9 October 2025

(10.00 am)

Dr Treanor: Can you see and hear me?

Lady Hallett: I can, Dr Treanor, thank you very much.

Dr Treanor: Today’s first witness is Ms Dickie.

Please can the witness be sworn.

Ms Nicola Dickie

MS NICOLA DICKIE (affirmed).

Questions From Counsel to the Inquiry

Dr Treanor: Ms Dickie, thank you for coming back to assist the Inquiry again and for providing Module 8 with the witness statement dated 8 August 2025, which we have at INQ000588065. I think you should have it in front of you.

Lady Hallett: Sorry, what are we waiting for?

Dr Treanor: We’re having a technical issue, my Lady, if we could just pause for a moment.

My Lady, if you could just bear with us for a moment. I think we have Ms Dickie now.

Ms Dickie, can you see and hear me?

Ms Nicola Dickie: Yes, I can.

Counsel Inquiry: Great.

Ms Dickie, thank you for coming back again to assist the Inquiry and for the provision of your witness statement to Module 8, which is at INQ000588065. I think you should have that in front of you?

Can you confirm that the contents of that statement are true to the best of your knowledge and belief, Ms Dickie?

Ms Nicola Dickie: Yes, I can.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

Ms Dickie, you’re giving your evidence today in your capacity as Director of People Policy in the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, which I think we can refer to as COSLA. I understand you’ve held that role since 2021; is that right?

Ms Nicola Dickie: Yes, that’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: And by way of brief reintroduction, COSLA is a councillor-led cross-party membership organisation for all 32 local authorities in Scotland and its purpose is to act as the representative voice for local government in Scotland. Is that an accurate, if brief, summary?

Ms Nicola Dickie: Yes, it is, thank you.

Counsel Inquiry: Ms Dickie, perhaps we could begin by my asking you, what responsibilities do local authorities in Scotland have in relation to children and young people in particular?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So local authorities in Scotland have a number of responsibilities in relation to children, and we provide primary and secondary –

Counsel Inquiry: Ms Dickie, I apologise for cutting across you. Would you mind just slowing down slightly just for the benefit of our stenographer. Thank you.

Ms Nicola Dickie: So we provide primary and secondary education to children and young people in Scotland, we provide housing and homelessness services, we provide non-commercial bus services and school transport, early learning and childcare services, social work and social care services and the protection of vulnerable children and adults and, more generally, access to sports, leisure, parks and other related physical assets.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And I think aligned with that COSLA itself has a dedicated children and young people’s workstream; is that correct?

Ms Nicola Dickie: Yes, we do and our policy team is made up of politicians that support that team.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. Let’s begin by looking at the role of local authorities in planning for school closures in Scotland between January and March 2020, if we may. I understand from your statement that local authorities in Scotland are represented in emergency planning structures but that COSLA itself is not represented on those structures; is that correct?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So we’ve got no statutory representation on those structures, albeit we will be brought in to those structures if the matters at play are more than just civil contingency. So policy issues and in children and young people that was certainly the case.

Counsel Inquiry: I’m grateful. Now, in your statement you describe a lack of discussion between the Scottish Government and COSLA about planning for school closures prior to March 2020, and I wanted to ask you, to what extent do you understand there to have been any direct engagement between the Scottish Government and local authorities through, for example, local resilience partnerships in that period?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So I think that the conversations that were ongoing as part of the resilience structures were much more generalised in terms of the way the resilience structures are put together in Scotland. School closures are not unique to the pandemic, the size and the scale of the school closures was what probably merited significant discussion.

So I suspect in the period between January to March, resilience structures had tried and tested things that they would do at a local level should one or two schools have to be closed as a result of, for example, an infectious disease like measles or mumps or, indeed, inclement weather. So we certainly have good tried and tested methods when we’re closing schools in a particular locality or region, but I suspect the size and scale of this meant that it probably did merit a bit more of a conversation, but the resilience structures are not necessarily the structures in Scotland that would give you that policy insight or the unintended consequences, perhaps, of closing schools.

Counsel Inquiry: I see. In that answer you indicate that the planning would have been more generalised and you suggest that planning would have been predicated on the basis of one or two schools having to close but perhaps not the more widespread closures. Just so that I have understood that correctly, is it the case that there wouldn’t, then, have been well-developed plans in the event that all schools in Scotland would have to close?

Ms Nicola Dickie: I certainly don’t recall seeing a plan for a national closure of all schools, but what I do know is that local resilience structures have plans, if that has to happen across a region, for example a whole council area. We would have those plans, in terms of what would happen.

The other thing is that it’s much, much more usual to do that, typically in the north of Scotland around about inclement weather, but that’s for a short period of time, there’s no sustained, you know, for two or three days at a time if there’s a lot of snow, wind or rain, or whatever, but certainly not for an extended period of time.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. There’s some suggestion that local authorities in Scotland may, at least to some degree, have begun planning for the potential impact on schools by, I think, 17 February 2020. Does that accord with your understanding of the work being done by your membership in February 2020?

Ms Nicola Dickie: Yes, it does. But what I would say is that some – some areas were at a different stage in that planning because some areas already had that infrastructure up and running. So, in – in, you know, normal series of events there are some local authorities in Scotland that already use, for example, remote learning for specialist subjects, so, you know, like a teacher in one high school would be running a class remotely for children in another high school. So that was happening in some areas because of sheer geography or, indeed, access to teachers. Whereas in some of our other schools that remote learning was not taking place in the normal run of things. So I think it’s fair to say that everybody was starting to consider what would happen, but I don’t think that planning was uniform at that stage.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you, Ms Dickie.

Now, on 13 March 2020, just to close off on this point, a joint letter issued from the Scottish Government and COSLA to local authorities seeking assurance, really, that local authorities had appropriate contingency plans in place, and was the onus on local authorities themselves to come up with their own contingency plans, or were there plans held at Scottish Government level, for example, that could be implemented by local authorities?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So, the statutory responsibility would be for the individual local authority to plan. What we would have at a national level would be a general understanding of what would have to be maintained if schools would have to close. But I don’t think, at that point, it was at a scale or for the length of time that it subsequently came through.

So, statutory responsibility on the individual local authorities, from a COSLA perspective we would be working across our heads of education and chief executives to try to pool the knowledge and, do you know, build the issues that were being foreseen, but certainly the scale and the length of time probably meant that the national plans that were there were probably not fit for what we were facing.

Counsel Inquiry: Okay. Now, in your statement – and for your reference, Ms Dickie, this is paragraph 4.1 – you say that:

“The first meeting of the Scottish Government Resilience Cabinet Sub Committee (SGoRR) [I think is the acronym] in relation to Covid-19 took place on 16th March and was attended by the COSLA Chief Executive.”

I just wanted to clarify that with you, Ms Dickie, I think it’s right that SGoRR had been meeting throughout February, and I wondered is that, rather, the first occasion in which COSLA was invited to attend meetings of the structure formally?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So, 16 March was the first time that COSLA attended that structure formally. Up until that point we were not invited into SGoRR. But what I would say is, in that earlier period there were discussions ongoing at a senior level between the two organisations, so there was some information being fed in from COSLA and our local authorities, but that was much, much less formal.

Counsel Inquiry: So, just to clarify, is it really around that point, in mid-March, then, that we begin to see COSLA beginning more formally involved in the pandemic?

Ms Nicola Dickie: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

Now, in your statement, you also refer to a meeting on 16 March, I think it’s a separate meeting between Scottish Government officers and COSLA officers, at which issues with teacher and pupil attendance were discussed, and I think it was agreed that a daily survey would be carried out in respect of that.

Can I just clarify, what was the difficulty with attendance at that point?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So we were starting to see variation in the numbers of teachers who were physically present in our schools, and the same thing was happening with children and young people.

I suppose the public more generally were beginning aware of the virus, and indeed we were starting to see guidance being issued around about public behaviour. We were also starting to think about what were the populations that were going to have to shield.

So, I think, first of all, we had to get an understanding at a, kind of, national and regional level about how that was playing out, but more generally, it also meant that it was becoming clear as we were going to move through the pandemic that things were going to have to change in schools. We needed to get an understanding of how many teachers would, for example, potentially be asked to shield, how many children and young people would be there. So it was trying to get a, kind of, handle, so that we could see that at a national level. Obviously schools and local authorities had that information at a local level but it wasn’t being funnelled up the way. Prior to that, I couldn’t …

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

I’d like to move on, then, to look at school closures in Scotland and how that decision was implemented by local authorities.

Now, on 18 March 2020, the First Minister announced that schools would close by the end of that week. When was COSLA first informed of that decision?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So, I think we were made aware of it over the evening of the, kind of, 16th, 17th, that it was something that was potentially going to happen. But that’s my recollection of that.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And prior to that, what was local government understanding of the potential need or likelihood of school closures in Scotland?

Ms Nicola Dickie: I think our understanding was becoming clearer, and I suppose that was borne out of the fact that schools don’t sit in isolation, so we could see what was starting to happen across other parts of civic society in Scotland and, to an extent, starting to read the mood music. So I think there was a general understanding that schooling as it was was not going to continue, but with so much of what we were doing in that early period, it was really unclear the extent to which that might have to play out.

