the Inquiry, both in terms of providing your witness statement and for your attendance here today. Can I please remind you to keep your voice up and to speak slowly and clearly so our stenographer is able to take a record of your evidence.
Your witness statement prepared for this module may be found at INQ000273633. We can see that that statement is signed on 8 September of 2023. Is that statement true to the best of your knowledge and belief?
Ms Shavanah Taj: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Ms Taj, you are the general secretary of the Wales Trades Union Congress. You explain in your witness statement that the Trades Union Congress brings together 5.5 million working people that make up its 48 member unions drawn from all parts of the UK.
You go on to note that the Wales TUC is part of the TUC, and that it represents 400,000 workers in Wales through its affiliated unions.
The Wales TUC has devolved responsibility within the TUC for matters which are within the powers of the Welsh Government and the Senedd, matters that are wholly specific to Wales, and developing policy on matters which impact substantially differently on Wales than elsewhere in the UK; is that right?
Ms Shavanah Taj: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
In your witness statement, you provide a detailed summary of the general role of the Wales TUC, and the Inquiry will have regard to the matters that you there set out. But is the role of the Wales TUC perhaps best captured in your own words from your statement where you state that the purpose of the Wales TUC is to “improve the economic and social conditions of workers in Wales”?
Ms Shavanah Taj: Correct.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
You explain in your witness statement that throughout the pandemic the Wales TUC had frequent communications and liaison with the Welsh Government. You explain in your statement that the context for that communication was the approach in Wales to social partnership.
Can I please ask you to explain what’s meant by the term “social partnership”?
Ms Shavanah Taj: So social partnership is what we often refer to as the Welsh way of working, it’s a long-standing tradition in terms of how the Welsh Government has always operated. The pandemic meant that a Shadow Social Partnership Council was then set up, and that meant that trade union representatives, the Wales TUC leading on behalf of our affiliates, with them there with us as well, employer organisations and the government, were able to be in the same space together, but the pandemic allowed us the opportunity then to expand that tripartite model and bring in others, including many of the commissioners too.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Lady Hallett: You speak very quickly, Ms Taj. Sorry, it’s a failing I have too. Try to slow down.
Ms Shavanah Taj: Sorry, it’s a Cardiff thing, I’ll try and –
Lady Hallett: Don’t worry.
Ms Cowen: You may have touched on this already, but can I just ask you to explain how the approach to social partnership that you have just set out affected the Wales TUC’s engagement with the Welsh Government during the pandemic?
Ms Shavanah Taj: Yeah. So in some instances it’s probably useful for me to reference some of the things that we were able to do that led to – directly to decisions which improved conditions for workers during the pandemic. Examples of this can be specifically in relation to some of the tightening up of regulations, workplace regulations in early 2021, the improvement of the administration of the Welsh Government’s isolation support payments, and other financial supports as well, and particularly important was the issues around communications with workers on PPE provision and also workplace guidance as well.
In Wales the – some of the differences here specifically was that the Welsh Government made sure that in their Covid guidance that it was made clear that employers should be consulting with their trade unions when it came to workplace risk assessments.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you very much.
I’m now going to ask you some questions about the engagement that the Wales TUC had with the Welsh Government during the pandemic. I’m going to ask you to outline the specific mechanisms that were in place to facilitate communication between the Wales TUC and the Welsh Government.
If I may begin with the Workforce Partnership Council.
Ms Shavanah Taj: Yep.
Counsel Inquiry: In your witness statement you cite the Workforce Partnership Council as a forum for social partnership. You describe the Workforce Partnership Council as a tripartite social partnership structure that included the trade unions, employers and the Welsh Government; is that correct?
Ms Shavanah Taj: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: You also explain in your witness statement that the remit of the Workforce Partnership Council was to cover the devolved public services in Wales.
Ms Shavanah Taj: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Do you think membership of the Workforce Partnership Council facilitated the Wales TUC’s engagement with the Welsh Government during the pandemic, and if so can you say how, please?
Ms Shavanah Taj: Yes, absolutely.
So in terms of the Workforce Partnership Council, there are also a number of different groups that sit beneath it. So we have a health sector forum, we have – we then established a social care forum as well, because, again, as the pandemic progressed we knew that there were big issues in that area, there’s an education forum, but there were some gaps.
So some of the gaps that existed, particularly as things progressed, were in relation to hospitality and retail, and some of the unions that organised workers in those areas, including unions such as Equity, which represents a lot of the creative sector workers, were, we made sure that they equally had a voice and a direct channel into the Welsh Government.
And so the sort of sectoral engagement ended up expanding, and led to some, you know, good decisions being taken. So, for example, there one of the differences here in Wales was the creative sector unions were then able to access a special fund that was set up specifically for them, and individuals, workers sometimes who could kind of fall between the cracks, for example, people such as taxi drivers, we were able to ensure that they also had a voice when decisions were being taken around hospitality. So, yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Before I go any further, and I’m sorry to come back to this, I am going to have to ask you to slow down a little bit. I know it’s very difficult, but if you can please just try to do your best in that regard, thank you.
I’m now going to ask you about the Shadow Social Partnership Council. In your witness statement, you describe that the first iteration of this council was established in 2019, and that this council served to bring together Welsh ministers, employers and trade union representatives.
The Inquiry understands that membership of the Shadow Social Partnership Council was extended during the pandemic and the First Minister convened fortnightly meetings of the Shadow Social Partnership Council. Is that correct?
Ms Shavanah Taj: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: In your statement, you say that meetings of the SSPC typically took the form of an update from the First Minister regarding the Covid-19 situation, and then there would be two further updates which were usually from other ministers or the Chief Medical Officer regarding the Welsh Government’s response to the pandemic.
You state that the council would typically meet after Cabinet had taken decisions, and this provided an opportunity to advise on how decisions would be implemented.
If it’s right that the Shadow Social Partnership Council would typically meet after Cabinet had taken decisions, does that mean that the work of that council didn’t actually influence decisions or become involved in decisions?
Ms Shavanah Taj: The opportunity that we had was whilst those Cabinet meetings had already been taken, those meetings had taken place, the discussions that we would be having through the Shadow Social Partnership Council would take place before any public announcements were being made. And so there was an opportunity then for us to be able to influence some of the messaging, for example, or also to point out where there might be some gaps, particularly around some of the Covid guidance, some of the changes that might be coming up, and the need to make sure that every worker was able to access that guidance in a way that was understandable for that particular sector or for that particular worker.
Counsel Inquiry: Yes, thank you.
I’m now going to ask you about the regular briefings that the Wales TUC provided to the Welsh Government.
You explain in your witness statement that early in the pandemic an arrangement was agreed for the TUC to provide regular briefing documents summarising for the Welsh Government the key and current issues being raised by the range of unions.
The Inquiry will have regard to the examples of issues raised by the Wales TUC in these regular briefings which are set out at paragraph 31 of your witness statement.
But can I ask you, do you consider that these briefings were an effective means to communicate the issues that were being raised by your members to the Welsh Government?
Ms Shavanah Taj: I would say yes. So some of the things that we did do through some of those arrangements was, in real time, raise matters that were being brought to our attention. So from our perspective, you know, we were very clear as the Wales TUC that not – our responsibility wasn’t just to people who were members of a union but was to also make sure that all workers, regardless of whether or not they were in a union or not, were being protected.
So we, for example, set up very quickly a Covid helpline through our website. People who weren’t necessarily either directly impacted could feed in. We had examples of where one man contacted us in relation to his wife who was a mental health nurse, and she was in a situation working in a ward where PPE hadn’t been provided because the assumption was that everything – it wasn’t necessary at that stage. There wasn’t enough understanding. We were able – and she ended up in an altercation with a patient who ended up having Covid. He was – she had messaged her husband, her husband then went on to our website, fed this in, and we were able to pass on that information in real time to the minister through the Welsh Government advisers, and through some of the Welsh Government staff, and quite quickly that matter was then dealt with, and the union representative also contacted on site as well.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
I’m now going to ask about the liaison that the Wales TUC had with the Welsh Government in the early period of the pandemic.
You set out in your witness statement that the first significant liaison the Wales TUC had with the Welsh Government was on 12 March 2020, when the minister for health and social care and the Minister for Housing and Local Government held a conference call with the Wales TUC.
In your view, did this engagement take place sufficiently early?
Ms Shavanah Taj: I think it took place as quickly as it could do at that stage. Of course, you know, when you look back, you think: was Wales actually prepared? Could things have been different? I think, yes, absolutely, things could have been different, but I think some of the difficulties perhaps are around the fact that the Welsh Government, you know, don’t have, even now, a direct responsibility for employment rights, they don’t have direct responsibility for enforcement, so –
Lady Hallett: Could we avoid any trespassing into what might be thought to be constitutional political matters, please, Ms Taj.
Ms Shavanah Taj: Okay.
Lady Hallett: I have a number of terms of reference but they don’t go that far.
Ms Cowen: I think, Ms Taj, it may be fair to say, and correct me if I’m wrong, but the question was: did this engagement take place sufficiently early, and I think you said that it perhaps took place as soon as it could have done, but it could always have been earlier –
Ms Shavanah Taj: Yeah.
Counsel Inquiry: – should other things have been in place?
Ms Shavanah Taj: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Can I ask, please, that we bring up document – I’m so sorry, I can see that it’s been anticipated.
Here we have a letter that was sent by you to the First Minister on 14 March of 20. In this letter, we can see the immediate priorities for the Wales TUC in relation to the government’s response to the pandemic at this stage.
At page 1 and going into page 2 of the letter, you set out four key concerns that the Wales TUC had at that point. Those concerns were namely the procurement of PPE, the dissemination of workplace safety guidance, the adequacy of sick pay and support for those who were suffering hardship.
To what extent do you think that the Welsh Government took the concerns you raise in this letter into consideration at this point in the pandemic?
Ms Shavanah Taj: I think that they listened to us, we felt that we did have to keep pressing on some of these issues, particularly in relation to PPE. We – I think there’s a statement as well that we have submitted in our evidence alongside – it was a public statement that we made with the BMA –
Counsel Inquiry: We’ll come to that shortly, yes.
Ms Shavanah Taj: But it sort of is intertwined with that as well, which gives you a clear understanding that we felt that we had to keep pushing on some of these issues at the beginning.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Just in the interests of completeness, the document that we have brought up is INQ000068458. Thank you.
I’m now going to ask some questions in relation to the Wales TUC’s concerns regarding PPE, but at the outset I wish to be clear that PPE will be considered as part of later modules of this Inquiry, so it’s not necessary to give a detailed account of any arrangements at this stage.
You do note in your witness statement at paragraph 65 that:
“On 31 March 2020, the Workforce Partnership Council … health trade unions issued a statement …”
I’m actually going to ask that this be brought up.
That is INQ000068472.
At page 1 of this document, underneath the heading “PPE”, we can see that the concerns raised were as follows: PPE failing to reach frontline workers; the clarity of the Welsh Government’s frequently asked questions in relation to PPE; a lack of detail around what the amount of PPE purchased actually means; a gap in provision for those who are not able to access PPE under current guidance but who cannot practice social distancing due to the nature of their roles; and PPE provision in private social care settings.”
In your view, were the concerns you raised at this stage of the pandemic in relation to PPE adequately addressed by the Welsh Government?
Ms Shavanah Taj: This eventually led to the setting up of two different groups. Initially there was one in relation to PPE, trying to get a clearer understanding of where PPE was being distributed, who was actually able to access that. Some of the gaps that still remained really was around PPE – fitting of PPE. That then moved on to testing as well. So that became a big issue for us. But I do think, as a result of us continuing to raise these issues and these matters being brought to the attention of ministers directly, it did mean that social care workers in particular who had raised concerns, those in private care homes and those who worked in third sector led care homes were then eventually able to get the necessary PPE that they needed at the time.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
I think this is the statement which you referred to just now, but at paragraph 68 of your witness statement, you referred to a joint statement on PPE in health and social care that was issued by the Wales TUC and the BMA Cymru on 12 April 2020.
Could we please bring this document up. It’s INQ000180916, please.
At page 2 of this document, at the third paragraph, the joint statement states:
“While we have maintained regular dialogue with the Welsh Government over PPE … [Document read] … reassurance they deserve as they continue to serve the public.”
Then the statement goes on to set out the particular areas about which information was sought.
You called for the Welsh Government to be transparent and to give an honest response on stock levels of PPE, where the stock is, where it’s being stored, and when they will be delivered. You also call for independent inspectorates to check on supplies.
In your view, to what extent did the Welsh Government have regard to the concerns expressed in this statement?
Ms Shavanah Taj: I think that they were genuinely concerned, which is why, again going back to the Shadow Social Partnership Council and the various different sectoral arrangements that exist where unions can continue to make the case, and through the channels of communications that we had, then eventually when the national Health and Safety Forum was set up, there was the opportunity to make improvements, and I think that the Welsh Government did do the right thing. Eventually we were able to have more information.
Some of the lack – some of the areas where we did still struggle with particularly was around fit testing, some of those conversations were better in particular sectors, in others they were not so much. But the – some of the big stories that we were – the reason why it’s referenced here around appropriate changing facilities, for example, one of the reasons why that was there was because, as health unions continued to hear at this stage from workers in those settings, that they weren’t quite sure whether or not they could take their uniforms home to wash, for example.
We had a case where somebody had contacted our helpline and said “I have just finished my shift, I’ve taken my uniform off, I’m currently standing in the car park, I’ve put it in a carrier bag and put it in the boot, I’m now going to go home. I’m not sure if I can wash this at home and, if I do, what temperature should I be washing it at”. So that’s just an example of some of the things that were happening and why it was so important that we opened this detailed dialogue with the Welsh Government.
Counsel Inquiry: Yes, thank you.
You explain in your witness statement that the advice given and representations made to the Welsh Government was predominantly based upon the feedback and information provided by the Wales TUC’s affiliated unions and its members, and the Inquiry will have regard to what you set out in your witness statement regarding the proportion of Welsh employees that are either members of a union or have union representation in their workplace.
I’d now like to focus on two specific examples of work carried out by the Wales TUC in relation to evidence gathered about the experience of workers in Wales, and the two specific examples I would like to focus on are the experience of black, Asian and minority ethnic workers and the experience of disabled workers.