The other thing, do you know, I don’t need to tell anyone in the Inquiry, is that the clinical advice was still being shaped and was still being delivered to the public more generally, so there were – there was a lot of contingency planning and scenario planning going on in terms of if you were keeping schools open, and how were you going to make them Covid safe, if you were going to be closing schools what did that mean, and how could we safeguard our children and young people in the workforce?

Counsel Inquiry: Ms Dickie, in that answer you referred to reading the music, and I suppose my question is, is the sense that you’re giving the Inquiry is really that COSLA was discerning this was a potential course that may need to be taken itself, or was the likelihood that this would be required being formally communicated to you?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So I think it was being formally communicated, it was certainly one of the scenarios that were on the table. I don’t want to give the impression that COSLA was being held at arm’s length, as part of these conversations. It was just that everything was moving so quickly, and there was a lot of unknowns in the system at any given time. So there’s no suggestion that we were being, you know, as I say, held at arm’s length but there were a number of unknowns, and they were unknown right up until the point that we started to solidify the plans.

Counsel Inquiry: Now, in your statement you explain that in terms of how that decision was given effect, at that point in time it was local authorities in Scotland who had the legal power to take the decisions and actions necessary to close schools. And I wonder, at the point at which they’re closed, had any guidance or direction or framework been provided to local authorities by the Scottish Government as to how those school closures should be implemented?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So I think, as we were going through that week, and we were clear that schools were going to be closing as we knew them, at the end of that week, there were some high-level conversations were going on, but I don’t think we were in a position that guidance was issued by closure of the schools more generally, on the Friday. What I would say about that is that I suspect that had government come out with a lot of guidance, had it not been developed alongside people who were working in our schools or our heads of education or, indeed, our local authority chief execs, that the guidance would probably not have been fit for purpose. So there was something about bringing the experts together and taking the time to write the guidance, but we were not in a position where we had, you know, a handbook that we could hand out across all 32 councils to say, “This is what it should look like” by that point.

Counsel Inquiry: And in your statement, you say, then, that school closures presented significant operational and logistical challenges to local authorities. Could you give us a sense of the nature and scale of those challenges?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So I think there was the workforce element in terms of what – removing even the teaching workforces from our education establishments, and setting them up to be able to provide remote learning, in itself was a challenge. Our workforce has different skills, they are used to delivering education in a particular way. So there was definitely a logistical challenge for individual head teachers and directors of education to think about the workforce. There was the children and families, in terms of how could we support them, and how could we provide guidance as we were still coming to an understanding of what remote and, indeed, digital learning was going to become, so I suspect if you speak to teachers at that time, there was some schools that were literally physically printing packs of learning for children to take home with them. There were other schools who were in a situation where they were able to find digital devices that individual children could take away with them.

And I suppose the other area was the things that our schools provide over and above education. So access to free school meals, making sure that our children are feeling supported in the community more generally, and it’s not a long time between, do you know, the kind of Monday or Tuesday of that week and schools being closed on the Friday. So I think there was a lot of pretty fast operational decisions had to be taken to see what was physically going to be possible, and then what was the remote learning offer going to be.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you, Ms Dickie.

I’d like to move on, then, to look at how councils in Scotland met their responsibilities in terms of the protection of vulnerable children throughout the pandemic. And I’d like to begin this part of your evidence by asking you about how that policy was being communicated to local authorities.

Now, I’m just going to read from this, it is the COSLA elective members briefing of 24 March 2020. For you, Ms Dickie, it’s at tab 14 and for the transcript it’s at INQ000300855 at page 7.

It says:

“Local authorities worked through the weekend to arrange childcare provisions for key workers. This will look different in every area and further information can be found on the Scottish Government website.”

Ms Dickie, the provision being made is described there and elsewhere, I think, as childcare, rather than education. And I wondered, is that a more accurate description of what was being provided to children on the ground in hubs at that time?

Ms Nicola Dickie: I think it depends what age and stage the children were at, if that’s honest. And I suppose that’s one of the challenges that we had throughout the period of the pandemic, that children are not one homogeneous group, and as we discussed at the start of this evidence session, the statutory responsibilities that local authorities have for children and young people is vast. It’s from birth right up to, in Scotland, almost 25, if you’re care experienced.

So I think, depending on the age and stage of the child and the provision that was available, there was an element of childcare to allow key workers to be able to be in their own employment. But there was a real focus on making sure that we could maintain education as far as we possibly could.

Counsel Inquiry: And Ms Dickie, you just mentioned key workers, I think it’s also right that that briefing doesn’t refer to vulnerable children, and I just wondered, is that a reflection of an initial prioritisation of key workers at that point in time?

Ms Nicola Dickie: No, I –

Counsel Inquiry: Children of key workers, rather.

Ms Nicola Dickie: I don’t think it is. I think what’s true of local government in Scotland is that we’ve got a statutory responsibility to look after vulnerable children, and young people. So my reading of that, it was taken as read that vulnerable children were included within the hub. So I don’t think it’s right to read too much into the fact that vulnerable children are not there, and I think we subsequently came on and we agreed definitions for when vulnerable children would be accessing the hubs.

So I don’t think it, I don’t think it’s that. What I would say is the definition of key workers was tricky to kind of nail down, as well, and that, a lot of that was to do with the fact that key workers are not necessarily routine, depending on where you are in Scotland. So if we think about key workers in and around about Grangemouth refinery versus what a key worker might look like in the rural Scottish Borders. So there was an element of having to kind of firm up what we meant in and around about key workers as well that was important on the capacity that would be required in the hubs as well.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

Now, Ms Dickie, the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland describes significant variation between local authorities in the interpretation of criteria to attend hubs. I understand from your evidence that COSLA would not have had any responsibility for monitoring the consistency of that provision; is that correct?

Ms Nicola Dickie: That’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: Are you aware of any monitoring of how local authorities were applying the definition of “vulnerable children” to identify who could attend school?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So I think we were providing the statistics, and those were coming in, but there’s no statutory monitoring going on at that period. But the COVID-19 Education Recovery Group is meeting quite frequently there, where all of the stakeholders would be able to raise those inconsistencies that you’ve just alluded to. But I’m not aware that there’s been statutory monitoring going on.

Counsel Inquiry: Okay. Now, the commissioner also pointed to particular difficulties with the provision for children experiencing domestic abuse, and Scottish Women’s Aid also described provision for those children as patchy and reported difficulties with being able to refer children into school places through local processes. Is that issue familiar to you?

Ms Nicola Dickie: It’s certainly one that resonated, thinking back, at the time. And I know the Inquiry is coming on to do Module 10, and violence against women and girls is one of the areas that COSLA has provided evidence there. I think there were a number of issues in terms of domestic abuse services, and it goes back to what I’ve said about a definition over key worker as well, so I know that there were issues with those providing support for domestic abuse services not being considered key workers in the initial stages, and I think that’s something that we need to think about as we move forward.

Counsel Inquiry: And both the commissioner and the current inspectorate also highlight specific challenges faced by children with disabilities arising from school closures in relation to suspension of key supports such as respite care provision, coupled with the restriction on face-to-face teaching. To what extent had the particular needs of those children been recognised and understood by local authorities in planning for and making provision for school places?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So, I’m sure the Inquiry is aware that in Scotland we have a principle around about ‘Getting it right for every child’. So the needs of children living with a disability or other support needs were individualised outwith the pandemic. That makes it incredibly difficult when we’re doing things at a, kind of, national level or we’re doing things, kind of, once. So I think that there were challenges with access for individual children that I think you can see, through the documents that we provided, came up, certainly through COSLA’s political structures and in the wider conversations with the COVID-19 Education Recovery Group.

So I think local authorities were aware of them, I think, the complexity of the system in and around about unintended consequences of where we were in closing our schools. But also unintended consequences, in terms of the access that other supporting adults in children’s lives had to support those children, was certainly something that has impacted the support that – our children with additional support needs.

Counsel Inquiry: You mentioned a moment ago the difficulties around the definition of an “essential worker”. I think it’s right that in May 2020 a revised definition of “vulnerable children” was agreed and that that was expanded to include children affected by disability and those experiencing domestic abuse. And in your statement you explain that that was intended to assist in ensuring that all children in vulnerable circumstances received appropriate help.

Ms Dickie, is that an acknowledgement that there were children in vulnerable circumstances who had not been receiving help in that initial period because they were excluded from the initial definition?

Ms Nicola Dickie: I think it was an attempt to bring a lot more consistency to what had become established practice on the ground at that point. So if I go back to the ‘Getting it right for every child’, the adults that were supporting individual children between the times of the first definition and the definition changing were, in effect, advocating for every child to get access to the hub. The amended definition meant that we had a clear stated intention, and a consistent application of that moving forward.

Counsel Inquiry: Now, you’ve said in your statement that the lack of visibility of children and young people in the initial period of school closure was a challenge. Is the point there that the closure of schools will have reduced opportunities for risk identification in respect of vulnerable children?

Ms Nicola Dickie: Yes, so that’s definitely an element of it, our teachers and our support staff in our schools have consistent access to children and young people, and the understanding, and know them as individual characters.

The other thing that was true was that the other statutory services were also going through changes to the way in which they were delivering their services, and I think you’ve heard from other witnesses, do you know, there were unintended consequences of the way in which drugs and alcohol services changed their services and access to support for adults, and how that then impacted on children.

So I think the closure of schools was one part of that. The changes that we made in other parts of the public sector also meant that we had reduced visibility over children and young people, not just through our schools and education services.

Counsel Inquiry: Ms Dickie, was that reflected in the pattern of child protection referrals to local authorities in terms of the numbers and sources of those referrals?

Ms Nicola Dickie: I think it was. And I suppose an example, going back to violence against women and girls, we had conversations with policing, who – people potentially, if they had been a victim of domestic abuse, didn’t want to phone the police and invite the police to come to the house if the person who was in their house was not part of their, do you know, family bubble, et cetera, but I think there were a number of reasons why the referrals came down, but not all of those reasons were because we closed schools. There were other things that were at play there in children and young people’s lives.

Counsel Inquiry: Okay. What steps did local authorities take, then, to try to improve the visibility of those children who might be at risk?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So I think in our – in the COSLA witness statement and indeed the work in the Care Inspectorate and others I think there was a lot of innovative practice going on. I think social care staff and social workers worked really hard to make sure that they were seeing and hearing from children and young people, but again, that really depended on the young person, what was the best anyway to access that young person, and what would work for them more generally. It also was cognisant of the wider restrictions that we were all kind of living under at that point. So face-to-face was not necessarily the right thing for everyone.

I think our children and young people who are in their early teens or who are going up into their late teens, access to online facilities actually meant that some social workers had more access to children and young people who were that age, because they were used to all of their interaction being digital and online, et cetera.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. Ms Dickie, I’ll move on, then, to look at changes to the provision of children’s social care in Scotland during the pandemic.

Now, the Coronavirus Act 2020 contained provisions which permitted local authorities to dispense, I think, with particular social care assessment duties, including those relating to children. Can you provide some practical examples of how those easements impacted children’s services in Scotland?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So I think the number of easements that was – that were used were minimal in terms of what access children and young people had to social care services. Unfortunately, I’m not a practising social worker, so the practice on the ground is not something that I can provide much commentary on, but again, we were monitoring the use of those easements, and that was being fed up to Scottish Government, and I remember at the time we were having conversations about whether the easements that were being applied were consistent across different areas, and were the outcomes that were important to children and young people still being delivered upon us as best as we possibly could.

Counsel Inquiry: And what was the answer to that question, were they being consistently applied?

Ms Nicola Dickie: I think there was a level of reassurance that social workers and chief officers across the areas understood their statutory requirements were, and they understood where the risk was.

Counsel Inquiry: And Ms Dickie, we’ve heard that in England and Northern Ireland the law was amended so that relevant bodies were required to demonstrate their best endeavours or reasonable endeavours. To be clear, there was no equivalent requirement in the law in Scotland; is that right?

Ms Nicola Dickie: That’s right, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Okay. And in your statement, you explain, and for your reference, this is paragraph 7.5, you explain that the provisions allowed local authorities the flexibility to focus on prioritising those with the most urgent need while ensuring effective safeguards. What were those specific effective safeguards that you refer to that local authorities were expected to maintain when using those easements?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So I think they were in and around making sure that whilst children were not potentially being put on to a child protection order, there was still ongoing support for that family, and we’ve had a bit of a conversation already in terms of what that might have looked like. It may also not necessarily have been formal or statutory intervention, by an individual local authority. It might have been matching a family up with a local third sector organisation that were willing to work with those families that were not meeting the threshold for potentially statutory intervention.

Counsel Inquiry: And where do we find those safeguards? Was guidance provided to local authorities about what the expectations were?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So I think the easements themselves that were available meant that everything that wasn’t covered by an easement was potentially an area that local authorities could work across their partners to think about how they supported individual families. So I think it would have been impossible for us to provide guidance at a national level that covered every eventuality, given the, the collaboration partnerships across the different areas, but certainly my memory of that time was that chief social work officers were supporting their field social work officers to make sure that they were aware of the types of support that was available across civic society, and communities more generally.

Counsel Inquiry: Okay. Now I understand from your statement that from around May 2020 the Scottish Government began collating data from local authorities about the use of those powers via a survey. Can you give us a sense, I think you’ve touched on it a moment ago, but can you give us a sense of how prevalent the use of those easements was?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So I don’t recall the use of the easements being extensive. I think that there was recognition in the professional groupings that were supporting children and families that families were under a great degree of stress, so I don’t recall the easements being used at any great scale across Scotland. I think there probably were pockets that they were used but they were certainly, when they were used, they were used for a very limited amount of time, given the risks associated with them.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. Ms Dickie, over the course of your evidence, we’ve discussed the use of remote visits, the suspension of the statutory duties, and the reduced number of child protection referrals. What systems were put in place by local authorities to compensate for the attendant risks to children?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So I think we did a number of things. I think we did regional campaigns in Scotland, do you know, bringing child protection concerns to the general public more generally, kind of saying, do you know, if you see something and you think it’s not right, here are the ways you can reach out to the statutory services. At a national level, as I say, we were working extensively with our third sector partners and we’ve had a bit of a discussion in terms of Women’s Aid but we were also working with, do you know, other partners at a local level who were also doing lots of things online and making sure that we were clear that if another third sector organisation or agency had concerns with a child or young person, that they should absolutely be raising those.

That was true of our colleagues in the health service, as well, so we were making sure that if, I suppose, I would categorise it as any interaction with a child or young person where someone felt there was something that required additional support, people were clear how that should be referred to statutory services. The statutory services were not closed, and they were there to take those referrals.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And Ms Dickie, based upon the information it has received from its membership, has COSLA identified any enduring impacts of the pandemic on children’s services in Scotland?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So I think there are some positives. I think things like children’s case conferences, we have better representation from partners because it became the norm for those to be done with access remotely for professionals. So it was sometimes difficult to get all of the professionals into a room in person. We did that during the pandemic, and we’ve kept some of that going.

I think there’s a long tail in our statutory services, so things like the children’s hearing system, getting it back on to an even keel has taken a level of time. Similarly, where we’ve had in children’s services, issues that need to go through the court systems, the backlogs that are within the court system are having an impact, so – and I suppose the last thing that’s clear is that the level of need in children’s services and indeed the complexity of children who are coming forward for support, from my perspective at a national level, seems to be higher than it was pre-pandemic. But again, I’m not a practising social worker, so that’s how it feels for me sitting in a national policy position.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you, Ms Dickie.

And finally, then, Ms Dickie, I’d just like to ask you about the learning and recommendations that you identify in your statement. In your statement, you suggest there was strong and consistent engagement by the Scottish Government with local government throughout the response to Covid-19. But if I may, Ms Dickie, one gets the sense from your statement and the documentation that at times that communication perhaps wasn’t all that it could have been, and I wondered whether you see any room for improvement in terms of the communication between main government and local government in the event of a future pandemic.

Ms Nicola Dickie: I think we can always do more as the two streams of government that operate in Scotland to get clarity of message. I think I’ve said everything was moving incredibly fast and was incredibly complex. My experience was, as I’ve already said, that we weren’t being kept at arm’s length, but that there was a lot of information that was being communicated.

I think in terms of other lessons learned, there was some innovation, in terms of how education was provided in Scotland, and I think as well as thinking about the things that we can do better, if we’re ever faced with this situation again, there’s something about making sure we learn the lessons of things that worked well for our children and young people, and thinking about how we can hard-code them in.

Definitions of key workers, my Lady has heard me say in a previous module, that’s stuff that we can think about in advance, and we perhaps wouldn’t be in a situation where we had to have Women’s Aid services advocating for them to be included as key workers.

So I think there are a number of things that we could have, in effect, ready to go in advance. Another would be what is the bare minimum that we expect from remote learning? And how does that fit with our business as usual processes? So those are the thoughts that I’ve got.

Dr Treanor: Thank you very much, Ms Dickie.

My Lady, those are all of my questions. Have you any questions?

Lady Hallett: No, thank you very much. I think Mr Wagner has a question.

Questions From Mr Wagner KC

Mr Wagner: Good morning, Ms Dickie. I act for Clinically Vulnerable Families which protects the interests of clinically vulnerable people and their children, and the immunocompromised.

I just want to ask you about one topic which is outdoor play, and this relates to something you say at paragraph 16.2 of your statement. You refer to a COSLA paper which is from June 2021, which looked at a range of topics, including outdoor learning, and one of the things – I’ll just read briefly from it so we don’t have to go to it, but at paragraph 10 of that paper it says:

“Advice throughout the pandemic from COVID-19 Advisory Subgroup on Education and Children’s Issues has encouraged children and young people to spend as much time outside as possible to limit transmission of COVID-19.