You explain in your witness statement that from the outset of the pandemic unions were reporting that black, Asian and minority ethnic workers were being discriminated against in a number of ways, for example not getting adequate access to PPE.
In your witness statement you refer to the BAME Covid-19 Advisory Group, which we have heard about already in this Module from Professor Emmanuel Ogbonna.
You state that you attended the majority of meetings of the BAME Covid-19 Advisory Group and that you assisted Professor Ogbonna in the drafting of the advisory group’s report.
From the perspective of the Wales TUC, how effective do you think the meetings of the advisory group were?
Ms Shavanah Taj: I think they were definitely effective because one of the things that then happened was there was a subgroup that was set up specifically to look at the development of individual risk assessments. They were initially developed in – with healthcare workers in mind, but they were expanded upon. And we were also in a position, because we were looking at the disproportionate impact of Covid-19, again referring back to some of the information that we were picking up from affiliates at the time – so, for example, there had been an outbreak in two food processing plants. There was a significant number of migrant workers. English was not their first language, Welsh was not their first language, and so they really struggled with Covid guidance. And had it not been for the unions in that space at the time, we would not have been able to, one, find out what exactly had happened, whether or not risk assessments had been conducted, but also some of the information, the intel that we picked up that then assisted this group, but also the Welsh Government more broadly, was the fact that some of these migrant workers were, you know, living in shared accommodation. So they would go to work together and then they were living in accommodation where, you know, transmission became quite difficult to manage.
We – the reason why I think as well it was important for the Welsh Government to look at the socioeconomic factors was because at that time we were – as from a Wales TUC perspective, any information that we were gathering, we always made sure that we took a public position, that our information was readily available to anybody.
You know, when you have somebody who looks like me in this position, there are going to be a number of people from those minoritised groups who will directly contact me and ask questions, and we were then able to point them in the direction of various different unions that could support them as well. And as you say, you’ve referenced the fact that we’d put out a call for evidence as well, particularly for BAME workers, that we fed in.
Counsel Inquiry: Yes, thank you.
In your witness statement you also explain that the Wales TUC Equality Committee invited the Deputy Minister and Chief Whip Jane Hutt to two of its meetings, one on 21 April of 2020, and one on 5 May.
Can we please turn to the minutes of the first of those meetings, the meeting of 21 April.
That’s INQ000068464.
So the context of this meeting is that prior to this meeting a paper produced by the Wales TUC Equality Committee regarding the equality impact of Covid-19 had been circulated. We don’t need to bring that document up yet, but looking at these meetings, at page 2 of the minutes, at paragraph 10, the minutes record that the Deputy Minister and Chief Whip:
“… suggested that an assessment should be made in the near … [Document read] … during this crisis period.”
As far as you are aware, was such an assessment as is intimated in those minutes ever made?
Ms Shavanah Taj: Well, in addition to the Covid-19 Advisory Group and the reporting to the disproportionate impact of Covid-19, what did happen was that Wales then developed a series of equality action plans, and there’s lots of work that has gone on into that, particularly in relation to race, in terms of disability and LGBTQ+ matters as well, so some of the issues that we were raising in these meetings we have then seen action being taken.
I think it’s important for me to also sort of say as far as the minister, Jane Hutt, herself is concerned, she was – you know, she really was a consistent advocate on equality issues and she genuinely worked hard to make sure that any information that she was gathering, particularly through her engagement with the unions and the Wales TUC, that she was feeding that back up at a Cabinet level but also making sure that all departments understood our role, because – and I can say that because on a regular basis we would hear from an official who would say “Jane has suggested that we talk to you on the following matters”.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
Can we please bring up the report to which I earlier referred that was discussed in this meeting. That’s a report prepared by the WTUC Equality Committee.
It’s INQ000068460.
If I can ask, please, for page 6 going into page 7 to be brought up. There we will find ten issues that it’s reported disabled people and carers were facing. These issues included how frightening DNRs (Do Not Resuscitate notices) had become for disabled people, that people with motor neurone disease had not been identified as being extremely vulnerable, and therefore were excluded from automatic inclusion onto the shielding list. There were examples cited of shielding letters being sent to the wrong address, disabled people struggling to receive reasonable adjustments or maintaining their reasonable adjustments due to workplaces being understaffed.
As far as you are aware, were these concerns acted upon by the Welsh Government?
Ms Shavanah Taj: I think that the – as far as the shielding letters are concerned, there was some confusion at the start of the pandemic and we raised these matters at the Shadow Social Partnership Council meetings and, in some cases, the sectoral meetings as well.
Employers in Wales and I think in parts of – maybe some of the Welsh Government officials didn’t necessarily understand the detail around the furlough scheme, for example, and the fact that people could request to be furloughed by their employer, even if they were classed at that point as a key worker.
But of course it was always the case that reasonable adjustments could have been made, should have been made and that’s why the impact assessments and the individual risk assessments were important.
But we continued to engage on this issue, and when it came to disabled workers, of course, there were a number of jobs – like, before the pandemic, we always heard from employers who just assumed, “Well, you know, we can’t make reasonable adjustments because” – essentially of somebody being able to work from home, yet actually, as things progressed, lots of workers, including disabled workers, were able to, you know, conduct their duties from home, and that was something that we really pushed for.
Counsel Inquiry: Okay.
Lady Hallett: Could I just interrupt here. I think the question was: did the Welsh Government act on it? I appreciate you’ve spoken about a number of meetings and engagement and representations you made, but was any action taken?
Ms Shavanah Taj: I think that there was some action taken, I couldn’t – on every single point that we’ve identified here, I would probably need to go through that and provide you some – with some further information after, if that’s okay.
Ms Cowen: Yes, thank you.
You explain in your witness statement that a particular value of social partnership in the context of the pandemic was that the Wales TUC was well informed as to how in practice the various approaches adopted to NPIs were being implemented across a range of sectors. I’d like to briefly look at three specific NPIs: firstly, self-isolation and sick pay; secondly, lockdowns and local restrictions; and, thirdly, working from home.
In relation to self-isolation and sick pay, you’re clear in your witness statement that the dominant feature of Wales TUC’s concern was the extent to which workers were able to self-isolate without significant financial hardship accruing.
Could we, please, turn to document INQ000180894, please.
This is a letter sent by you on behalf of the Wales TUC to Julie Morgan, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services. In the third paragraph of page 1 and the second sentence of that, you state that:
“The fact that many social care staff, who are already low paid, continued to face a financial penalty for taking sickness absence is contributing to the spread of the virus, particularly within care homes, and we would welcome a similar policy commitment in Wales that extends to all social care workers, including agency workers.”
Did you feel that this concern was addressed by Ms Morgan and the Welsh Government?
Ms Shavanah Taj: So, on the – when we wrote to – first of all, of course, the GMB raised this issue, and when the GMB raised this issue it is important for me to also flag that the individual who wrote that letter had been a care worker for over a decade before she became an officer representing that workforce, so they were matters that were really close to her, she understood them very clearly, and so when they wrote to Julie Morgan calling for social care workers to receive sick pay, and then we later referred – referenced the disincentive to comply with infection control measures, and the fact that the – there had been – we requested that the consequential from the infection control fund was introduced to a fund sick pay scheme for social care workers, as of late October we still didn’t have clarity actually what the – as to what the delay was.
So I think that the – for both that scheme but also in relation to the wider – the sick pay enhancement scheme for social care workers but also the wider self-isolation support scheme, we repeatedly requested data on its uptake, and we failed to get anything robust specifically in relation to the uptake of the social care sick pay scheme, and we are not quite sure why it took some time for that to be introduced. It could well be that there was a funding issue and there were decisions that the government needed to take at the time.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
If I can now ask you briefly about local restrictions in Wales and I wish to focus on the circuit-breaker that was implemented in Wales in October of 2020.
Now, you’re very clear in your witness statement that the Wales TUC supported the decision to implement to circuit-breaker as it was, in your words, the right call for public health. However, you go on to note that:
“The difficulty is that whilst Wales elected the Welsh Government to make decisions over public health … [it was] the UK Government [that] was responsible for wage support.”
Now, from the TUC’s perspective, how problematic was this aspect of devolution regarding the implementation of the firebreak lockdown in October 2020?
Ms Shavanah Taj: Well –
Lady Hallett: Be careful here, please. I can’t go into the devolution settlement, so if you can answer that question without trespassing too far, Ms Taj, please do, but it is a very tricky one.
Ms Shavanah Taj: Well, from …
Ms Cowen: I wonder if I might just ask the question a different way. Perhaps if I could ask, from the Wales TUC’s perspective, how did funding affect the firebreak lockdown in October 2020?
Ms Shavanah Taj: The fact that we were going to be going into a firebreak and workers who – you know, particular sectors were set to be shut down, particularly hospitality and retail, for example, that had just about re-opened, and people – some of the music venues had started to re-open, if the fact that they were going to be shut down and there was going to be no financial support, how could we ensure that people would comply with the regulations. And so the – you know, it felt as if the UK Government didn’t seem to care that it was putting Welsh Government in an impossible situation, forcing them to decide –
Lady Hallett: I think you’re now trespassing.
Ms Shavanah Taj: Sorry.
Lady Hallett: Thank you.
Ms Cowen: If I now may very briefly ask you about working from home, and specifically the development of regulations requiring working from home in December of 2021.
You state in your statement that on 17 December of 2021 the Welsh Government published changes to its work from home regulations, whereby workers in Wales could face fines of up to £60 for leaving a place where they are living for the purposes of work where it’s reasonably practicable for the person to work from home.
The Inquiry will have regard to the statement that the Wales TUC issued on 21 December of 2021 where you set out your concern that the worker is not responsible for the place of work, that is the responsibility of the employer.
You also explain in your witness statement that on 22 December of 2021 the First Minister clarified that the focus of any enforcement activity in relation to the regulations pertaining to working from home would be on employers permitting and enabling home working.
Do you feel that the Welsh Government had therefore taken your views into consideration on this issue in the development of this regulation?
Ms Shavanah Taj: This was … this was quite a difficult one for – from our perspective. On 20 December 2021 we’d had – you know, we’d seen the news reports that the Welsh Government had introduced a working from home regulation. Our concern was that the focus was back on the individual worker rather than the employer.
I think that it felt – we were quite clear that maybe there was a misunderstanding about the worker/employer relationship and where the power actually lies. If an employer was asking an employee to come into work knowing fully well that they could be ending up facing a fine, and that worker then wasn’t doing as they were told, and that worker then was being threatened with potentially not having any more hours, for example – because the assumption would be that – you know, not everyone is on a permanent contract, there are lots of people in Wales, a significant number of people, who are on zero-hours contracts – that somehow they would – that they would be responsible.
I mean, look –
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Taj, I don’t mean to interrupt you, and I apologise, I’m just mindful of the time.
Can I just ask, the question was about whether you felt the Welsh Government acknowledged, responded to the concerns that the Wales TUC had expressed on that point. Do you think they did?
Ms Shavanah Taj: I think that they understood where we were coming from and there was a statement made eventually by the First Minister, making it quite clear that the focus here is on the employer, but there was definitely some confusion.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.
I’m now going to turn to my final topic, which is public health communications and public confidence. You explain in your statement and the Inquiry will have regard to this, that you consider a major concern to have been what you term an “information deficit” in Wales, where you say that only a relatively small proportion of the population were receiving news about the country, and you state that the news and information deficit was an important factor during the pandemic. You state that the information deficit “added to public confusion, especially when rules were different in Wales to those in England”.
You explain in your witness statement that the Welsh Government lacked pre-existing channels with which to communicate their key messages with workers, and this meant that often there was insufficient relevant focus on how key communications supported people in dealing with workplace risks.
Could I just ask, what channels do you think ought to have been in place?
Ms Shavanah Taj: So there were the daily sort of press updates that were given, but the – when it came to information, more often than not the information that people were receiving, the – you know, they were on one hand watching Welsh news to see what the First Minister was saying and then on the other hand they were watching to see what the Prime Minister at the time, Boris Johnson, was saying. So there was definitely some confusion.
A lot of the media that people receive isn’t necessarily Welsh media, and so national media would reference UK regulations, wouldn’t necessarily differentiate with what was needed to be understood here in Wales, so I think that the – that kind of news deficit definitely added to the confusion when, you know, English and Welsh rules ended up diverging.
Ms Cowen: Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Ms Taj.
My Lady, that concludes my questions.
Lady Hallett: Thank you very much, Ms Cowen.
Thank you very much, Ms Taj. I’m sorry I had to stop you from trespassing. I’m sure you’re a very strong advocate for your cause, but please be assured you’re not the first person I’ve had to stop from trespassing into matters that are beyond my remit.
Thank you for your help.
The Witness: Thank you.
(The witness withdrew)
Lady Hallett: Right, 1.45.
(12.46 pm)
(The short adjournment)
(1.45 pm)
Ms Paisley: My Lady, please can I call Dr Chris Llewelyn.
Dr Chris Llewelyn
DR CHRIS LLEWELYN (affirmed).
Questions From Counsel to the Inquiry
Ms Paisley: Could you commence, please, by giving your full name.
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Chris Llewelyn.
Counsel Inquiry: Dr Llewelyn, thank you for your attendance and for assisting the Inquiry. As you give evidence, could you please remember to keep your voice up and we will take it slowly as we have stenographers taking a note for the transcript.
You have kindly provided two witness statements for this module. The first is INQ000273741, dated 6 September 2023. The second is INQ000410950, dated 2 February 2024. And you have signed both of those statements; is that right?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Yeah, that’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: Can you please confirm that the contents of those statements are true to the best of your knowledge and belief?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Yeah, that’s true.
Counsel Inquiry: It’s right to say that you also provided both written and oral evidence to Module 1 of this Inquiry?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Yeah, I did.
Counsel Inquiry: And we’re very grateful for your continued assistance.
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Thank you.