“11. The ICEA report highlights that outdoor learning should be a greater focus for how education is delivered.”

And it says:

“Local authorities have developed several modules to support greater access to the outdoors every day for children in addition to the offer of 1,140 hours ELC expansion.”

First of all, can I ask you why you and COSLA consider that outdoor learning is important when planning for future pandemics?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So I think it was – there was something about understanding what the outdoor learning estate was in Scotland. Certainly in our early learning and childcare settings in Scotland, we have some settings that are wholly outdoor learning based, and it also, I suppose, the learning from the pandemic was that those services that had access to an awful lot of outdoor learning facility were the ones that were able to recover quicker. They were also the areas where we could comply with social distancing, and I suppose the collective wisdom is that when children are learning throughout door play, they’re getting more out of it in the longer run.

Mr Wagner KC: Getting more out of it from an educational perspective?

Ms Nicola Dickie: Well, yes.

Mr Wagner KC: Yes, and also safer from airborne viruses; is that fair?

Ms Nicola Dickie: Yes, and obviously certainly during the pandemic, with the rules for when you were indoors or when you were outdoors, the distancing was different. So it physically meant there was more capacity in that space.

Mr Wagner KC: Could you give a bit more detail about what could be done to achieve that expansion of outdoor learning in the short and medium term?

Ms Nicola Dickie: So I think it goes back to one of the conversations we’ve had earlier in my evidence. More and more in Scotland, we’re thinking about the estate that’s available to us, and more and moreover, our settings are working towards having both indoor learning and outdoor learning spaces. So, do you know, it’s things like trying to make sure that all schools have got access to mud kitchens and, do you know, areas where children can be playing.

What I would say is, that needs to be done at a local level. How you provide outdoor learning in the Highlands of Scotland will be entirely different to how you would provide it in the centre of Glasgow. So, I would have some nervousness on us issuing some sort of national guidance that says, “It should look like this”, because the provision needs to work for local conditions and, importantly, local children and young people.

Mr Wagner KC: Yes, so the guidance would be more about general principles than specific measures.

Ms Nicola Dickie: Yes.

Mr Wagner KC: Just finally, have COSLA considered any other measures as part of this planning to avoid airborne spread? For example, mechanical ventilation in school buildings.

Ms Nicola Dickie: So it wouldn’t be for COSLA to consider those; it would be for individual local authorities that run the school estate in Scotland. I think there is a huge school-run programme ongoing across Scotland in partnership with Scottish Government, and local authorities are keeping pace with where the thinking has got to on that, but it wouldn’t be for COSLA to determine, again, what should be happening at a local level.

Mr Wagner KC: Would it be something that COSLA encourages?

Ms Nicola Dickie: It’s certainly something that we could think about, and consider in the round as we’re considering the findings that come from the Inquiry, I suspect.

Mr Wagner: Thank you.

Lady Hallett: Thank you, Mr Wagner.

That completes the questions we have for you, Ms Dickie. I think we might be calling you once more, aren’t we? So I can’t say goodbye and thank you, but thank you for your help to the Inquiry to date.

The Witness: Thank you so much. Thank you, bye-bye.

Lady Hallett: Bye.

Ms Cayoun.

Ms Cayoun: My Lady, good morning, the next witness is Ms Sarah Hammond of Kent County Council. She is attending in person and is about to enter the hearing room.

Thank you. May I please call Ms Sarah Hammond.

Ms Sarah Hammond

MS SARAH HAMMOND (sworn).

Questions From Counsel to the Inquiry

Ms Cayoun: Thank you, Ms Hammond. You have given a witness statement to this Inquiry, I think you have it in front of you.

The reference we have for it is INQ000588016.

I think you signed that witness statement on 1 August 2025. Are you satisfied that its contents are true to the best of your knowledge and belief?

Ms Sarah Hammond: I am.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

Ms Hammond, you are Director of Children’s Services at Kent County Council, which is a role that you have held since June 2022. And prior to that I think you were Director of Integrated Children’s Services at the council; is that right?

Ms Sarah Hammond: That is correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

You have in your witness statement given us an overview of Kent as a region, and of the child population in Kent, and one of the aspects that you emphasise is that whilst there are areas of affluence in Kent, there are also areas of deprivation; is that right?

Ms Sarah Hammond: That’s correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And in describing Kent’s geography, another aspect that you have emphasised is that, because of its coastline, Kent is one of the main entry points to the UK for mainland Europe, leading to a particular set of challenges for Kent children’s services in terms of Kent statutory responsibility to safeguard children arriving in its area. We’ll come back to that topic in due course, but that’s correct?

Ms Sarah Hammond: That is correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

I’d like to begin, then, please, with the topic of the local authority’s perspective on the manner and consequences of school closures, first of all with the levels of planning and consultation around those closures.

And I’d like us to look, please, to help us in that, at INQ000650658.

This is a letter you exhibited to your witness statement that was sent, I think, by your predecessor at the department to all schools in Kent on 17 March. And of course, we know that was the day before it was announced that all schools would close.

Can we look, please, at the first sentence in the second paragraph. We see that all schools were told that:

“[The] Policy on school and Early Childhood Settings and their closure, or not, is being led nationally by the DfE and Public Health England (PHE).”

So those were not decisions that your local authority was making, were they?

Ms Sarah Hammond: No, they were not.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

And if we can look at the level of detail that you were able to share with schools at that time, over on page 6, please, under the heading “School Closures” we see you were telling all schools that:

“The current advice from Government is that, notwithstanding taking additional precautions, schools should strive for maintaining business as usual.”

And towards the end of the second paragraph here, you were saying that the policy was:

“… that wherever possible, schools should remain open, even if [they] have to revert to only acting as a provider of care …”

And two paragraphs further down, please, you were warning:

“However, as we move further into the UK Government’s delay phase there is a strong possibility that [Public Health England] may instruct an individual school, schools in a defined area, or even all schools nationally, to close for a period.”

And you were suggesting that schools update their business continuity arrangements.

And finally in this letter, if we can look over at page 7, please, we see that you were suggesting, at the top of the page:

“All schools should therefore create a contingency plan to move to providing remote learning activities to their pupils [that should probably read] should they experience a closure, or have pupils who cannot attend school.”

And the paragraph at the bottom of the page shares some information about safeguarding:

“In the event that a pupil or cohort of pupils are required to remain out of school for a prolonged period, this will present challenges in terms of the school’s safeguarding responsibilities.”

And you advised that schools, in terms of family liaison, should “continue to maintain assurance that all pupils are safe”, and so on.

So, is it fair to say, then, that at this stage, on Tuesday, 17 March, what you were saying to schools was: you should expect to stay open but there may be closures. You should update contingency plans for remote learning and think about liaising with families.

Is that a fair summary?

Ms Sarah Hammond: That is a fair summary, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And I think we understand from your statement that this was the first letter of this sort that had been sent to schools. Would that also be right?

Ms Sarah Hammond: That is correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Had there been any consultation with you as a local authority about these issues? So, likely school closures, schools’ preparedness to deliver remote learning, schools’ preparedness to shore up safeguarding?

Ms Sarah Hammond: No, there’d been no consultation with us prior to the events actually happening. The emergency planning tools and business continuity plans that Kent schools had at the time were very much focused on the potential for individual schools or groups of schools to need to close, but never about every school needing to close to the majority of pupils, and the implications and the requirements that would need to be put in place as a result of every school closing to the majority of pupils.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

And in the run-up to your sending this letter on 17 March, is it right that you hadn’t had any further guidance or detail from the Department for Education about those issues, remote learning or safeguarding, than we see you were able to provide here in this letter?

Ms Sarah Hammond: That’s correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

And we know that the next day, Wednesday, 18 March, the then Prime Minister announced national school closures to take effect from the following Monday.

Ms Sarah Hammond: Mm-hm.

Counsel Inquiry: And if we can look, please, at a letter that the local authority then sent to schools on INQ000650660.

So this is the letter on 19 March. Can we look at the second paragraph, please:

“However, we must apologise as we were promised a government announcement of the list of who would fall into the category of ‘key worker’ by 13.00 today. This has still not come through. Rather than keeping you waiting, we have decided to send out the letter and will send the Key Worker list to follow as soon as the information has been provided.”

Can we take anything from this, Ms Hammond, about the level of communication that the local authority was receiving from the Department for Education at this time?

Ms Sarah Hammond: I think we can. It was late, it was sporadic. We were promised various items of guidance, lists, categories, and they weren’t forthcoming.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. Can we look slightly lower down in the letter, please, at the second page, to the paragraph at the top. Thank you.

“The expectation also includes being open for vulnerable children.”

So this is, of course, the expectation that schools would remain open to some children.

“The definition here is children who are CiC …”

I think that’s children in care?

Ms Sarah Hammond: That’s correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: CHiN, is that children in need?

Ms Sarah Hammond: That’s correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Or a CP Plan, is that a Child Protection Plan?

Ms Sarah Hammond: Child Protection Plan, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And we know that “EHCP” are education, health and care plans?

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And the message here for schools was that:

“You will need to liaise with the social workers working with those families to identify those most in need and ensure support to enable those children to attend school. Not all parents of children with EHCPs will want to take up the offer of a school place but they should be offered the opportunity.”

Having looked at this letter and the letter beforehand, do you consider, Ms Hammond, that the local authority was here able to adequately support individual schools to prepare for what they were going to need to do from 23 March?

Ms Sarah Hammond: We were not. We had over 600 schools in Kent, and we found ourselves in a very challenging position to be able to support all of our schools to work with and support vulnerable children. It was very difficult.

Counsel Inquiry: One of the things you say in your statement is that prior consultation by the central government with local government would have greatly assisted in predicting the subsequent impact of school closures because the central government had not understood that actually the parents of vulnerable children – and just pausing there, I think you mean by that the categories we just saw listed in your letter?

Ms Sarah Hammond: I do, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – would not want to send their children to school and actually might be angered by the policy.

Is what you mean by that, Ms Hammond, that in your experience parents were angered by the policy, and that this is something that you and local government could have predicted, had you been consulted?

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes, so from our perspective, there was an assumption that parents who could not send their children to school, who would be prevented from being – sending their children to school, would be the ones who would be frustrated and angered. And that is based on, I think, experience of what happens when a school closes for bad weather or for other reasons.

What we found was that those parents who were either able to themselves work from home, or were furloughed, whilst they stepped up and at times struggled with the challenge of providing home education for their children, by and large, were happy to keep their children at home. Keep them safe.

Our experience was that the parents of the vulnerable children were very unhappy. They were at times angry. They didn’t understand why it was safe for their children to go into school, be exposed, in their mind, to what the virus might cause for them, when it wasn’t safe, or in – their perception was that what was being said was that it wasn’t safe for everybody else’s children, and that it wasn’t seen as a positive impact for them, something helpful and positive. It was seen as negative, potentially dangerous, and stigmatising.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you, Ms Hammond, and that list that we looked at in your letter, children in care, children in need, or who have a Child Protection Plan and those with EHCPs, would it be right that those are families whom you as a local authority would know, in a sense? You would have some relationship with them. And so is it your point that you might have been able to give that advice about their likely response to central government had you been asked for your views?

Ms Sarah Hammond: So these were all children that we knew, as a local authority, and we would have been able to give that advice and to heed caution, particularly around how that message was communicated to families, that it was a supportive, helpful thing for them, and that their children could be kept safe. And I think that that would have gone a long way to encouraging and enabling parents and families of our more vulnerable and disadvantaged children to attend school, yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And in terms of the local authorities’ role in encouraging some of those children to attend school or perhaps encouraging the families to feel confident to send those children to school, we saw from the letter of 19 March that schools were encouraged to liaise with social workers –

Ms Sarah Hammond: Mm-hm.

Counsel Inquiry: – to identify those children.

Can we please look at paragraphs 71 and 72 of your statement to see how you framed the local authority’s role in this exercise. We see that you say:

“… [Kent County Council] applied guidance issued by the DfE in relation to descriptors for identifying vulnerable children, as well as including all KCC looked after children and previously looked after children within those we considered to be ‘vulnerable’ for the purpose of being able to attend schools in Kent.”

So pausing there, does that mean that in Kent you slightly extended the category perhaps by using that “otherwise vulnerable” discretion?

Ms Sarah Hammond: We did, yes. That is what happened, yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: Why did you need to do that? Why did you feel you needed to do that?

Ms Sarah Hammond: We felt that the guidance that we received was not adequate to include all the children that we believed would really benefit from being in school. So we extended that to work with our schools, to enable them to take in more children than they would necessarily have wanted to, or been able to, just under the original DfE descriptors.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you, Ms Hammond. You go on to say that your:

“… children’s services team also relied on the professional judgments of staff at schools in Kent …”

And at paragraph 72, that:

“Schools shared attendance information with [the council] about the number of vulnerable children attending school in person.”

You say that where a child had been RAG rated – so that’s red, amber, green rated based on child protection risks, your services would review whether or not they were included within the list of vulnerable children attending school in person, “and if not, our teams would seek to identify the reason for that in-person attendance.”

This – well, let me ask, I think it’s right, isn’t it, that local authorities have long had an obligation around school attendance and monitoring attendance and enforcing attendance if necessary, but this is a different exercise that was introduced in March 2020, isn’t it? Was this a new function for the local authority?

Ms Sarah Hammond: It was, because what – you’re absolutely right that we have general duties to ensure children are attending school, all children are attending school. What this was doing was to say: we’ve got a group of children who don’t fall into the categories of being formally children in need, ie, part of a statutory social care service, or children on child protection plan, or looked after, but we know that there’s a cohort of children who are vulnerable who sit just below that statutory line. So this was a function of trying to ensure that those children who we considered would really benefit from being in school, but were just below that statutory line, could attend school if their parents wanted them to do so.

Counsel Inquiry: So Ms Hammond, within the local authority, you would have already had your sort of normal times attendance team?

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And you would have your various child protection teams?

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: So whose job was it to do this role, did you have to put together new teams?

Ms Sarah Hammond: So we have, in Kent, we had then and we still do have in Kent, a large and quite substantial early help workforce. So these are members of staff who are working at below the statutory level, of statutory intervention, and much of that responsibility went to them to work closely with schools, which they already had a relationship with schools, and particularly with sort of pastoral support staff within our schools to identify and then work with and at times try and persuade those families that whilst they weren’t part of the statutory social work cohort of children, that they could attend.

And we had some mixed success with that, both in terms of with schools and with parents. And we were able to encourage both schools and some parents of those children who fell just below that statutory line to attend school. But it was a sort of dual activity between the early help staff and staff who have relationships with schools more generally.

Counsel Inquiry: We have heard from some school leaders this week at the Inquiry in respect of that work of trying to encourage attendance and working directly with families, and one of the things that they have said is that they weren’t always supported by social workers in that work, and a witness yesterday suggested that his perception was that that was because children’s social care services were already quite stretched.

In your local authority, would it be right to understand that you did have that resource to go out and do that additional work of encouraging attendance?

Ms Sarah Hammond: Generally yes, we did, yes. Yeah. And as I say, we utilised our early help workforce, which I think I would say to the Inquiry, we are a very large authority and we have historically had a large workforce in that below statutory space.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. One particular aspect of the policy around vulnerable children attending school was that those children with an education, health and care plan should be risk assessed –

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – on an individual basis to decide whether or not they should be offered a place in school.

Were you satisfied that the schools in your area had enough guidance to know about how to go about those risk assessments?

Ms Sarah Hammond: No, I don’t think they did. We were able to assist, many children with EHCPs are known to other parts of children’s services. So for those children, children with profound and complex disabilities, or children who would have been potentially known either as children in need or subject to a child protection plan, those children we were able to assist in that risk rating, but we were not in a position to be able to support schools, I think, to be fair, to the extent that they might have wanted, to specifically risk assess those children who were known because they had an EHCP and weren’t known in other parts of the children’s services system.

Counsel Inquiry: One of the things that you say in your statement is that there appeared to be variation in how schools made those decisions.

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Was it the role of the local authority to monitor that, then?

Ms Sarah Hammond: Well, we made it our ambition to monitor how our schools were responding to that request. I think that it was based on good previous relationships and influence, but we were not in a position to be able to direct schools. Slightly easier for the schools who are maintained, but for academy schools and free schools and other schools, independent schools, we were not able to direct, even when we believed that it was in the child’s best interest to attend school, if the school felt, on balance, that they could not manage that particular child with their particular needs, within the context of the other requirements on them to social distance, ensure that there were windows open, for example, that fresh air was always passing through the school.

So there were children that we believed, within children’s services within the council, should be in school, but for whom schools felt they could not manage them in school. And we had some examples of parents wishing their children to be in school, we supporting them to have their child in school, but the school – and I’m talking specifically about the special school estate now – the school themselves were not willing to take the child into school.

Counsel Inquiry: And what you describe as your inability to direct the school to do so in those circumstances.

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: So that we understand, is that – do you mean by way of a lack of legal power or just because the reality of the situation meant that there was nothing that could be done?

Ms Sarah Hammond: A mixture of both, actually. There were no legal powers for us to instruct the schools in an environment that was extremely challenging for them, and we absolutely recognised that. And ultimately, it was their decision. If they felt that they couldn’t safely take a child into their school, then they had the authority to say that they wouldn’t allow that child into school.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

Ms Hammond, you may be aware that the Local Government Association conducted a survey of authorities across England and Wales –

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes, I am.

Counsel Inquiry: – for this Inquiry, and one of the things that that found is that only one in five local authorities reported conducting in-depth liaison with school heads to determine who was vulnerable, and only one in five reported themselves having an organised central list of vulnerable children for that purpose.

Obviously, Ms Hammond, you’re not here to speak for all councils –

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – and I’m certainly not asking you to do so, but, based on your experience of running this function anew within your local authority, are you able to give us any insight into why it may have been done so differently across the country?