Counsel Inquiry: By way of your professional background and involvement with the Welsh Local Government Association, or the WLGA if you’re content that we refer to it as that, in 2002 you joined the WLGA as director of lifelong learning, leisure and information. You then became the deputy chief executive in 2010, and you have been the chief executive since January 2019. Is that correct?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Yeah. That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: In terms of the operation of the WLGA, then, it was established in 1996; is that correct? Membership is voluntary, but in Wales all 22 local authorities are members, along with all three fire and rescue authorities, and the three national parks authorities are associate members.
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Yeah.
Counsel Inquiry: You explain in your statement that the WLGA works to give local government a strong and credible voice within national government. It’s a cross-party organisation, and seeks to operate on the basis of consensus where leaders and senior members from different political groups are involved in the business of the WLGA and in representing the collective voice of local government.
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Yeah.
Counsel Inquiry: Can I then begin by asking you about the period of January to March 2020, but before we go into particular detail, could you please give a broad overview of the general role played by the WLGA over the pandemic in Wales.
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Yeah. The – as you’ve mentioned, the WLGA represents the 22 unitary authorities in Wales. The national parks and the fire authorities are associate members as well. And what we endeavour to do in all the work that we do is to give local government an effective voice, act as an interface between the 22 local authorities and all tiers of government, primarily the Welsh Government, but the UK Government as well. And we take the view that we deliver the best outcomes for the people of Wales if all tiers of government work as closely together as possible.
We also believe that decisions about how services are run and provided locally, that decisions about those services need to be made as close to the point of delivery as possible.
So throughout the Covid period our work was informed by that approach, that we were located in the most appropriate position to act as that interface between the 22 local authorities and the Welsh Government, but other tiers of government and other national partners as well.
And in a sense, wherever and whenever we felt that there was a need or there was an opportunity to provide that local voice, then we’d tried as effectively as we could provide that during the course of the Covid crisis.
Counsel Inquiry: Just generally thinking then about the role that was played, was the role as you envisaged it might be in a crisis such as this or was it something different?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: No, I think it was – it was very different from what we’d anticipated. The reality is that no one had been through an experience like this before. Although we engaged in some aspects of civil contingencies preparation, I don’t think we’d envisaged a crisis as deep or as long as this, and in a sense we were developing processes and procedures as the crisis progressed.
Counsel Inquiry: Can we then begin to look at some specific dates, and you provide a chronology in your witness statement, which we don’t need to go to, but on that list there is a record of a meeting on 12 March 2020, and the event is described as “COVID 19 Local Government Meeting (First Minister, Minister for Health and several leaders)”. Was that the first meeting where Covid-19 was formally discussed between the local government and the WLGA?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: It would have been the first meeting where there were discussions at a political level. One of the things we emphasise as an association is the primacy of politics, that it’s important that elected members speak to elected members, and in this instance it was a case of Welsh Government ministers and the First Minister speaking for the first time to our elected leaders.
Counsel Inquiry: Is the date of 12 March, thinking back, quite late?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Yeah, I think it is. There had been some internal discussions within the WLGA prior to that. We had a briefing from Public Health Wales on 28 February. I think it’s fair to say that at the time leaders were underwhelmed, if – it may be fair to say there was a sense of disquiet and maybe an expectation that there would be a greater sense of urgency.
Counsel Inquiry: That comes on to my next question. In terms of that meeting itself, what is your recollection of the mood?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Of the meeting on the 12th?
Counsel Inquiry: On 12 March.
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Of being very – profound, serious and almost sombre meeting.
Counsel Inquiry: Can I then, please, bring up a document which is the minutes of a chief executives’ teleconference on 20 March 2020.
INQ000089874.
On page 1 we can see the title “Education”, and we see there:
“WG definition of key workers published this afternoon – no discussion with WLGA beforehand. WLGA been advising LAs to follow UK Govt guidance initially, as this is what the public will expect.”
Is that a specific instance that caused a problem or a concern that you can recall?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: I think it caused a concern, and it – I suppose it highlights a theme which was to develop throughout the crisis, because, as I mentioned earlier, on the one hand – the association tries to create a consensus wherever possible and we try to get different tiers of government to work as effectively together as possible, so there was a sense that consistent messaging, even at this early stage, from all tiers of government was important. But at the same time there was a need for local operational delivery understanding to inform strategic thinking and strategic policy. So I think that that’s – that’s the concern there, that – the lack of discussion beforehand.
Counsel Inquiry: Staying on this document, then, if we can go to page 2, please, and it’s the middle of the page, and it’s concerns about the shielding scheme, and we can see there it says:
“… potentially huge numbers locally.
“LAs have not seen/had input in the letter.
“Concerns around number of residents who will require support from the council …”
So before we go into this, to what extent were local authorities expected to be responsible for people who were shielding in terms of delivering services?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: At this time I don’t think it was entirely clear. I think the principle was understood, but there’d been very little discussion about the detail, and I think hence there was an assumption of what the local authority role would be, but there was certainly concern – about every aspect of it, I think.
Counsel Inquiry: Is that something that was clarified?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: It would have been clarified as things progressed. It – if you were to go back to the first page of the account of the meeting, the education section, where it refers to there the WLGA messages to Welsh Government are to allow local authorities to implement whatever plans could be put in place, and in a sense what we were saying was: in this instance, in order to get actions delivered as effectively as possible, sometimes it would be easier to describe rather than prescribe, to describe what authorities were able to deliver and the timescales available rather than being prescriptive in advance and then struggling to meet the prescription.
Counsel Inquiry: Is your evidence that it was the latter that the Welsh Government were trying to achieve?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Yeah.
Counsel Inquiry: Can we finally move to page 3 of this document, and we can see that the last bullet point here provides almost a summary of this meeting:
“Concerns about [Welsh Government’s] emergency planning approach and co-ordination – lack of engagement with LAs, poor communication, delay in approaches following UK Government announcements … [Document read] … guidance or direction, planning and implementing already.
“WLGA already raising concerns with DGs following leaders’ meeting.”
Now, the reference to DG, is that director generals?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Yeah.
Counsel Inquiry: If we can then move on to INQ000089875, please.
On 21 March 2022 you sent an email to the permanent secretary of Wales and the director generals, and I would like to go through this email in some detail with you, please.
Firstly, the matters that we’ve just discussed, are those the types of things that prompted you to write this email?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: They would have been, yeah.
Counsel Inquiry: If we can look at your email on page 2, please, the first bullet point:
“As the crisis escalates, leaders and chief executives are concerned that collectively we need to communicate more effectively, more efficiently and with greater precision.”
Are you able then to please explain why you were seeking more effective, more efficient and greater precision in terms of communications?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Because we felt collectively that it was absent. We understood the strategic aim, if you like, in many instances, but it was the operational detail that needed to be clarified from a local authority perspective.
Counsel Inquiry: If we can then look at your second bullet point, please –
Lady Hallett: So is the communication between the Welsh Government and you? It wasn’t communication with the public, it was communication with –
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Oh, yeah. Yes, definitely yes. Sorry, yeah.
Ms Paisley: Thank you, my Lady.
The second bullet point, then:
“It is also felt that earlier engagement with Councils and greater trust between senior officials would speed up responses, lead to better delivery and potentially head-off some of the difficulty encountered in recent days.”
So breaking that point down, firstly you make reference to desiring earlier engagement and in the third bullet point of this email you say:
“I don’t believe that that is happening at the moment.”
So there was a criticism that things were just happening too slowly at this point; would that be fair?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Yeah.
Counsel Inquiry: Looking back now, when do you think engagement should properly have ramped up with local government?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Do you mean a specific date or …?
Counsel Inquiry: A time – was there a turning point for you perhaps?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: I think if I can turn it another way, I think the engagement should have taken place as early as possible. As soon as there was a strategic direction was taken or assumed, then local authorities should have been engaged. So if it was the issue of school closure, then local authorities should have been engaged immediately in terms of how to deliver school closures and the hubs and the provision for free school meals for vulnerable learners, for key workers and so on.
Local government delivers over 700 services, 24 hours every day, everybody in this room today has been using local government services. Whatever the circumstances, authorities understand how to deliver services, and that understanding can inform policymaking, and the sooner, I think, authorities would have been involved in this instance, then that would have saved time and would have resulted in more effective policymaking.
Lady Hallett: Can I just interrupt, I’m sorry, Ms Paisley.
You say that they should have been engaged as soon as the strategic – one of those words I can’t say – direction had been taken. But arguably shouldn’t they have been involved before?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: I agree, my Lady.
Lady Hallett: Because you’re the one who’s going to have to deliver it?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: I agree, my Lady. I think we should have been part of the strategic decision-making. In effect that the experience of delivering services should have informed the strategic thinking and decision-making.
Ms Paisley: I just want to ask you about a specific comment that you make, which is about having greater trust between senior officials. Did you feel that there wasn’t trust?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: I … well, at the time I think that the handling of a crisis like this depends on trust and confidence, and that all tiers of government at a time of crisis should show trust and confidence in each other. And I think there was a feeling within local government that that wasn’t evident at all times in this instance.
Counsel Inquiry: So was there a feeling that perhaps local government was being kept in the dark about conversations?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: I think there was a feeling that information could have been shared more fully earlier, that available data, scenario planning and other aspects that informed thinking and strategic policy should have been shared with local authorities.
Counsel Inquiry: Can we then, please, move on to the response that you received to this from Tracey Burke, the director general for Education and Public Services. And her response, and I’m looking at the last part of her response:
“I do hope though that you have found our engagement with the WLGA over the weekend addresses some of your concerns – I know Steve Davies been engaging with you on a number of issues over the weekend and that WLGA have been actively engaged in the work on ‘shielded’ people where we have kept in close contact with WLGA in the development of the letter and guidance that accompanies it. I know how closely and at pace you have been working with WCVA too. I think Reg too has been in touch today on other urgent developments over the weekend.”
And Reg presumably is Reg Kilpatrick; is that right?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Yeah.
Counsel Inquiry: Did things improve, as this email suggests, from your perspective?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: I don’t actually recall the conversation on the weekend in question here, although I don’t doubt that they happened, because we were in regular, constant contact with Welsh Government colleagues through different channels.
I think the point we’re trying to make is the difference, I suppose, between consultation and engaging and information sharing, and what I’m trying to say here is that local government needs to be engaged at a point when it’s possible to influence and shape policy rather than being informed when policy has been agreed and is – and is being implemented, and that local government is then being informed or engaged with in terms of delivery rather than the co-construction and the co-production of the policy.
Counsel Inquiry: The Inquiry heard evidence earlier this week from Shan Morgan, and she was asked: were structures and processes put in place to ensure early and effective engagement with local government? We know at this point she was the permanent secretary to the Welsh Government.
Her reply in respect of her own engagement was that:
“I would say honestly that I could have done more. I think it would probably have been a very good idea had I invited the chief exec of the WLGA to become a member of ExCovid, or at least come from time to time when there was an area of particular interest. I think I could have done more to establish that level of regular contact, and in retrospect I think I should have established myself a pattern of regular one-to-ones with both the CEO of WLGA and of SOLACE …”
Would you have any comments upon that reflection?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Well, I agree with it, I saw the – I listened to Shan Morgan making the comments earlier in the week and I agree, I think, that had she done that at the time it would have been very useful, and it probably would have addressed some of the concerns that I expressed in the email.
To be honest, I did feel reassured as well, because there is – it reflects a sense of learning, and – in terms of this process, my Lady, I think that the recognition on her part that in hindsight she should have done things differently means maybe that that, you know, is something that can be taken on board for future reference.
Counsel Inquiry: Can I then please move on to discuss any role played by the WLGA in the non-pharmaceutical interventions that were imposed in Wales, and in your statement you talk about the early stages of the pandemic, and you say:
“… consultative fora or structures had not been established and consultation was ad hoc via emails, telephone conversations or urgently convened meetings … there was often limited opportunity or time to provide full views or canvass wider views during the earlier stages of the pandemic.”
Specifically when you refer to ad hoc emails or telephone calls, can you remember who was calling, who was writing emails, who was asking for your views?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: It would have – well, it would have been some of the people that have already been mentioned, Reg Kilpatrick, Steve Davies. We – as an association, we have a very broad interface with the Welsh Government, so there would have been – as an association, we try and encourage as much dialogue as possible between elected members. We’re a member-led organisation. I would have anticipated that there would have been informal calls between leaders and Welsh Government ministers. There would have been calls, email between myself and other senior officials within the Welsh Government, but also at a service level as well, within education, within social services, in transport, economy and finance as well, so there would have been a very broad interface. We also engaged with the special advisers as well.
Counsel Inquiry: If we can then look at some of the established structures that began to develop, and the first is that the Inquiry understands the WLGA leader was invited to attend the Welsh Government’s core Covid-19 group. Was that a standing invitation each week?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: I don’t think that it was a standing invitation, but I think it happened on a regular basis.
Counsel Inquiry: And the Inquiry also understands that the WLGA itself convened regular leaders’ meetings, and on 20 March the Minister for Housing and Local Government attended, 27 March the Minister for Health and Social Services also attended, and you say that from 1 April Welsh ministers began to regularly attend. Is that right?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Yes, as an association we took a conscious effort that we would do everything that we could to improve the engagement between local government and the Welsh Government and, as I mentioned earlier, to act as the interface. And I think it’s fair to say that ministers were very receptive to this approach.
At that time we were convening meetings of local authority leaders on an almost daily basis. As the technology changed from teleconferencing to Teams and Zoom, the quality of those meetings improved. But at a very early stage we started inviting ministers to attend those meetings as well. They were very receptive.
And again, it goes back to one of the principles that I mentioned earlier, that we thought at the time of crisis it was important to be politically led and to get elected members, politicians, ministers and leaders speaking directly and freely to each other without going through the filter of officers and public bureaucracy.
Counsel Inquiry: To what extent were those meetings that we’ve just discussed used to talk about non-pharmaceutical interventions and to seek the WLGA’s views?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Well, they would have been opportunities and they would have been useful for that purpose, but what would also have happened is that the leaders themselves would have used the opportunity to raise their concerns.
All 2022 leaders represent individual wards, they’re rooted in their communities, they live in their communities and represent – they reflect the views of the people they serve. So I’ve no doubt that they would have been putting those concerns to ministers at those meetings.