Ms Sarah Hammond: I think I would start with people’s relationship with schools. By “people”, I mean local authorities’ relationships with schools, which has changed very, very significantly over a number of years now.

So you will have seen a different quality of relationships between local authorities and their school sector, and some of that will have been dependent on the balance or the proportion of maintained schools, ie those that remained connected to the local authority and those that are independent, ie academisation, so relationships with schools.

The relationship, then further, between the statutory services, the social work and intervention services and schools, I think there were – there would have been some local authorities which were totally overwhelmed by what was going on at the time, and potentially it was, at that point, less important, or they didn’t have the resources within their local authority to be able to do that.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. We also know from the evidence of the Department for Education that that department set up a method of working with local authorities to support them in this work through the Regional Education and Children’s Teams, known as REACT. And we will hear more about how that operated from witnesses who will come next week. But you tell us, Ms Hammond, in your witness statement, that:

“[Your] experience was that although the REACT team tried to help with our questions, they were not always able to provide the answers needed.”

Ms Hammond, what – this might be a very broad question, but what additional central government support did you feel the local authority needed beyond the guidance that you were getting and the support from REACT to implement the policy of getting vulnerable children into schools that you didn’t have?

Ms Sarah Hammond: So I’ve spoken already about the communication and the messaging around why it was important for some children to be in school, a more encouraging message, I would suggest, but also a more directive message to schools about why it was that those children should be in school. And by that, I mean more clarity. Much of the guidance was open to interpretation, and schools interpreted it in different ways.

I think, as far as REACT was concerned, it felt at the time that it was very much a one-way process. So, members of REACT would come to meetings, engage in email communications with my colleagues who were part of that at the time, and we were giving information, giving updates, giving suggestions about how policy might be changed or influenced, but we got very little back. So REACT became a process by which, certainly from my local authority’s perspective, we were working hard to provide the most up-to-date information to government, but very little, if anything, coming back out in terms of help and support.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you, Ms Hammond.

I have just one more question on the topic of attendance at school and then we’ll take a break.

In terms of the impact of this policy, you say that attendance in Kent has still not returned to pre-pandemic levels. You say that it’s most significant among children with special educational needs and disabilities. And again, we have heard some views from school leaders on this issue of broader attendance. But as the Director of Children’s Services, you will have had sight of those trends across your area, across a number of different types of provision.

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: So you’ve already spoken about differences in your relationships between maintained schools and academies.

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Again, it’s a broad question: what, in your view, is driving that trend of reduced attendance as compared to prior to the pandemic?

Ms Sarah Hammond: Okay, so there’s a number of factors here. Before the pandemic, I think there was a general acceptance and importance put in society about the attendance of children at school. There will always be a small number of children, and therefore their families, who have not wanted to attend school. And that’s always been the case. But that agreement between families and – I’m going to describe it as “the state” about the importance of children being in school has changed remarkably.

Before the pandemic, it was absolutely accepted that children being in school – the majority of children being in school, it was the right place for them to be. And indeed, school attendance is what enables – apart from the benefits for the children, of course, it’s what enables families to function, to be able to go to work and live their lives, knowing that their children are safely being educated at school.

What the pandemic did was to turn that completely on its head. So children were sent home. Parents were expected to educate their children at home, and many of them did that extremely well and found ways of being able to do that but, in their own minds, started to question: well, does my child need to be in school every day, if actually it was okay during the pandemic for them to be at school – not to be at school for months?

So there’s something about a change in the compact, if you like, between the state and parents.

There’s no doubt that hybrid working now also facilitates parents to be at home more than they were before the pandemic, and so that situation where if your child doesn’t want to go to school or there’s a problem, it’s much easier to manage it now, because you haven’t necessarily got to drop your child at school and then go to work.

But the other really critical thing is the huge increase in our children’s resilience, mental wellbeing, and ability to go to school despite them not feeling necessarily that they don’t want to be in school that day. And so we’ve seen, you know, a really worrying increase in the number of children who have school anxiety, unable to cope in the school setting, and we do see that for those children who would have been just starting or a little way into their school career at the time of lockdown.

Ms Cayoun: Thank you very much indeed, Ms Hammond.

My Lady, I think that may be a convenient moment to go to the break.

Lady Hallett: [Muted]

Ms Cayoun: My Lady, I’m sorry, we cannot hear you.

Lady Hallett: I am sorry. I had the cursor ready but didn’t press. I shall return at 11.35.

Ms Cayoun: Thank you.

(11.19 am)

(A short break)

(11.35 am)

Ms Cayoun: My Lady, can you see and hear me?

Lady Hallett: I can hear you. Yes, I can see you now.

Ms Cayoun: Thank you, I will continue.

Ms Hammond, we were about to move, then, to our second topic which is the impact of the pandemic on social work practice with children and families.

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: You tell us in your statement that local authorities started using virtual visits by social workers at the beginning of lockdown in March 2020 and carried that through to September 2020, before face-to-face visits were resumed. You give us some detail in your statement about how social work managers risk assessed children whose cases were open to the services, and I want to ask you about that process and how it worked, in a moment.

Before I do that, I’d like to ask you about the principle of the use of virtual visits as opposed to in-person visits for child protection work.

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: You may know, Ms Hammond, that we heard yesterday from Ms Alison Morton, who is the executive director of the Institute of Health Visiting, and she told us about health visitors’ concerns about the limits of remote visits as opposed to in-person visits and she described, for example, the sorts of cues that a health visitor is looking for when they enter the home that may indicate, neglect, abuse, or a parent suffering from mental health challenges.

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Did you and your social workers have similar concerns about the principle of remote visits in the place of in-person visits in the context of child protection practice?

Ms Sarah Hammond: So, yes, we did. And it was on two, for two reasons. Social work, really good social work is relationship based, and it starts from the moment you first encounter and meet the family and the child. And that is undoubtedly best done in person, meeting somebody in person. So that the foundations of our social work practice and our practice framework in Kent is relationship based, and that was very, very difficult, if not, I would go so far as to say impossible, when you were meeting families for the first time in a virtual space.

But more, even more significantly for that, is that the work of a social worker entails being observant, observing parent-child interactions, relationships, whether parents pick up on children’s cues for very young children, the conditions in the home, being able to see around the home, particularly the child’s bedroom.

Actually, on occasions, being able to smell the home, and get a sense of what may be going on in the home, having a look in the fridge. Is there sufficient food? And then, equally important, for some of our child protection cases, who is in that home? Who else is there that shouldn’t be, or that you might have concerns about, and how are the children responding to them?

Virtually, that is impossible. It’s impossible to do it. And at the beginning, for some of our families, they did not even have the capacity in terms of technology for there to be a visible conversation, ie, a Facetime or that sort of conversation.

So part of the RAG rating from my managers, and the team managers in the service, was to think about all of those things when they prioritised the children that they were visiting. For those children where they already had a relationship, that that social care relationship was already under way, and we were seeing progress and safety plans being enacted, there would have been a difficult but a decision taken for those families to say, “Okay, you are slightly down the list in the – (overspeaking) –

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you, I am just – I am going to pause you there so we can look at what you say in your statement about this which I think will help us through this.

If we could look, please, at paragraph 68 of your witness statement which is at page 17.

This is where you say that social work managers were asked to risk assess every child with a case file open.

Now, just pausing there, there will be a wide range, won’t there, of circumstances of children with a case file open. So would that range right from early help, through to children in need, children on a child protection plan, children in local authority care? Is it right to say that’s quite a wide range?

Ms Sarah Hammond: It’s a very wide range of children, yes. Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And I want to ask you about the sorts of factors that a social work manager would have had to take into account in conducting this assessment. You have already told us that you would have factored in relationships.

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And whether or not they had a device which meant that they could engage –

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – in a remote visit. I wanted to ask, though, there are obviously children living in circumstances that would have accumulated over time and would have the potential to accumulate over time to cause significant harm, but which themselves might not be acute.

So, for example, concerns about hoarding, concerns about hygiene –

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – emotional abuse, sustained but low-level drug and alcohol abuse?

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Those are the sorts of things that, as I say, might not be acute and suggest that there’s going to be harm tomorrow, but over time would build up. How does a RAG rating like this account for that?

Ms Sarah Hammond: It was very challenging. For those children who were newly referred into the service, those visits always took place face-to-face, so we were able to establish at the beginning – albeit that we could get into the house, because that was another issue.

But the ability of social workers to oversee and put in different types of plans for deteriorating circumstances, it was very challenging. But we had a lot of our children in the amber risk category, so you can see that what we required was face-to-face visits but at a lower frequency than the usual statutory requirements.

And a lot of our children were in that category. The children in the green level were children for whom we had known for considerable period of time, where there’d been measured and evidence-based progress over that period of time. But it would be true to say that we did not capture all the children in deteriorating circumstances during that time.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

And a point you touched on a moment ago about getting into the home.

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: You said in an earlier answer that looking at a child’s bedroom can be particularly important.

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes, it is.

Counsel Inquiry: And you mentioned looking in the fridge.

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: Smelling a home.

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: Is it right that a face-to-face visit, in these circumstances, might actually mean a doorstep visit, because of social distancing?

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes, you’re absolutely right. Either a doorstep visit or a garden visit or a visit taking a child out to the park.

Counsel Inquiry: And does that mean things like looking at a child’s bedroom, seeing their fridge, seeing the state of the bathroom, might be missed?

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

You tell us, and we know from other evidence that it is something of a national trend, that the number of referrals or enquiries that the local authority received at what you call front-door referrals –

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – so referrals from members of the public, for example, from other –

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – statutory services significantly dropped.

A member of the public, perhaps unfamiliar with how services work, might wonder whether there was any way that a local authority could have responded to that drop, anything proactive that could have been done in those circumstances. What would the answer to that be?

Ms Sarah Hammond: The safeguarding and child protection system works as well as it does, particularly in Kent, because of the multi-agency partnership nature of identifying vulnerable and at-risk children. So the overwhelming children of our referrals will be coming from those statutory partners, and during Covid they were diverted to do other activities, particularly our colleagues in health. And so what we did see, and I think I make reference to it in my statement, was a small increase in the number of what we would call friends, family and neighbour type referrals, so members of the public were calling in at slightly higher numbers than we would see previously.

I think that is because, pre-Covid and under normal circumstances, those children would already have been identified at an earlier stage by our partner agencies.

Counsel Inquiry: Understood. Thank you.

You also tell us that, with regard to the amendments that were made to safeguarding duties introduced by the Adoption and Children (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations, in your view, these were “not overall in the best interests of vulnerable children”, and you say that you would “not advocate for any of these to be reinstated”. Why is that, please?

Ms Sarah Hammond: I’ve made reference to the relationship-based nature of social work, really good social work, and I would say that the ability to not see children, their carers, and other professionals, in person, was not in the best interests of children.

What I would say is, is that it has – and I make reference to this in my statement – it has opened up a new way of connecting with some older children in the virtual space that has been helpful. So I wouldn’t want to be saying that virtual visits in all circumstances and at all times are not a helpful tool in the social worker’s toolbox.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. So, may I just be very clear, when you are discussing your views of those regulations, you include in that your views of remote visiting –

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – (overspeaking) – if I can put it that way.

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

In terms of the impact of all of these changes, you also tell us that the experience of your local authority is that children who were referred in late 2021 were observed to have more entrenched family challenges and complex risks.

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: You say those families then required more social care time, resources and support to mitigate and reduce the child protection risk by the time those risks presented later –

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – in 2021. Is it your view that that complexity and degree of entrenchment of challenge is attributable to experiences during the pandemic?

Ms Sarah Hammond: I think it is, yes. Yeah, we didn’t see that degree of complexity or entrenched issues prior to the pandemic.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

And one last question about your safeguarding work. As with all local authorities, Kent undertakes child safeguarding reviews –

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – when a child dies, or is seriously harmed as a result of abuse or neglect. And if we could look, please, at paragraph 87 of your statement.

You tell us here that the findings of those safeguarding reviews indicated that during the specified period, non-biological parents and carers and individuals with substance misuse experiences were more likely to evade observation from multi-agency reviews, consequently having an impact on children.

You say this was more challenging for babies and early years children and that the reviews identified challenges with the quality of assessments.

Ms Hammond, there is a – this is not a criticism, there is a fair amount of language there that –

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – only those familiar with child protection will understand. Can you tell us in simple terms, what this means, what do you understand from these reviews was happening to children and what do you mean by the “quality” of assessments?

Ms Sarah Hammond: So we saw an increasing number of people who were a risk to children going undetected, being in the households, not being seen, as being part of that, or even being recognised as being part of that household.

Counsel Inquiry: And to be very clear, when you say individuals who were a risk to children, do you mean people who were physically abusive to children and families, people who may have been sexually abusive?

Ms Sarah Hammond: I do mean that, yeah, including the impact on children of their behaviour that isn’t directly to the children. And that impact, the phraseology around the “quality” of assessments, it came about that not knowing that those individuals were in the house inevitably negatively impact the quality of the assessment, because had we known those people were in the house and what the degree of their challenges were, whether that was substance misuse or anything else, that would have been incorporated into the assessments.

Counsel Inquiry: So to put it really bluntly, then, for a family, for example, where there had been worries about domestic violence, if the perpetrator of domestic violence had returned to the home during lockdown, the social worker might not have been aware of that because they wouldn’t have been going into the home to see who was there?

Ms Sarah Hammond: That’s exactly right, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

I’d like to move on, then, to our final topic, which is about the impact of the pandemic on the position in Kent of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Now, Ms Hammond, there is a long and somewhat complex litigation history about these issues.

Ms Sarah Hammond: There is, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: So I will take them at some pace, if I may, just by reference to the findings of those judgments.

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: It’s right, isn’t it, that for many years prior to the pandemic, Kent had struggled to be able to accommodate the numbers of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children arriving and had relied on the national transfer scheme –

Ms Sarah Hammond: That’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: – which in principle enabled other local authorities to volunteer to receiver them into other local authorities’ care; is that right?

Ms Sarah Hammond: That is correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And we know that for some years that had not been operating well in the sense that other local authorities did not routinely make those offers; is that right?

Ms Sarah Hammond: That’s correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And I want to ask you now, then, about how the pandemic and responses to that may have exacerbated that situation. But you tell us in your statement that the closure of ports of entry to the UK meant there was an even higher number than usual of children arriving at Kent, and particularly during the summer when the weather is fair; is that right?

Ms Sarah Hammond: That’s right, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And I think the number that you give us is that there were 402 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in Kent’s care at the start of 2020, but by August 2020, this had risen to 605.

Ms Sarah Hammond: That’s correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And is it also right that some support services such as the Refugee Council who had been running an intake service, suspended their operations when the country went into lockdown?

Ms Sarah Hammond: That’s correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And is it right that guidance on lockdown and self-isolation which sought to limit transmission, meant that many local authorities other than Kent appeared even less willing to receive new children into their care; is that correct?

Ms Sarah Hammond: That’s correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And in addition, guidance about isolation meant that some children, even if asymptomatic, needed to isolate for prolonged periods, presenting challenges for accommodation because foster care, for example, is more difficult in those circumstances?

Ms Sarah Hammond: That’s correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And is it right that as a result of all of that, in August 2020 the local authority took the formal position that it would not be able to meet its statutory obligations to care for those children, and Mr Justice Chamberlain later found that that was unlawful?

Ms Sarah Hammond: That is correct yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And I think His Lordship also found that the Home Office shared some responsibility for that position because of the way that the National Transfer Scheme had been run; is that right?

Ms Sarah Hammond: That’s correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Coming, then, to the circumstances of those individual children in that position, would you agree that the net effect of all of that is that they were staying for longer than usual at the intake unit –

Ms Sarah Hammond: That’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: – (overspeaking) –

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes, they were, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And that, once processed, they were in many cases staying in unregulated accommodation?

Ms Sarah Hammond: That’s correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And also that, instead of being looked after in your care, such that the local authority was a corporate parent, they were housed by the Home Office but essentially not in anyone’s care?

Ms Sarah Hammond: That’s correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

Can we look, please, at INQ000231348, page 10. Thank you very much.

This an extract, Ms Hammond, from a report of the Children’s Commissioner in the summer of 2020. And we see that she is reporting here concerns about the circumstances of these children. So, for example, that it was damaging for their wellbeing, including their mental health and personal dignity. And she says that in the context of many of them having arrived having been travelling for months, fleeing their home countries, may have gone hungry, been exploited, and so on.

Do you accept all of that, Ms Hammond, that those were their circumstances?

Ms Sarah Hammond: Yes, they were.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And in your statement you say that the implementation of decisions regarding lockdowns, such as social distancing, isolation and testing, did not adequately take account of the implications of those decisions for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. What do you say, Ms Hammond, ought to have happened? Do you think there ought to have been exemptions for children in these circumstances?

Ms Sarah Hammond: There could have been exemptions. That may have assisted us some way. But what should have happened was the implementation of a full mandation of the National Transfer Scheme. Local authorities, other local authorities, should have been mandated to take those children quickly and safely away from Kent.

Counsel Inquiry: And do you say that ought to have been part of the pandemic response, or is it your position that that is a separate issue from the pandemic?

Ms Sarah Hammond: It’s – it was particularly pertinent during the pandemic. You’re correct in that my position is that the National Transfer Scheme should be not just mandatory in word, but in action, and that has been – and I’m on record as saying that, but during the pandemic, it should have been one of the things that should have been implemented quickly.

Ms Cayoun: Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ms Hammond. I’m sorry that we don’t have time to ask you about your lessons learned and your reflections, but we have them in your written evidence.

My Lady, those are all my questions. Do you have any questions of Ms Hammond?

Questions From the Chair

Lady Hallett: Just one, Ms Hammond.

You mentioned how you wouldn’t have implemented the Adoption and Children (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations. What alternatives would there have been, if the amendment to the regulations hadn’t been made? Were there alternatives or do you suggest the change wasn’t necessary at all?