Lady Hallett: Just before you go on, I’m sorry, there is a slight confusion in the [draft] transcript as well as in my notes, Dr Llewelyn, so can I just – something you said – just so the stenographer can find their own place – at 14.11, and I wrote down, and it may have been me misheard, that the – I wrote down two things that seemed to be contradictory, that ministers were keen to engage, but then you said, according to my note, when you issued invitations to attend the meetings they were not very receptive. So basically have we missed a “not” or have we included a “not” that we shouldn’t have done?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: You’ve included a “not”. Ministers were very receptive and I recall were always ready to join those meetings if invited.
Lady Hallett: Right, thank you, glad we cleared that up.
Ms Paisley: Thank you, my Lady.
It’s right that those meetings became regularised to align with the 21-day review process. Was that something that was beneficial, to align with that process?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: It wasn’t the intention and I think the – I – I think the meetings took place more regularly than the 21-day review process. There were meetings which aligned to the 21-day review process, which were useful, but our meetings, I think, took place more frequently and were more focused on particular issues.
Counsel Inquiry: Can we please look at the WLGA’s submission to the permanent secretary’s Covid stocktake in October 2020.
INQ000089872.
This is written by Daniel Hurford of the WLGA, but hopefully you might be able to speak to it as well.
If we can look at the second paragraph:
“The approach to engagement from officials has evolved throughout COVID-19: inevitably the pace and urgency of the response phase was challenging for the Welsh Government and all in public services and this continued into the three weekly review of the initial lockdown. The open and effective political dialogue has not always been replicated at an official level, and despite several examples of excellent co-construction of timetabling and guidance between officials, co-production and information sharing has been inconsistent and it proved very challenging for local authorities to plan for the operational implementation of announcements (particular[ly] those affecting council services) with limited notice during the 21-day review period. There has been significant improvement in recent months in terms of dialogue and planning for local lockdowns but some instances where clarity and information sharing should have been quicker.”
We will come on to a number of those issues, but generally speaking, do you think there was a missed opportunity by the Welsh Government to use those meetings to talk about NPIs in more detail with local government?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: I think that the – I think that the email there is saying that the dialogue at a political level was very effective and very open, but that when it came to the more operational detail and a delivery focus, that discussions with officials were less open and inclusive, and that the progress that was made at a political level wasn’t always reflected. It varied according to service area. In some service areas the communication was very close and very effective. In others, it wasn’t, that wasn’t there a consistency. At the headline level, as it were, I think that generally there was considerable consensus.
And on reflection, I can remember at the time speaking to other parts of the – other local government organisations in other parts of the United Kingdom, they were envious of the political engagement that took place within Wales and felt that there was a better dialogue within Wales and that local authority leaders had better access to ministers in Wales than in other parts of the country.
Counsel Inquiry: You say in your statement that in general the WLGA and the local authorities were supportive of the Welsh Government’s approach and the NPIs. So would the problem, in your view, be that they could have just been brought in sooner into the discussion, perhaps, about implementation that they were expected to undertake?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: I think they should have been brought into the discussion about implementation much earlier. The truth is that there were a range of views within local government as well.
One of the things we argue as an association is that it’s – that the strategy should be set nationally by central government but then local authorities should interpret that and deliver according to local circumstances. Where local circumstances differed, there would have been different views, but also a recognition that a single national coherent message in these circumstances was important as well. So I think that that’s reflected in the discussion of the October firebreak.
Counsel Inquiry: Just about to move on to the firebreak, and it’s right that there were some differences of opinion between local authorities and in fact Councillor Andrew Morgan was asked to collate and co-ordinate local authority views. We don’t need to bring it up, but the document is INQ000089864.
Was that something the Welsh Government asked to be produced for them?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: I think we were asked to reflect the local government view, and it’s something we would have routinely done, we would have consulted all 2022 to get a sense of what their view was.
As has been mentioned already, we’ve always taken the view that if local government speaks as one, with one voice, then it’s more powerful than having a disparate set of voices.
So in this instance, in terms of the firebreak, there were differing views, a range of factors would have been taken into account, there would have been differences between east and west and between urban and rural authorities, but we did come to a consensus view. I think the collective view was it was more important to get a unanimous view and a single message than to have differing responses in each authority.
Counsel Inquiry: We don’t need to display it again, but returning to the WLGA’s submission to the Covid stocktake, it’s noted that the level of dialogue in particular around the firebreak in the past week, where ministers engaged with leaders and chief executives through several meetings to help inform and prepare for decisions affecting their areas or services, had been a model of central/local relations; is that fair?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Yeah. The point we’re making there is that in this – in that instance it was a consultation at a point when there was a chance of influencing the decision.
Counsel Inquiry: In terms of existing structures that were in place going into the pandemic, to what extent were existing partnership structures used and did local authorities find those forums to be helpful?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Are you referring to the partnership council and the –
Counsel Inquiry: Yes.
Dr Chris Llewelyn: – arrangements that sit underneath that?
Counsel Inquiry: Yes, please.
Dr Chris Llewelyn: They were – the partnership council is something that exists under the Government of Wales Act and it defines the relationship between local government and central government in Wales. It is unique to Wales. And there are a range of subcommittees that sit underneath the partnership council. The finance subgroup through which the local government finance settlement is negotiated is one of those.
During Covid, the – when the partnership council met, all 2022 leaders attended along with a range of other – a range of Welsh Government ministers. Those arrangements worked effectively, but other arrangements were put in place as well to facilitate the dialogue between ministers and leaders, because, certainly on the local government side, it was felt that more regular dialogue was needed.
Counsel Inquiry: Now, it’s right that you submitted a second witness statement to this Inquiry, and I just want to ask you about a comment you make in general about the lessons learned exercises undertaken, and you say:
“It would be easy for the Inquiry to get the wrong impression about these exercises.”
And you say the problem is that:
“… this does not fully reflect the WLGA’s view of what happened; indeed, these Welsh Government reviews have in substance, if not exclusively, been undertaken within Welsh Government itself and have not involved key partners including local government.”
My question is whether, in your view, there is a better way to conduct lessons learned on behalf of central government?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Yes, I think there is. I think that all – a wider range of partners, wider range of views should contribute to the learning lessons review. I think there are some things that we’ve discussed today which recognise that things could be improved. And I think we would have like – we would have both liked and expected to have been more involved in that work than we have been.
Counsel Inquiry: Can I change topic then and move on to the legislation and regulations and the role played by local authorities. And in respect of this in your statement you say consultation and engagement between Welsh Government officials and local government professionals was inconsistent on consultation, on finalised drafts, was often late, rather than co-produced from an earlier spoken.
Now, was this a problem throughout the course of the pandemic or can you pinpoint a specific time period?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: I think it was a problem throughout, and as I’ve tried to explain, I think it varied according to service area and it improved during the course of the pandemic, but the underlying principle was a source of ongoing concern for us.
Counsel Inquiry: Can we perhaps pinpoint a specific date: on 5 August 2020 there was an enforcement meeting with the First Minister, and this was in the context of businesses such as cafés, restaurants and clubs re-opening outdoors, and planned to open indoors. The Inquiry understands the First Minister asked for confirmation as to whether existing legislative powers would permit local authorities to act if issues were identified with premises not complying with the regulations.
If we can have on screen, please, INQ000228421, which was a briefing note for that meeting. Do you recognise this document?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Yeah.
Counsel Inquiry: Do you know who produced it?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: I can’t recall, does it …
Counsel Inquiry: Was it on the part of the WLGA?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Oh, sorry, yeah, I think it was, yes.
Counsel Inquiry: If we can please look at the bottom of page 2, into page 3, and it says:
“It cannot be over emphasised that our officers have a depth and knowledge, and we willingly offer this in the spirit of coproduction.
“Unfortunately, during the pandemic this resource has been overlooked in the planning, preparation and drafting of legislation. As a result, significant Public Protection resource across Wales has been ploughed into deciphering and interpreting regulations, instead of being put to better use, on the front line of providing advice and guidance to businesses and the public.”
Does this then suggest that even the finalised regulations that were published were not always easy to understand?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Yes, it does. This is – I think the note is relatively clear, this is a complex area. There was experience and capacity with – within local government, and had it been used at an earlier point then it would have led to better regulations and better guidance and would have probably saved time.
Counsel Inquiry: The Inquiry understands from your statement that an officer was actually seconded to the Welsh Government in May 2020 to provide an operational and enforcement perspective. Is that something that proved to be beneficial?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: It did. It’s the scale and capacity, I think, more of those kinds of secondments would have been very useful, I think.
Counsel Inquiry: I’d like to then move on, please, to local lockdowns and restrictions. Generally speaking, to what extent were local authorities and the WLGA consulted by the Welsh Government in respect of decisions to impose local restrictions?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Do you – are you talking about any specific time period?
Counsel Inquiry: Yes. This would be just before heading into the firebreak, around the August/September period, when we started to see restrictions in Caerphilly.
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Ah, right, yeah. I think as the year progressed, then the engagement improved, engagement with – between elected members improved, and one of our concerns with – within the WLGA and within local government was the way – I think I mentioned earlier – the data was shared with us, and the available evidence and the most up-to-date evidence was shared. And as local lockdowns and other arrangements of the October firebreak were discussed, increasingly, relevant evidence was shared with local authorities as well so that leaders could be part of an informed decision-making process.
Counsel Inquiry: I’m not going to go to the document in the interests of time, but there was a lessons learned document created about experiences of local –
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: – lockdowns, and that’s INQ000089884, and one point made is that clarity and consistency is needed around the implementation of local lockdowns and restrictions.
It says “Process – summary and clarity of who takes what decision/when? What is/should be the role of leaders in process?”
Were those issues that were addressed by the Welsh Government, and did they improve?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: They certainly improved. I’d have to look in more detail at the extent to which they were fully addressed. My sense is that they weren’t. But again, I think they’re issues – and I think that paper, it talks about – I think it goes on to talk about contact tracing as well, and I’d expect that review to have fed into any learning lessons exercise.
Counsel Inquiry: I think we just briefly touched upon mention of data, and staying with this document under the heading “Data” it says:
“There has been an issue around the consistency and sharing of data – chief executives and leaders have not had consistent access to the most recent 7-day figures on cases and testing used by Welsh Government and, until reported in the media, several were not aware their authority areas were in the ‘amber’ category.”
What kinds of problems did that cause?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: There would have been a range of problems. This – it’s a point that I think I highlighted, it was a concern from the outset that – it’s the trust and confidence issue of information being shared as early and in as timely a way as possible.
And that information would have had an impact on all the services provided by local authorities and the considerations and the decisions that they would have made, and the way they would have fed into discussions with the Welsh Government as well.
Counsel Inquiry: Can we then discuss, please, the care sector, and this will be explored in more detail in a later module, but in terms of delivery of care in Wales, what is the responsibility of local authorities in respect of care?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: They’re set out in the Social Services and Well-being Act, and the local authorities have responsibility for those people who need care and who need support, also responsibilities for the people who provide care and support for them as well.
In addition, there’s a wider responsibility for the delivery of social services as well and there’s a safeguarding responsibility for children, young people and adults.
Counsel Inquiry: If we can go back to where we began, in March 2020, please, it’s right that the WLGA issued a joint statement with ADSS Cymru, and whilst these will be matters for later modules, can we have that statement, please, INQ000082951, and the statement says:
“Social care staff are undertaking a critical role at this time, like others in the health and care sector. They are keeping … people and children and young people safe, and providing a range of care and support to others, and I would like to thank them for the work that they have done and will be doing. We need to ensure that they are safe and well enough to work, which means they need to be able to protect themselves with personal protective equipment … as appropriate. We are calling for an extension of the testing regime as soon as possible to include social care staff so that people who are well enough to work can do so.”
Can you outline, please, what led to this.
Dr Chris Llewelyn: I think there was a general sense that the needs of social care staff as a whole weren’t being taken into account, that the – you’ve already heard in some of the evidence sessions this week about testing arrangements and the provision of PPE, I think there was a sense within the workforce that they were being neglected and weren’t taken into consideration and account in the same way as other service areas.
And I think it was a feeling both within the workforce but within wider local government as well, that they weren’t appreciated as fully as they should have done, that there was an issue of parity of esteem with other healthcare workers. I think everybody knows the rewards in this sector are very modest, and throughout the pandemic I think the social care workforce performed valiantly, brilliantly, incredibly well, above and beyond anything that could have been expected of them, and for a brief period there was a sense that they were appreciated in the same way as their colleagues within the NHS, but there was also the underlying feeling that their needs, both in terms of testing and PPE in particular, weren’t being taken – weren’t considered in the same way as other service areas.
Ms Paisley: Thank you. I don’t have any further questions for you.
My Lady, I understand there are some Rule 10s, and can I apologise for my mispronunciation earlier.
Lady Hallett: Thank you.
Ms Heaven.
Questions From Ms Heaven
Ms Heaven: Good afternoon, Mr Llewelyn.
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Good afternoon.
Ms Heaven: I represent the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru.
Just a very short question, from paragraph 53 of your witness statement. If we can bring it up, just to assist you, but I will read it to you as well. It’s INQ000410950, so it’s paragraph 53. Okay?
Here you state that:
“In the view of the [Welsh Local Government Association] the key lesson learnt should be that we need collective and inclusive planning, led by Welsh Government, with a whole-systems approach engaging all partners who have a role to play. Local government is concerned that this learning is being lost, and that we might revert to the situation of inadequate planning and readiness for the next national emergency of the future which was explored in Module 1.”
So my first question is this: how do you envisage the whole-system approach looking?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Can you bear with me a moment? It’s only just appeared on the screen.
Ms Heaven: Okay. Paragraph 53.
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Yeah.
Ms Heaven: Sorry.
(Pause)
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Okay. The – in our evidence submission to Module 1, and in the supplementary evidence session – submission to Module 2B, I think we list a number of recommendations as far as going forward and learning lessons, so I’d stand by all of those recommendations. It’s a particular problem within emergency planning, the idea of inherited memory, institutional memory, and as there are staff changes, officers move on, it’s lost. So it’s more important than in many service areas to record that institutional memory, as it were.
As I’ve mentioned earlier, I would have expected any reflective process of looking at the lessons that were learned from the Covid period to include as many partners as possible. I certainly think that local government should have been included, but other sectors as well, the voluntary sector, and all those who were part of the response phase, I’d expect them to be included in the process as well.
Ms Heaven: Okay. Next question, then, please. Do you consider there is an appetite within the Welsh Government to implement the whole-system approach you describe, and if not, what do you consider to be the resistance?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: It isn’t, it isn’t evident that that appetite is there at the moment. I can’t – I can’t really comment on where the resistance is. We have – since the pandemic we have written to ministers, expressed concern about the capacity within some of the enforcement services, with the environmental health and within Trading Standards, also with – within emergency planning as well.
I think it’s worth bearing in mind that at the start of the pandemic, local government had gone through ten years of austerity. According to ONS figures, the workforce had been cut by 37,000 staff, the budget had been cut in real terms by about £900,000. Inevitably that has an impact on capacity. Some of those areas that were cut were environmental health, Trading Standards and would have been emergency planning.
I think the Covid experience points in the direction of not making similar cuts in those areas going forward. So I’d expect that to be part of the discussion.
Ms Heaven: Okay, thank you very much. Those are my questions.
Thank you, my Lady.
Lady Hallett: Thank you, Ms Heaven.
Ms Foubister.
Questions From Ms Foubister
Ms Foubister: Good afternoon, Mr Llewelyn, I represent John’s Campaign and Care Rights UK.
You say in your witness statement, and I don’t think we need to put it up, at paragraph 24 that local authorities were uniquely well placed to be the first port of call for the most vulnerable people. Why do you say that?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: For a variety of reasons. Chief among them is the fact that elected members, councillors, live within the communities that they represent. They have a personal relationship with their ward members, they have a face-to-face relationship, in the way that other tiers of government don’t always have. Similarly, officers throughout local government invariably live within their authorities as well and have a close understanding and relationship with the communities and the individuals they represent.
Ms Foubister: Do you think that during the pandemic local authorities were able to adequately support the most vulnerable people, including people in care?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: I think they did their best. We’ve discussed the responsibilities of local authorities within the context of the Social Services and Well-being Act. The Coronavirus Act provided some easements in terms of how authorities discharge those responsibilities. To my knowledge, those easements were very rarely, if ever, used. Authorities had to do things in a different way because of the circumstances utilising remote working, I’m also conscious that there was a greater emphasis on using unpaid carers, of using friends and relatives, but in many instances because that was the option that was chosen or was deemed to be more appropriate. So I think authorities faced the challenge of doing things differently. They also had the challenge of the impact of Covid on their own workforce, some of them were shielded, many of them were vulnerable as well, but I think they discharged their responsibilities and – but that they did do things differently.
Ms Foubister: You also refer in your witness statement to concerns raised by the WLGA about care home discharges. What concerns were raised?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: It was – it was specifically the issue of testing before people were discharged from hospital to care homes. And I’m conscious today that there may be people here who suffered bereavement as a consequence, and I do express my deepest sympathies, and it was something that was discussed on a regular basis in our meetings with ministers. It was raised as a deeply personal concern on the part of leaders. Many of them spoke passionately about people within their community, friends and families who had suffered as a consequence of the policy. Even, I think, the day before the Welsh Government changed the policy, the matter was raised by some of our leaders with ministers.
Ms Foubister: And do you recall when the concerns were first being raised by the WLGA?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: I could – I don’t remember, but it will have been recorded in our documents, and I think it would have been in one of the early meetings. As soon as leaders would have been alert to the anxiety then they would have raised it.
Ms Foubister: And you say that the concerns were raised with ministers; what was the response?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: I think that the – my recollection – again, this will be recorded in the documentation, my immediate recollection is that the Welsh Government and ministers were following scientific advice.
Ms Foubister: Thank you.
Thank you, my Lady.
Lady Hallett: Thank you very much.
Dr Llewelyn, it’s almost like déjà vu, in Module 1, planning and preparedness, I heard a fair bit about how local authorities weren’t sufficiently involved in the planning, and given the whole concept of the civil contingencies system is to have local authorities and others whom you also represent, as first responders and the like, I just find it extraordinary that it seems to be a common theme around the UK, this isn’t just Wales, that local authorities aren’t sufficiently involved in something that they’re going to have to deliver if the worst hits us.
Dr Chris Llewelyn: Do you want me to respond?
Lady Hallett: Yeah – have I got it right?
Dr Chris Llewelyn: No, yeah, I agree with your comments. And I think it didn’t crop up in the discussion but I think the Civil Contingencies Act is outdated and is no longer fit for purpose and needs to be reviewed urgently. If you look at the history of emergency planning going back to the Second World War, the days of Dad’s Army, the Civil Defence Act in 1948, they respond to the challenges at the time. It was – during the Second World War it was the threat of invasion, after that it was the threat of nuclear attack and the Cold War.
When the Civil Contingencies Act came in it was because there was a perception that we would have major incidents, one-off events, floods, airline crashes, train crashes and so on. At the time nobody envisaged a global pandemic of the nature and scale of the Covid crisis. I think we need to look at it again, I don’t think it is fit for purpose, it isn’t appropriate for a crisis of the duration of Covid. And significantly as well, it doesn’t give elected members at any level enough of an involvement in the process as an organisation which, as I mentioned earlier, promotes the primacy of politics, of elected members taking decisions and being held to account. The Civil Contingencies Act and those arrangements that sit underneath don’t take that into account.
Lady Hallett: Thank you very much indeed. I think I might have stirred some passion there, towards the end.
Thank you very much for your help. I know it’s the second time we imposed. I’m not sure whether we’ll ask you again, but anyway, thank you for all your help so far.
The Witness: Thank you.
(The witness withdrew)
Lady Hallett: Thank you, Ms Paisley.
Ms Paisley: My Lady, please can I call Reg Kilpatrick.
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick
MR REGINALD KILPATRICK (affirmed).
Questions From Counsel to the Inquiry
Ms Paisley: Can you start by giving your full name, please.
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: My name is Reginald Thomas Kilpatrick.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you very much for attending today.
You have been good enough to provide three witness statements to this module.
If we can identify those, please, one on behalf of the Local Government Directorate, dated 3 October 2023, INQ000292585, a statement dealing with enforcement of the coronavirus regulations, dated 1 December 2023, INQ000362241, and, finally, a statement provided in your personal capacity, dated 14 December 2023, INQ000274156.
You have signed all three statements with statements of truth; is that right?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: Can you please confirm that their contents are true to the best of your knowledge and belief?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: The contents are true to the best of my knowledge.
Counsel Inquiry: And you also provided written evidence and gave evidence in Module 1 –
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I did.
Counsel Inquiry: – of this Inquiry, and it’s fair to say you continue to assist the Inquiry with its investigations and we would like to pass on our thanks.
In terms of your career and professional background, you’ve worked in the Welsh Government since 1989 in a range of financial and policy roles; is that correct?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: In 2003 you moved into senior civil service as deputy director for the Budget Planning and Management division of the Welsh Government. You were then appointed deputy director of local government policy division of the Local Government Directorate in 2007.
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Correct.
Counsel Inquiry: And then in 2011 you became director of the Local Government Directorate. In 2013 you became, additionally, responsible for the Welsh Government civil contingencies and emergency planning function, community safety policy and the Welsh fire service.
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Correct.
Counsel Inquiry: And in January 2020, so the start of the period that this module is looking at, is it right that the Local Government Directorate sat within the education and public services group?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: It is.
Counsel Inquiry: In September 2020, you then became director general for Covid crisis co-ordination and director of the Local Government Directorate. Then in February 2022 there was a restructure of the directorates and the remit of the Local Government Directorate was transferred to a new group called the Covid Recovery and Local Government Group.
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Correct.
Counsel Inquiry: And you were appointed as the Director General of that group; is that right?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: That’s all correct.
Counsel Inquiry: So during the period with which this module is concerned, January 2020 to May 2022, you had direct responsibility for the Local Government Directorate; is that –
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I did.
Counsel Inquiry: – fair?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Can we then look at Cabinet responsibility, please, for local government policy matters. From January 2020 to May 2021 that responsibility lay mainly with Julie James as Minister for Housing and Local Government?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: It did.
Counsel Inquiry: Then from May 2021 to the end of the period that this module is concerned with, Cabinet responsibility for local government policy matters lay with Rebecca Evans, as Minister for Finance and Local Government; is that right?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: It did.
Counsel Inquiry: Having dealt with the background and the various dates, could you please briefly explain the main function of the Local Government Directorate?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: The main function of the Local Government Directorate I think can be summarised in three, three things, really, one of which is regarding the Academi Wales, leadership college for the public service, so that sits in Local Government Directorate. The second part would be the community safety division, which looks after the operational day-to-day administration of justice and, principally, our relationship with the police, and our oversight of the devolved fire service.
The element that looks after local government relates to probably four things, one of which is making sure that we have a fair and functioning local taxation system, which provides about £3 billion income for the 22 local authorities, that we have a council tax system which enables councils to raise money directly from individual households which brings in about another £1.4 billion of income, and finally – sorry, I think that’s probably – sorry, that’s the first one. The second – I’m getting ahead of myself here.
The second point is around democracy and creating the statutory conditions for local authorities to function effectively, that is in terms of making sure there the democratic oversight is properly based in legislation and overseen, that the standards and conduct of individual members is put in a framework which enables them to understand what their roles are and how they should behave in conducting those roles.
And thirdly, how do we increase and improve the diversity of our elected members.
The third element is around local government funding, so it is my team that allocates the near £5 billion to the 22 local authorities through a formula, a very complex formula, which takes the quantum, we don’t unfortunately set that quantum in my team, that’s given to us, but that will then allocate those funds in a way that we believe is equal. It is done in collaboration with the 22 local authorities and provides everyone with a fair and open settlement.
The fourth division relates to performance and partnership. So you’ll see from my statement we are very committed to working in partnership with local government, and we support the statutory partnership council and a number of other partnerships. We also look after the performance, so how do we implement some of the provisions of the 2021 Local Government Act which sets out the statutory performance regime for the 22 local authorities.
Counsel Inquiry: Thank you very much.
Now, as you have just confirmed, from 2013 you were responsible for Welsh Government’s civil contingencies and emergency planning function as an additional responsibility. Can you please assist with the function of the Civil Contingencies Group generally.
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Yeah. The Civil Contingencies, as it was in 2013, and beyond, was the resilience team, and it was that team that led on the policy and implementation and operationalisation of our civil contingencies functions. So it provided leadership essentially to the Category 1 and Category 2 responders who are defined, as you know, under the Civil Contingencies Act. And to the extent that we needed to mobilise, which we did on a number of occasions, the Welsh Government and the resilience team, in particular under my directorship, would provide the co-ordination and communication around that response.
Counsel Inquiry: We’ll come back on to that group shortly, but in your witness statement at paragraph 24 – we don’t need that on screen – in terms of Covid itself, you say:
“It is difficult to be precise as to the date on which I first learned about Covid in my professional capacity.”
Now, given your responsibility for civil contingencies, is it unusual that you can’t pinpoint a date?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: No, I wouldn’t say it was. There are two types of civil contingencies that we deal with, one of which is a rapidly emerging event, for example a marauding terrorist firearm incident, and that would be very clear, it will move very quickly. With Covid, I think the circumstances were slightly different in that we were – during January and late December, I think most of us were watching the developments in China with great interest and increasing trepidation. And so while I can’t pinpoint the exact day at which I learned in my professional capacity, I can pinpoint the exact day when I believed it was time that the Welsh Government civil contingencies function needed to take some action.
Counsel Inquiry: If we can have on screen, please, a statement made by Vaughan Gething, Minister for Health and Social Services, on 24 January 2020, and this says:
“Welsh Government is closely monitoring the emergence of a novel coronavirus originating in Wuhan, China. Due to the enlarging geographic area affected and evidence of person to person transmission, it is likely that people will require assessment in Wales and the wider UK.”
So we’ve just been discussing your awareness. Would it be fair to say that 24 January 2020 is the last possible date?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Well, at this time the response to the coronavirus as it was during January was being dealt with by the Health Department, it wasn’t necessarily an event that was being dealt with collectively by the government, so far as I could see, and I don’t remember this particular statement being issued. But at that stage there’s no reason why that would have necessarily been shared with me in the civil contingencies structures.
Counsel Inquiry: Returning then if we can to the Civil Contingencies Group that we’ve just discussed, you confirm that you convened and chaired a meeting of that group on the morning of 4 February 2020, and you say:
“[This] provided the first opportunity for an informed discussion to take place at senior official level about the official information that was then available and the potential risks of Covid-19 as they might materialise for the Welsh Government.”
So what do you say triggered that meeting?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I would say my natural pessimism, in a sense. Working in the civil contingencies area, one of our doctrines is to prepare. It seemed to me at the end of January we were in the position where there was a potential for coronavirus to come to the UK and therefore to come to Wales, and my intention of convening that first Civil Contingencies Group was to find out more about it for myself, to find out exactly what we knew as a government at that stage, but more importantly to engage a wide range of policy colleagues from across the government, so that would be from the education, the social care department, a number of other departments as well, so that we could all understand the, if you like, the common recognised information picture at that point and to begin to consider what, if anything, we needed to do and when we might need to do it.
And I – I’m fairly sure that at that stage I was saying to that group of colleagues “You need to begin to go and talk to your sectors, to talk to education and to talk to business potentially about the potential for a pandemic”, and then to begin sort of, at that stage, draft thinking around preparedness.
Counsel Inquiry: Just one final question before we take a break. You mention in respect of the statement of Vaughan Gething that you don’t remember that being brought to your attention. Had that been brought to your attention, with what you’ve described as your natural pessimism, do you think you might have convened a meeting of the Civil Contingencies Group earlier than 4 February?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I’m sure I would.
Ms Paisley: Thank you, my Lady. Would that be a convenient moment?
Lady Hallett: Certainly. I shall return at 3.15.
(3.00 pm)
(A short break)
(3.15 pm)
Lady Hallett: Ms Paisley.
Ms Paisley: Thank you.
Can we please have on screen the minutes of the 4 February Civil Contingencies Group meeting, INQ000321239, and as discussed you chaired this meeting; is that correct?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Correct.
Counsel Inquiry: If we can look at page 1, paragraph 1.2:
“… the ECC(W) will be formally established today.”
Can you briefly explain, please, the role and function of the ECC(W) in a public health emergency such as this.
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Technically speaking the ECC(W) is a room rather than a group, sorry. But essentially what it does is to bring together the resilience team with the category 1 partners as defined under the Civil Contingencies Act to enable two things, really. First of all, to begin to plan and understand what each of the partners, each of the responders are doing in order to understand the issue that the – the civil contingencies issue they’re dealing with; and, secondly, to begin developing a common recognised information picture, ie what is the sum of all of the knowledge of those responders, in order that we can begin to co-ordinate and potentially communicate the actions that need to be taken across those partners and for us as a government, and particularly the resilience team, we can begin to tell ministers that that – that there is action under way.
Counsel Inquiry: So this is from 4 February 2020.
Can we briefly please turn to INQ00032120228.
This is a meeting of the Civil Contingencies Group on 18 February, and if we can look on page 3, and in the middle we can see it says:
“Gary Haggaty explained that at present, ECCW is not formally stood up but are considering the need to formally stand up in the near future.”
Then if we can go to the Cabinet minutes, please, from 25 February 2020, INQ000129852.
At paragraph 5.4, page 6, it says:
“… the Emergency Co-ordination Centre (Wales) was ready to ‘stand up’ if and when required.”
So my question is: can you help us with when the ECC(W) was formally established?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: The ECC(W) began operating in the way I described from 4 February, and that was in line with the weekly civil contingencies groups that we had put in place.
There is a threshold in the pan-Wales response plan at which – when we say the ECC(W) is stood up, that is more about the physical location of partners, and a move from normal working hours to extended working hours, because the amount of the number of issues that we need to deal with or the severity of the situation demands a greater input from the resilience team and those partners. And so I think by the time we got to 25 February, we were considering – sorry, I’m trying to remember the dates – moving the ECC(W) on to extended working hours, and then certainly during March we moved them from, I think, it’s 7 in the morning to 8 at morning, from 7 in the morning to 10 o’clock at night. So it was a gradual mobilisation.
Lady Hallett: I’m sorry, I didn’t really understand that answer. Could you help me again?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Okay.
Lady Hallett: Ms Paisley’s question was: when was the ECC(W) formally established?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I would say 10 February we wrote out to local resilience fora to explain that the ECC(W) was running at that point – I can’t remember the exact phrase that we used in the letter, but the team were operating from the 4th, and as we moved through February we were extending their working hours because the scale of the task grew.
Lady Hallett: I don’t know if you want to pursue it, Ms Paisley, I still don’t think I quite follow, but anyway …
Ms Paisley: Thank you, my Lady.
Lady Hallett: Maybe I’m not following who’s on – who is on the ECC(W)?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: That would be the resilience team, in my directorate. That would also be the Category 1 responders under the civil contingencies –
Lady Hallett: The local authorities and the like.
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: So there would be local authorities, health boards, the police and fire service, ambulance and the military.
Lady Hallett: So was it meeting? You talk about your team and extended hours. Was the ECC(W) meeting?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: It was not physically co-located at that point.
Lady Hallett: Sorry, was it meeting?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: The ECC(W) is a –
Lady Hallett: Well, it’s like COBR, isn’t it, we use it for meetings but it is actually a room.
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: It is a room, it is a physical location at which partners would gather together.
So to the extent that I can explain it without relation to a physical room, the partners were engaging on a daily basis from the 4th – sorry, from the original date through February.
Lady Hallett: Were they engaging in a meeting or by –
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: They were engaging in a meeting and they were engaging through providing information into the system.
Lady Hallett: Right. Thank you.
Ms Paisley: Can we perhaps stay on the topic of the ECC(W), please, and skipping ahead slightly, you wrote to local resilience forums on 10 March – and that letter is INQ000321241 – stating that from the next day, so that would be 11 March, that the ECC(W) would operate from 7 am until 7 pm Monday to Friday, and then this was increased to seven days a week from 8 am till 10 pm from 20 March and that was confirmed in a letter from the First Minister. Is that right?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Correct.
Counsel Inquiry: Do you think those escalations happened quickly enough?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: At the time, I think they were reasonable escalations based on the information that we had. I’m not sure that had we brought those escalations forward it would have made a material difference to our response.
Counsel Inquiry: It’s right that in your statement you confirm, as Wales emerged from the first wave of Covid, that the Joint Emergency Services Group, Welsh Government and the strategic co-ordinating groups would undertake a lessons learned exercise, and that was to understand how the emergency services and preparedness structures had responded to the pandemic, and that was the Pan Wales Covid-19 Lessons Management Project Board –
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Indeed.
Counsel Inquiry: – which you chaired, and you confirm it met five times, and a lessons identified register was compiled to track the progress.
If we can, please, have on screen INQ000187578, and we can see that this document was last updated on 3 March 2023; is that correct?
And on page 19, we can see, under “Recommendations”:
“Review the triggers for the establishment of ECCW, and the response structures for ‘Health’ emergencies.”
And under paragraph 6.5:
“Prompt establishment of a full ECCW functionality should follow once a public health emergency is declared.”
We can then see at the bottom a comment:
“A formal review of the Pan Wales Response Plan will be undertaken and a task and finish group will be established to take this forward.”
Has there been a review about the trigger to establish the ECC(W) undertaken to date?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: The quote here, the work that is outlined here is being taken forward through our review of civil contingencies processes in Wales. I’m – I can’t confirm that there is a specific piece of work on the triggers for standing up the ECC(W). I agree that it is – it is a very important point of transition for us, and on reflection I can see that at the beginning, in those early days of Covid, we should have been clearer about the status of the ECC(W) and when we were moving through those phases towards full mobilisation.
Counsel Inquiry: Can we then, please, return our minds back to the Civil Contingencies Group meeting on 4 February, and we don’t need to have the minutes back up again, but the minutes note that there would be an internal meeting on 10 February to discuss the Welsh Government’s pandemic plan. Is that a meeting you remember taking place?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I don’t recall that meeting.
Counsel Inquiry: Your statement talks about the Health Emergency Planning Unit, or HEPU. Can you please briefly explain the role that HEPU played in the Welsh Government’s pandemic response.
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: My understanding of the Health Emergency Planning Unit is that it provided, if you like, an equivalent to the resilience team’s function for the NHS. So it dealt with civil contingencies planning, it dealt with how to operationalise some of those actions required by that planning, issuing guidance and determining policy for the NHS and the health service.
I didn’t have any detailed engagement with the operation of HEPU in the run-up to 23 March.
Counsel Inquiry: Can we, please, look at INQ000320719, which is an email.
If we can look at the email, please, from David Goulding. If we start with page 3, this email chain begins with an email from the UK Cabinet Office attaching SAGE planning assumptions and the draft communications plan on 13 February.
If we can then, please, look above that, and we have the email from David Goulding, and we can see your name appears along with some others, and it says:
“Please note the planning assumptions coming out from SAGE. I don’t propose any wider sharing of this as it states not to be shared beyond HMG and SAGE members. I assume it will go to COBR Ministers to consider and can then be shared wider?
“The assumptions reflect a pandemic but the one surprise is the clinical attack rate. If I am reading this correctly it suggests 80% whereas for a pandemic it’s 50%.”
If we can keep that in mind but now turn to the attached SAGE planning assumptions, INQ000320718, and we can see, first row, “Incubation period”, estimated 1-14 days, significantly longer than pan flu reasonable worst-case scenario.
Third row, basic reproductive rate is estimated to be 2-3 in Wuhan.
Fourth row, the doubling rate in China just 4-5 days.”
Seventh row, “Transmission”:
“Asymptomatic transmission cannot be ruled out and transmission from mildly symptomatic individuals is likely.”
Then on page 2, please, first row, we can see 80% of the population could possibly be infected, which is the point picked up by David Goulding in the email that he sent.
Then, the fourth row, 4% of the population could require hospitalisation.
It would be fair to say that these were worrying assumptions; is that right?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: That’s absolutely correct.
Counsel Inquiry: Would you agree that, looking at these assumptions, it was plain that this was going to be a whole-systems emergency by this stage at the latest?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: It was clear to me that it was going to be an emergency that would go well beyond the civil contingencies responses that we had been planning for and exercising for in the past, and indeed beyond those – consideration that we’d given the pandemic flu plans some years – well, the plans that were published some years before.
Counsel Inquiry: So did you have pause for thought at this point and consider: we’re not sufficiently prepared to deal with this?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: My response to David’s email was to raise the significance of the planning assumptions and what I could see as a developed communication plan within the UK Government which was attached to this, this email as well, with a range of senior colleagues.
Counsel Inquiry: If we could come on to your response in just a moment, but in terms of your personal thoughts, did you think, “We’re not prepared for this”?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I don’t think that crossed my mind at the time. My focus was much more on: how do we respond, what can I do personally and professionally to mobilise the organisation so that we can build a response, recognising these new and more serious planning assumptions.
Counsel Inquiry: If we can then go on to your response to David Goulding, please, and back to INQ000320719, please, and if we can go to the first page, and your email says:
“This material needs to be shared internally and rapidly.”
So would it be right to say that you were surprised that David Goulding had said don’t share it more widely?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I was surprised that the information wasn’t being shared more widely, given its nature and the implications for departments across the government.
Counsel Inquiry: So your response was to escalate this as quickly as you could to the director generals and to the permanent secretary?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: It was.
Counsel Inquiry: As far as you’re aware, do you know if these planning assumptions were cascaded higher up to ministers in Cabinet?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I don’t know. I was really focused on the operational response at this stage and trying to mobilise a wider group of colleagues across the organisation. I would have assumed that the discussion around the planning assumptions themselves would have been conducted through the Health Department.
Counsel Inquiry: So would it be fair to say that you didn’t directly discuss this with a minister?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I did not.
Counsel Inquiry: Is that a regret?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: This was very clearly a public health issue, certainly at this stage, and my professional view at the time was the experts and ministers needed to be discussing these matters and also the – more widely within the health and social care group.
On this particular day, as I say, my concern was to escalate to senior colleagues so that we could begin considering how we would respond as a government.
Counsel Inquiry: So it would be fair – you were operating on the basis that this would be passed on and you would focus on the operational response. Does it then surprise you or shock you that Cabinet didn’t in fact discuss Covid until 25 February?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I think – I don’t know what discussions were had within the Health Department and with the health minister, and the content of Cabinet agendas and the judgements of ministers about what was discussed was something that would have been a matter for them rather than me.
Counsel Inquiry: Can I please move on. We can take that down.
You attended some meetings with Mark Sweeney, and you describe this in your statement, in February and early March, and you explain these meetings were with your counterparts in the UK Government and the other devolved administrations, they were referred to as ESSIG, which means Essential Service, Society and Infrastructure Group; is that right?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: You outline that the purpose of these meetings was to collate information and evidence on likely impact of NPIs to inform papers to be presented to ministers; is that fair?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: Now, at this point Mark Sweeney was Director General of the Cabinet Secretariat in the Cabinet Office. Are you able to give an idea of how much contact you had with him in late February, early March?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Probably three meetings. I was an attendee along with a number of other colleagues from devolved administrations and the UK Government at, as I say, probably three meetings.
Counsel Inquiry: The Inquiry heard evidence from Helen MacNamara in Module 2.
If we could please have the transcript, 000000039. And I’m not going to read all of this out, but if we can just look at the following:
“The account that Mr Cummings has given is of you walking from the Cabinet Office into Downing Street and in fact into the Prime Minister’s study that evening – he wasn’t there, the Prime Minister – but you saying, and this is his account, but I think you agree with it, that you had just been talking to Mark Sweeney, whose name we’ve just seen, who was in charge of co-ordinating with the Department of Health.
“‘He said [that’s Mr Sweeney has said but you’re reporting it] “I have been told for years there’s a whole plan for this. There is no plan. We are in huge trouble”.’”
Now, to summarise, then, this was a conversation put to Helen MacNamara from 13 March 2020, and the upshot is that Mr Sweeney was saying on that date “I have been told for years there’s a whole plan for this. There is no plan. We are in huge trouble”, and my question is whether that’s something that Mark Sweeney ever said to you in those meetings?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: No.
Counsel Inquiry: Did anyone from the UK Government say words like that to you?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: No. The ESSIG meetings that I attended were very task-focused, very constructive, and intended solely on looking at the implications around, I think it’s six potential non-pharmaceutical interventions, and when I say implications, I mean what were the social implications, what would these measures mean if they were – for the economy if they were put in place.
So no, the meetings were very positive and forward looking.
Counsel Inquiry: Do you think, if that had been said to you, you would have done anything differently?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I would certainly have been very surprised to have heard anything like this reported in such a cross-government forum. Had – I think as a government, and my professional colleagues within Welsh Government, I think we would have probably acted quite differently over the following few weeks if we had understood that there was a lack of a plan. And I don’t know from this quote whether it’s a lack of a cross-government plan or a lack of a plan in Department of Health. But in any case I think some of our thinking may have been accelerated had we known of this exchange.
Counsel Inquiry: Can I please move on to a different topic, which is ministerial implementation groups, and it’s right that you attended almost all of the general public sector implementation meetings.
Can we, please, have on screen paragraph 167 of your witness statement from a personal capacity, INQ000274156. Here you talk about the MIGs operating, and you say:
“It was common for us to be provided with the papers during the morning of the meeting itself, which normally started around 1 pm. On occasion, the papers would be circulated as late as an hour or two in advance. That made commissioning, compiling and submitting briefings to Welsh Ministers, often on complex and wide-ranging subjects very challenging.”
Then I don’t propose to read the rest of this quote, but that gives us a general flavour of your views on the ministerial implementation groups.
How could those meetings have been improved?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I can think of two immediate ways that those meetings could have been improved.
First of all, a more collaborative approach to identifying the subjects that we really wanted to talk about as four nations, rather than those which may have a greater focus on England.
Secondly, as a consequence of that, potentially drawing up shared agendas, working together on how we would frame particular issues; and then, I suppose thirdly, how we would go about putting papers together that would properly reflect the views of the devolved administrations.
Counsel Inquiry: Can we then please talk about the 21-day reviews, please.
If we can start with the first of the 21-day reviews, and it’s right that the coronavirus regulations stipulated that they had to be reviewed every three weeks. The first review on 16 April 2020, you say that you brought together the team which undertook the first review; is that correct?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Correct.
Counsel Inquiry: The Inquiry has a statement from Thomas Smithson, who was heavily involved in the 21-day review process. We don’t need to go to his statement, but it’s at INQ000282461. He says:
“The first substantive piece of work I was asked to undertake was the first review of The Health Protection … Regulations … I did not have any team … this became my principal task, drawing on others’ views and evidence. There was no framework or process established, with my approach guided by legal advice on the obligations in the regulations, and public health and scientific advice on the progression of the pandemic.”
So would it be fair to say, as he says in his words, he undertook that review by himself?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: He also undertook that review under the supervision of Debra Carter, who was one of my deputy directors who I asked to move across and help establish the 21-day reviews, and she was present and overseeing the first three.
I also brought together a group of colleagues from across the Welsh Government who would help to provide information and to steer Thomas in the work that he was doing, and also to provide the necessary input of evidence particularly but also to help shape and quality assure the process.
Counsel Inquiry: Do you have a comment as to why he included in his statement deliberately, “I did not have any team”?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I don’t think Thomas had a team underneath him to help do the work, but there was a group of people around him to help, as I say, shape the review. Those colleagues probably didn’t write it in the way that Thomas did, but there was certainly a number of people who were supporting and advising him as we went through that first review.
Counsel Inquiry: In respect of his comments that there was no framework or process established for the first review, is that something you’d agree with?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: That’s absolutely correct. We only realised that we would have to review the regulations every 21 days around 23 March, when they were originally brought forward. So this was an area that we hadn’t anticipated. It hadn’t featured as any of – in any of the previous pandemic flu planning that we had done for the decade before. So it was essentially a very new and very demanding burden that was placed on us.
Counsel Inquiry: So is your evidence that you realised on 23 March that there would need to be a review in 21 days?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: And so why were those 21 days not used to create a framework or a process?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: They were. They were used – we – Tom basically created that framework as we prepared the first set of reviews, and that framework provided the basis for the second and the third and the subsequent reviews, and at the same time we spent every review reflecting on the last one to see where we could improve. And so by the time we got to the summer, I think it’s certainly my view – and I would hope colleagues would agree – that we had developed a very clear process with some excellent legal input which made sure that the decisions we were asking ministers to take would be well-founded, fed by a large number of pieces of evidence that would be renewed and refreshed and put forward as part of that process.
Counsel Inquiry: Moving on then to engagement with local authorities, please, and you may be aware the Inquiry heard evidence this afternoon from Dr Llewelyn, and at paragraph 51 of your statement on behalf of the Local Government Directorate, you talk about “regular and open engagement with local government was a central principle of the Welsh Government Covid-19 response”.
Can we please have Dr Llewelyn’s second statement on the screen, please, at paragraphs 12 and 13. Here he says:
“For instance, the WLGA notes the statement of Reg Kilpatrick, who had been Director General, COVID-19 Crisis Coordination for the Welsh Government … [Document read] … local authorities, both collectively and individually, at the outset of the pandemic.
“13. Communication is not however the same as consultation and still less is it co-production. The WLGA considers that in several ways Mr Kilpatrick’s views about the extent of communication fail to recognise the extent to which there was inadequate early engagement with local government – engagement which could have ensured that the operational issues which local government would encounter were properly taken in account and which, had they been, could have much improved outcomes.”
What is your response to that?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I think the distinction between communication and consultation in the circumstances of the early days of Covid is a very thin distinction. So in practice every engagement that I, my team and ministers had with the WLGA, whether that was at leader level or at official level, were in effect consultations. They weren’t traditional civil service consultations where, as we know, we’d send out a paper and expect people to respond. They were very open, often very challenging meetings where we would be putting forward briefings, first of all, we would then be explaining our plans or our intentions for, within the 21-day review, what we were going to do next, and we would be having that, that real-time consultation at political level and official level, on a very regular basis, two, three times a week in some cases.
Equally about early engagement, I’ve engaged local authorities through my EU transition board on 4 February, which was three days after we had – after the World Health Organisation had declared Covid a global emergency and before it declared it a pandemic. So we’d begun consultation with some chief executives representing their regions through that forum. We were also, certainly from 10 February, in very regular engagement with all of the local authorities through the local resilience fora, in terms of helping them to understand the reasonable worst-case scenarios and the planning that they and their organisations needed to do, both to respond and as organisations themselves.
So I would dispute the fact that we didn’t consult. I think we had an extraordinary level of consultation. I think in February and March we had in excess of 30 meetings each month between the Welsh Government officials and ministers and local government. That was just my area.
If we look at subject specific issues, so housing or social care, there were other engagements that were going on – again, on a very regular basis, once or twice a week throughout Covid – to make sure that we understood the pressures on local government, that we understood their views, and those views would change – would be quite significantly different across the 22, and that those views were reflected in our advice to ministers or indeed reflected by ministers around the Cabinet table.
Counsel Inquiry: Can I please just read into the record, the INQ of that witness statement is INQ000410950.
In respect of early engagement, which you have just briefly touched upon, in your statement on behalf of the Local Government Directorate you do accept that engagement wasn’t always early enough; is that fair?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: That is absolutely – absolutely fair, and that engagement was – it could have been better, it most certainly would have been better had we had more information to share from the UK Government. We were quite constrained in what we could say, because the flow from the UK Government was at times limited, and particularly, you know, in the run-up to the first lockdown.
Counsel Inquiry: Can we, please, have on screen minutes of a meeting of the Welsh Government officials and WLGA representatives on 12 March, which we have at INQ000321234.
Lady Hallett: Just before you go on to that, can I just go back to your answer: you were constrained by limitations on the flow of information from the UK Government. As I understood it, the chief medical officers were meeting regularly, people from the devolved nations by this stage were attending SAGE, albeit maybe they should have been involved a bit earlier. I’m not following why you say there was a limitation on the flow of information, and that’s what constrained you; why you’re basically passing the buck for the criticism to the UK Government.
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I’m not passing the buck in the sense that I think some of the WLGA’s concerns were in the run-up to lockdown and the surprise with which that decision took them, and I think my – what I’m trying to demonstrate is that had we known more about the move of the Prime Minister to lock down on that Monday evening, we would have been able to share more information with them so that they could plan and prepare their organisations better. As it was, we didn’t have that information, as a government we were unsighted on that, although we did meet the local government leaders in the week before that lockdown decision was taken, to brief them and to discuss with them the information that we did have.
So I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be passing the buck to the UK Government –
Lady Hallett: I probably shouldn’t have used that expression, Mr Kilpatrick.
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: It was more of a case that that was a particular decision that I know colleagues had concern about, and that was a concern that we also had, but we were unable to move ahead because we didn’t have the information.
Lady Hallett: So basically when you said “constrained by the limitations on the flow of information”, you will have specifically had in mind the –
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: It was that decision –
Lady Hallett: – lockdown?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: – particularly.
Lady Hallett: I follow.
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Yes.
Lady Hallett: Thank you.
Ms Paisley: Staying on the topic of engagement with local authorities, these are minutes of a meeting on 12 March, and if we can have on page 2, please, and it says:
“Update from Reg Kilpatrick.”
And we can see in the second paragraph it’s noted:
“How do we work with you to avoid series of meetings.”
And then page 3, we can see it says:
“Need to work out how we best channel guidance and info to get to the right people as quickly as we can. How do we work with you so we don’t create a whole series of meeting and share.”
That reads, would you agree, like a reluctance to have those meetings with local government?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: No, I don’t interpret that as a reluctance. What I interpret that to mean to me, and particularly at the time, how we work out the very best channels to engage and consult with the right colleagues in local government. We were under, as were our local authority chief executives and their teams, under enormous time pressure to turn guidance around, to develop new policy; and in some ways our traditional, rather hierarchical approach to consultation would simply not have worked. And so this quote from me is: how do we work out a different way of engaging? And I think we actually did that quite successfully.
Counsel Inquiry: I’m going to change topic completely, then, please, and ask about the Joint Biosecurity Centre.
You were closely involved in the early stages of the establishment of the JBC, and indeed you sat on the steering board that was set up to provide executive leadership to the organisation.
You in fact cleared a ministerial advice relating to the JBC on 2 June 2020. We don’t need that brought up, but it’s INQ000320880. You explain in the ministerial advice that the purpose of the Joint Biosecurity Centre is to detect, understand and rapidly act upon local, regional and national outbreaks of Covid-19 infection through targeted non-pharmaceutical interventions.
We then have the primary functions of the JBC, and then we can see it says:
“While there are still a number of issues to work through with respect to the detailed design and operation of the JBC, in light of the progress made to date in amending the operating model to better reflect Welsh interests, it is recommended that you provide an in principle agreement for Welsh participation in the JBC.”
And it’s right that the First Minister accepted the recommendation?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Correct.
Counsel Inquiry: You go on to say in your witness statement at paragraph 175:
“During an extraordinary time, it is my view that the development of the JBC was an exemplar of effective joint working on a complex matter by the four nations, achieved with a proactive attitude, commitment and a desire to succeed.”
Can you explain what leads you to say that?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Our normal experience with working with a number of other Whitehall departments is that sometimes it can be quite difficult to really work in collaboration. The JBC, as an offer to us as a Welsh Government, I thought was particularly exciting. I thought that the individuals involved were highly committed to delivering that task.
Sorry, would you repeat the question?
Lady Hallett: Why was it so good?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Why was it so good? Well, I’m answering this question in two ways, really. The concept was great, the individuals I think were also really committed. We did not make – we did not achieve the full potential of the JBC, and I don’t mention that in my statement, but I think on reflection we had great opportunity; however, for a number of reasons, it was just not – it was not possible to create that sort of four nation organisation that would feed back into our own deliberations and our own creation of evidence and actually to our own 21-day review.
Ms Paisley: So it was a good idea, but it didn’t quite manifest itself in that way?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: It was a great idea that was, I think, just not completely delivered on the ground.
Counsel Inquiry: We have a statement from Craiger Solomons – we don’t need to go to it – it’s INQ000291490, and I want to just briefly summarise some criticisms made and ask if you agree with them.
The first, paragraph 49:
“… commissioning of … projects came directly from policy leads … [who] had little understanding of devolution.”
Would you agree with that?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I’m not quite sure what he’s getting at there, because the commissioning of projects – we would have the opportunity to commission projects into the JBC. I presume he’s referring to the fact that projects would be commissioned that would look at England only. If that is the case, I can understand why that would be. I think there were some issues about securing access to data for Wales.
Counsel Inquiry: Another criticism he had, perhaps following on from that paragraph 50:
“There was a clear divide in the JBC between teams who were supporting the Devolved Administrations and those who were supporting UK Government. [As such] If the work was carried out for UK Government, typically UK Government ministers were asked for approvals before sharing with [the] Devolved Administrations. [Which] meant … [very] little evidence [was] developed that could be used to inform policy making … in Wales.”
Is that a fair criticism?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: That is not my understanding of how the JBC worked, from either my own experience or from a colleague, Jo Trott, who was embedded into the JBC specifically to underline our commitment to it as an organisation, but also provide us with a really clear understanding of what the JBC was doing and how it was going about it. So, I’m sorry, I don’t recognise that criticism.
Counsel Inquiry: It’s right that the Joint Biosecurity Centre was integrated into the UK Health Security Agency in October 2021. In your view, did that change the focus at all?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Yes, I think it did, actually, and I think some of the – the independence of thought and the independence of action that we enjoyed previously sort of dissipated, and so the relevance of the JBC to us as a government dissipated alongside that.
Counsel Inquiry: Moving on, then, to a few questions about local restrictions, please.
On 3 September 2020 you received a call from the chief executive of Caerphilly County Borough Council, who wanted to discuss her concerns about the rising number of infections in the area and wanted to discuss with you what measures could be taken to try and bring those under control. Is that right?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: That’s right.
Counsel Inquiry: You then emailed Dr Atherton, Dr Orford and Simon Brindle, and we can see your email, please, on screen, 4 September 2020, INQ000320919.
We can see the first paragraph:
“She was unsure about how to engage Welsh Government or where she should get advice from regarding which NPIs would be effective and appropriate in the circumstances and her ability to act locally. I looked back at the CV Control Plan for Wales which is not specific about the escalation from local/regional to national and does not describe how this should happen. For example, it is not clear how the local/regional interests or concerns get fed directly into HPAG considerations.”
So at this stage was there a lack of clarity as to how local authorities should approach and respond to local outbreaks?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Well, clearly my colleague chief executive in Caerphilly was not aware of the escalation process. The ICT and the – sorry, the OCT and the IMT, incident management team and outbreak control team, that were operating in the region at that stage, from an earlier email, were saying this was not a matter of concern. And so I think what this email demonstrated to me is that there was – there was a structure in place, but nonetheless the chief executive and, I think, the leader of the authority were becoming very worried about what they perceive – or what they saw as a growing number of cases within the authority.
Counsel Inquiry: So is it your evidence that there was a plan in place that people understood?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I think looking at the coronavirus control plan, there was an annex which we added to that document which would point the outbreak control teams towards the strategic co-ordinating group in the first instance.
Counsel Inquiry: So then it could have been clearer?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: It could have been clearer.
Counsel Inquiry: And we know that there had been local restrictions in fact in England in the summer of 2020, and you say in your witness statement, about this fact:
“… it was not unusual for incidence in Wales to be two to three weeks behind that in the south of England, and therefore we were confident that we would experience similar growth in due course, and were planning on that basis.”
So would you agree work should have been done on these plans earlier than when they actually needed to be put into action?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I think we should have been clearer during the summer, given that we were beginning to consider the chances of a second wave, and we should have been clearer with colleagues across these civil contingencies planning structures about what would happen and what should happen and what plans were available.
Counsel Inquiry: It’s right, isn’t it, that ultimately it was agreed Caerphilly would compile, in conjunction with Public Health Wales, a list of additional measures that it wanted to implement; then these proposed measures would be further discussed within Welsh Government before advice went to ministers? Is that right?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: That’s correct.
Counsel Inquiry: Do you think that that was the right way round, namely that the onus was on the local authority to come up with a plan of action rather than the Welsh Government?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: That was in line with the Public Health Wales control – communicable disease outbreak control plan. So we were following Public Health Wales guidance at that point.
Counsel Inquiry: It’s right that ultimately an HPAG subgroup was created, which you chaired?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Correct.
Counsel Inquiry: What was the purpose of this subgroup, and was that something you found helpful?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: The reason why – and if I may call it HPAG OSG for brevity – was created was in recognition of the speed at which the issues in Caerphilly emerged. The cadence of meetings that were in place over the summer I think were weekly, and clearly, as we were moving into a period of significant growth in the virus, we would need also to adjust our plans so that we could act quickly.
So HPAG OSG was put in place two days after the Caerphilly – the Caerphilly measures were put in place, and the group met daily for quite some time after that, simply because we needed all of the experts in a room looking at incidence, looking at pressures, and being ready to provide advice to ministers within hours if necessary.
Counsel Inquiry: If we can then go further along the timeline into September, please, and moving on towards the firebreak. We don’t need to bring this up on screen, but on 18 September 2020 there was advice from TAC which advised that a package of non-pharmaceutical interventions on local and national scale may be needed to bring R back below 1.
Do you recall being aware of that advice on 18 September?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I have seen the advice and I’ve read it, but I couldn’t confirm that I was – I’d read it at – well, yes, I would have been aware of it at the time because it would have formed part of the 21-day review material.
Counsel Inquiry: Generally speaking, then, you would have read TAC advice as part of that review process?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Again, I don’t need it to be brought up on screen, but on 21 September 2020 SAGE was advising that a circuit-breaker should be considered to return incidence to low levels. Is that something you think you would have been aware of at the time?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: It’s very unlikely that I would have seen SAGE advice, I relied on TAG and TAC to provide us with the necessary information for the 21-day review.
Counsel Inquiry: If we return, then, back to TAC advice, there was further advice on 25 September, 2 October and 9 October. If we can please have on screen the 9 October advice, which is INQ000066397, and if we could have page 2, please, we can see:
“The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies … estimate of the reproduction number … has fallen since last week, but there is still exponential growth of COVID-19 cases in Wales as Rt is still above one.”
Second bullet point:
“This may lead to hospital admissions rising across Wales unless further control measures are applied.”
Fifth bullet point:
“For the first time in this wave of infections, the incidence for Wales is higher than 100 cases per 100,000 people and the total test positivity for Wales is 7.8%. All local authorities have seen more than 25 cases per 100k over the past week and have above 2.5% test positivity.”
Now, looking at this timeline, would you agree that as early as 18 September 2020 and the first TAC advice that we looked at, there had been calls to start considering a circuit-breaker lockdown?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: There were certainly discussions about a circuit-breaker lockdown, indeed.
Counsel Inquiry: And it’s right that on 12 October 2020 you attended a COBR meeting at which the First Minister, Mark Drakeford, asked whether a circuit-breaker or firebreak lockdown would be considered, as had been advised by SAGE?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Mm-hm.
Counsel Inquiry: Do we take it, then, from the First Minister’s question, that Wales was waiting for the UK to make the first move in respect of a circuit-breaker?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: No, I don’t think that’s a fair inference. The First Minister and Cabinet were looking at the evidence and information as it related to Wales and, as we saw, would have been prepared and were prepared to take their own action if necessary.
Counsel Inquiry: Now, it’s right that the firebreak implementation group was established – and that was by yourself – that was 14 October and, as we’ve just discussed, there had been advice from as early as 18 September to start considering this.
Do you think that that group should have been established earlier to at least start considering it?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: There were – there were discussions ongoing between TAC and the CMO and others, including me, about the potential for a firebreak for a couple of weeks before that date. So just because there wasn’t a group established to consider formally – and I think that the firebreak implementation group was much more about implementation and options – the growing need or the growing understanding of the pressures for a firebreak had been in discussion for a couple of weeks before that.
Counsel Inquiry: Can you help us with this: are you aware that the Swansea modelling team was only asked to model a firebreak on 11 October 2020?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: No, I wasn’t aware of that.
Counsel Inquiry: It’s right the firebreak implementation group met a number of times; no minutes were taken of those meetings. Given the significance of the work of that group, is that something that should have been formally recorded?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Quite possibly we should have taken a minute, but the products – the product of that group were a series of papers that were compiled by Tom Smithson particularly but contributed to by others, and were submitted to Cabinet and to ministers for discussion. So to the extent that there was a record of the work of the group, that was summarised in those papers.
Counsel Inquiry: Having discussed the timeline, would you accept that there was a delay in implementing a circuit-breaker?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: We – we began our work on 13 October, I – if memory serves me right, the first discussion by ministers was on the 18th. I may not have that date completely right, but there were three further – or three Cabinet discussions on the basis of the work of my group which culminated in a final decision about a firebreak, which was then implemented on the 23rd.
Given the amount of information that we needed to deal with, given the development of the policy, given the legal issues that needed to be considered, I think we moved as quickly as we possibly could from the initial commission by the First Minister to the production of options for Cabinet and then the final decision. It was certainly our very highest priority organisationally at the time.
Counsel Inquiry: In respect of the initial commission by the First Minister for your group, would it be your opinion that that commission should have come earlier?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: We – regardless of the commission, maybe we should have been doing more structured thinking in advance of that commission. However, as I say, we – I think we saw the COBR meeting as a bit of a turning point and some of the views expressed by the Chief Medical Officer in England about events internally in the south east of England.
Counsel Inquiry: Final topic, then, please, which is the topic of shielding, so we’re circling back.
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Okay.
Counsel Inquiry: If we can have on screen INQ000197994, which is an email chain starting at the bottom 18 March 2020 from an individual at the Cabinet Office sent to you and to others:
“I am copying Simon Ridley, Cabinet Office DG newly responsible for co-ordination on health and social care during the pandemic. He needs to speal to you as early as possible today about shielding of vulnerable people. I’m emailing to make the contacts and know Simon would be keen to arrange a conference call.”
If we can then look at page 3, please, and you send an email which says – it’s at the top, this is 20.20 on the same day, stating:
“Thanks Simon. It would be very helpful to see some paper or plans (or the slide pack material sent to LAs in England) first thing tomorrow to help the discussion at COBR. Did I miss a conference call earlier?”
So this would seem to suggest that on 18 March 2020, so five days before lockdown, there were no real plans in place for shielding; would you agree?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: There weren’t in Wales, and this was the initiation of the conversations with the UK Government about its plans for its shielding programme.
Counsel Inquiry: So is it your evidence that it was the UK Government that hadn’t prepared for shielding?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I think my evidence would be that none of us had really given that detailed discussion for the impact of social isolation measures on our most vulnerable.
Counsel Inquiry: And do you think that that is something that Wales could and should have been doing by this point?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I – I don’t – I can say we should have been doing it; we should have been doing many things, with the benefit of hindsight. At the time, we were very focused on a whole range of issues about moving into a lockdown potentially, and then once – after 23 March, managing that lockdown. So I’m not sure that it is fair to say we – we could have done anything at that point.
I would also say that this is a very good example of sometimes that sharing of information between the Welsh Government and the UK Government being quite late and often quite restricted.
Ms Paisley: Thank you very much, Mr Kilpatrick. That’s all the questions that I have for you.
My Lady, there are some granted Rule 10s and I believe there may be a live application.
Lady Hallett: No, I think that’s disappeared, thank you.
Ms Paisley: I’m very grateful.
Lady Hallett: Ms Heaven.
Questions From Ms Heaven
Ms Heaven: Good afternoon, Mr Kilpatrick, I represent the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru.
The first topic I want to ask you about is data, please, so it’s about the adequacy of data that was being pulled together for the 21-day review process.
Now, you deal with this at paragraph 121 of your witness statement, but don’t worry, I will indicate to you what’s in that, so we don’t need to bring that up.
Of course you explain there that you’re pulling together data, or your team are pulling together data for the 21-day review process in order to inform advice to ministers. You give some examples of the sorts of data that was being pulled together: TAC and TAG data; you’re also looking at stats about pressure on the NHS; you’re looking at confirmed cases of Covid-19; and you say all of this was being scrutinised daily by ministers.
Now, Andrew Nelson, who was the chief information officer at Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board, is highly critical in his witness statement to the Inquiry of the inability to extract data from NHS systems in Wales, and he says:
“Certainly in the early part of wave 1 this resulted in large swathes of information not being readily available to the NHS in Wales. There was limited access to prevalence and admission data from which we could monitor or estimate growth rates to provide an effective operational response.”
And crucially, he says:
“… there was no differentiation between community and hospital acquired infection.”
And I think it’s fair to say he limits that to sort of the March time.
So my question is this: did you know about these concerns with extracting data and the adequacy of data at the time and, if so, were ministers also aware?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: No, I didn’t know about those – those issues or the issue that Andrew raises. I wouldn’t have expected to know. I didn’t work in the Health Department, and my responsibilities didn’t extend to the sort of health informatics or the NHS data or data collection. In putting together the 21-day reviews, we would rely on TAG and TAC as our principal source of epidemiological and public health information.
Ms Heaven: But if ministers are not being given necessarily the best data, isn’t that something that they need to know to make their decisions?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Well, that would have been a matter for my colleagues in health, who would understand these issues much more clearly and much more directly than I.
Ms Heaven: Understood.
Next topic, please, is a WhatsApp discussion. So what I’m going to do is first ask you to look at a series of WhatsApps. You’re not in this group, just so that you’re aware, but you’re mentioned. And just to be clear, I’m not interested in the content of what is said about you, it’s what is said about the meeting.
So if we could get up, please, it’s INQ000331038, please. This is a WhatsApp chat group called the “Coronavirus legal hotline”, containing Welsh Government officials, lots of special advisers, legal officials, and it talks a lot about guidance.
So if we can start, please, by – it’s 21 May 2020, and it is Helen Little(sic) at 10.54. It’s very difficult to see, but we’ll try to zoom in.
Can you actually see it there in that sizing, or is that a stretch?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Did you say the 20 –
Ms Heaven: If not I’ll read it to you.
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Sorry.
Ms Heaven: So we have Helen Little(sic) here. So what we know is there’s a WhatsApp chat here going on about a meeting that it would appear that you’re involved in, and I’ll just read out some of the chat.
Helen Little(sic), who’s Helen Little(sic)?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Helen Lentle is the director of legal services.
Ms Heaven: So she says:
“Dylan, this is doing in my head.”
Dylan says – who’s Dylan?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Dylan. Dylan is the head of the office of legal …
Ms Heaven: Has it come off your screen?
Lady Hallett: Yes, it’s come off the screen.
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Yes.
Lady Hallett: So finish your answer.
Ms Heaven: Finish your answer.
Lady Hallett: I’m sorry to interrupt you.
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: Dylan is at the office of the – sorry, OLC. He’s our counsel – he supports our Counsel General.
Lady Hallett: We now need to make sure we’ve got the right document.
Ms Heaven: Yes. I’m not going to read out the – yes.
Lady Hallett: No, it’s just that –
Ms Heaven: I think some of it’s been redacted. I know which bits have been redacted.
Lady Hallett: Are you happy just to read it out?
Ms Heaven: I’ll read it –
Lady Hallett: Okay.
Ms Heaven: – because we’ve got very little time.
So let me just read it. So Dylan says:
“Me too.”
Helen Lentle says:
“Have left now, meeting with [somebody else].”
Then Dylan picks up again, because he’s been asked by Jane Runeckles what the meeting’s about, and he says:
“Guidance, an hour of our lives we’re not getting back … [Document read] … time goes on and more people get involved.”
And then I’ll move forward a little bit in the chat, and Jane Runeckles is asking – she appears to be on a different meeting – what’s going on, and Dylan says:
“Reg is ignoring our advice.”
And Jane Runeckles says:
“Oh god.”
Helen Lentle said:
“It’s not going well.”
And then Terry Kowal, who’s he?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: He works for Dylan who, can I just say, is the head of the Office of the Legislative Counsel.
Ms Heaven: I see. He said:
“What is this meeting about again?”
Jane Runeckles says:
“Arggh.”
And then Helen Lentle said:
“It’s about Reg not wanting to do something that may be different to what he wants.”
Then I’ll just fast forward to the end. There’s another comment there Helen Lentle, Helen Lentle said:
“Reg hates us all and doesn’t want another discussion.”
So I just want to understand. I’m going to show you some minutes of the meeting that we think it is, but can you remember that meeting?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I can’t – from this, I can’t remember what that –
Ms Heaven: Completely understandable.
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: No, no.
Ms Heaven: So let me ask you the second document, then, which we think might be the minutes, it’s the INQ000221027.
So this would appear to be the only minutes that we have of a meeting on this day involving yourself, 21 May, and it’s titled “… next Part 3” and it relates to discussions on Covid-19 measures, schools, workplace, general attitude and public, and we can see there’s a number of people present there.
I’m not going to ask you about what’s documented there, because there are lots of things documented, but just looking at that title there, “What next Part 3” and those attendees, do you think that probably is reflective of the meeting?
Mr Reginald Kilpatrick: I’m sorry, I couldn’t confirm one way or another. I wasn’t part of the WhatsApp group, and I don’t really know what they were talking about. I have seen this note and, frankly, it’s not a great note of any meeting. So I’m sorry, I can’t – I can’t help you.
Ms Heaven: Okay. Well, that’s my question.
Thank you very much, my Lady.
Lady Hallett: Right.
Thank you very much indeed, I’m very grateful for your help. I’m not sure whether that’s the last demand we’re going to make upon you, or request, but thank you anyway.
The Witness: Okay. Thank you.
(The witness withdrew)
Lady Hallett: 10 o’clock tomorrow?
Mr Poole: Yes, my Lady.
Lady Hallett: Thank you all.
(4.23 pm)
(The hearing adjourned until 10 am on Thursday, 7 March 2024)