Ms Sarah Hammond: I think it was – it was helpful to be able to do things slightly differently in the fostering panels and the adoption part, in other words the assessment of adults putting themselves forward for foster care and for adoption.

I think that we could have had a greater focus on ensuring that virtual visiting didn’t become the norm. That would be my, sort of, thought about that: that virtual visiting did become seen as “as good as”, or the norm, and that was my concern about it.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much indeed, Ms Hammond.

I’m very grateful to you for all the help you’ve given to the Inquiry.

The Witness: Thank you.

Lady Hallett: And to be honest, I don’t envy you your job.

As I remember, Kent is one of the most heavily populated counties in the country, isn’t it?

The Witness: It is, yes, very large.

Lady Hallett: And then you have asylum-seeking children as well.

The Witness: Yes, yes.

Lady Hallett: So, very difficult.

Thank you anyway.

The Witness: Thank you very much. Thank you.

Ms Dobbin: My Lady, may I call the next witness, please, and that’s Ms Sharon Powell.

Lady Hallett: Thank you, Ms Dobbin.

Ms Sharon Powell

MS SHARON POWELL (affirmed).

Questions From Lead Counsel to the Inquiry for Module 8

Ms Dobbin: Ms Powell, I apologise, I had something stuck in my throat.

Can I ask you to give the Inquiry your full name, please.

Ms Sharon Powell: Sharon Elizabeth Powell.

Lead 8: Ms Powell, you ought to have a witness statement in front of you that bears the number INQ000588062.

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s right.

Lead 8: And can you confirm that the contents of that statement are true to the best of your knowledge and belief?

Ms Sharon Powell: I can confirm.

Lead 8: Thank you.

Ms Powell, I think it’s correct that you originally qualified as a nurse and then became a social worker in 2005; is that right?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: And you became a service manager in Powys County Council from 2017 onwards; is that also right?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: And you then became the interim head of Children’s Services in spring of 2022?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: And you were confirmed in that position in 2023; is that also right?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: And is it correct, therefore, that you’re giving evidence to this Inquiry in your capacity as the Head of Children’s Services for Powys County Council?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: And it’s also right that there’s a separate statement on behalf of Powys County Council that’s been provided by a Ms Anwen Orrells, and that relates to its education services?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: And are you familiar with that statement?

Ms Sharon Powell: I am.

Lead 8: May I just ask you, then, before we go on, a bit about the children in Powys County Council. Can I ask you what type of council area it is?

Ms Sharon Powell: Okay, before we start, is it possible just to say something, Ma’am?

Lady Hallett: About?

Ms Sharon Powell: Just to extend my sympathies to children and young people.

Lady Hallett: Oh yes, of course.

Ms Sharon Powell: I’d just like to extend my sympathies to children and young people and their families who suffered as a result of the pandemic. Thank you, Ma’am.

So in terms of children’s services in Powys County Council, so Powys is a geographically challenged county in that it is a quarter of Wales’s land mass. It borders English authorities and it has a rural population of 134,000 people living in Powys. So in terms of children’s services, we have around about 950 children open to children’s services, that doesn’t include our early help services. There’s around about 500-plus children and families that access early help services.

We have a population of 221 children that are looked after, which includes out unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and we have around about 700 children that are open, under care and support, and our integrated disability team has around about 100 children open to it.

Ms Dobbin: All right. I’m going to ask you, when you give evidence if you could just slow down slightly.

Ms Sharon Powell: Yes.

Lead 8: And I also want to say before we go further in your evidence, it’s right that I say, my Lady, that some of what Ms Powell will be asked about may be distressing, and it’s important that I say that now.

Lady Hallett: Thank you.

Ms Dobbin: Ms Powell, I think it’s right in fact that Powys County Council’s children’s services quite recently had an inspection, is that right, a joint inspection?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s right.

Lead 8: And what was the outcome of that inspection?

Ms Sharon Powell: So we had a Joint Inspection of Child Protection Arrangements which covers children’s services, health, education and police. Each organisation has its independent investigation team in terms of that. So children’s services has Care Inspectorate Wales.

So the report was that published and undertaken in – it was undertaken in October 2023 and the report was published later that year. So the JICPA highlighted really that there was professional accountability and identifying of children in need of help and protection.

There was a culture of continuous learning and improvements. There was a strong team around the cluster approach, a really strong emphasis on domestic abuse, and strong links between services.

Some of the report highlights for improvements as around where a child is subject to a section 47 inquiry where they may be at risk of significant harm, is those outcome strategy meetings needed to be more robust in terms of outcomes. That the child’s voice in child protection conferences could have been heard louder and stronger.

There was also highlighting issues around sharing of information in terms of health professionals. Powys County Council does not have a district general hospital so any child that needs to attend an accident and emergency unit goes out of county for that.

So what the report highlighted was the sharing of that information back into Powys, back into localities, so that school nurses could readily access that information.

It also talked about just improving, just monitoring electively home-educated children, where we’ve actually seen a rise in the number of children that are electively home educated, and they also talked about making sure that even though children were being seen at home, that they were given the opportunity of being seen alone.

Lead 8: All right.

Ms Sharon Powell: So as a result of the report there was an action plan that spanned all the multi-agency approach in terms of making those improvements.

Lead 8: I’m grateful for you for setting that out in so much detail, and maybe we’ll pick up on some of those thematic issues in the course of your evidence.

But can I just then turn to the pandemic, and ask you a bit about the very outset of the pandemic. And first of all, whether or not Powys children’s services held a plan at the outset of 2020 as to how it would provide children’s services in the event of a national emergency or a pandemic situation?

Ms Sharon Powell: At that time children’s services did not have a plan.

Lead 8: And when did it first generate a plan in order to be able to respond to the unfolding pandemic?

Ms Sharon Powell: So that was during March 2020. So when it was agreed that schools would close in March 2020, then there was consideration of what the impact of that might be in terms of children’s services. So a business continuity plan was then developed as a part of that outcome.

Lead 8: So was that then very much linked to the decision to close schools?

Ms Sharon Powell: Very much linked to the decision.

Lead 8: Ms Orrells says in her statement that:

“The local authority commenced planning for the possibility that schools would have to close, at pace and immediately upon notification received from the Welsh Government on the 18 March 2020. The local authority commenced this planning utilising the guidance provided by the Welsh Government.”

So can we take it from that that there was no planning for the closure of schools in Powys County Council until 18 March as well?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: And I think it’s right that Ms Orrells also, at paragraph 13 of her statement, actually confirms that as well; is that right?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: So presumably, then, the decision to close schools had ramifications for all children in the Powys County Council area but particular ramifications for the sorts of vulnerable children who the social care teams would be in contact with; is that right?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s right.

Lead 8: And I think it’s also correct, then, that the Welsh Government issued some guidance to councils in order to assist with their case prioritisation; is that right?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: I wonder if we could have a look at that, please. That’s INQ000511763.

And I think we can see in the very first paragraph that this was a suggested framework for social services across Wales; correct?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: So this is not specific to Powys County Council; this was to all local authorities.

And I think if we go over the page, please, we can see that this was the guidance that was provided at this point in time as regards children’s services; correct?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: And I think it in fact says, if we look at the practice implications:

“As of the 13th March 2020 it is advised that …”

Do you think that this is a document that you saw in and around 13 March, or do you think you saw it later?

Ms Sharon Powell: I think it was around about that time of 13 March.

Lead 8: All right. So it goes on to say:

“All assessments should be triaged by telephone in the first instance in order to decide whether a face-to-face meeting is essential or whether work can be done by telephone or delayed.”

May I ask you a couple of questions about that.

Did you understand this to be guidance about all kinds of assessments that might relate to children?

Ms Sharon Powell: Yes, I did, yes.

Lead 8: And one can see there that the guidance was talking about “triaged by telephone”. It’s not here referring, for example, to the use of Teams meetings or video calls or anything like that; is that right?

Ms Sharon Powell: Yes, that’s what it says in there, yes.

Lead 8: Can I ask, at that point in time, would Powys County Council, for example, have had the infrastructure to start doing meetings remotely with families?

Ms Sharon Powell: We would have had the infrastructure at that time. It was a developing infrastructure, so that’s sort of built in terms of its strength from the offset.

In terms of triaging, in terms of all information that comes in through our front door service, that comes through by telephone or a written referral as the offset. So it is quite normal to have those telephone calls with individuals at the first point of contact into the front door.

Lead 8: All right, I’m going to go on to ask you about how this develops but can I ask you, then, about the sorts of access that the families who you would be in contact with, what access they would have had in and around this time to forms of remote technology, and whether that was a challenge to begin with?

Ms Sharon Powell: Some families would have had that opportunity, and there very much other families that might not have had that opportunity to have that telephone call via whatever means that would be.

The other challenge for Powys County Council is that because it is geographically challenged, the Internet is not available across the whole of the county. So, again, that was a particular challenge that we experienced, both in children’s services and education services.

Lead 8: So just looking at this guidance, and what it says:

“All assessments should be triaged by telephone in the first instance in order to decide whether a face-to-face meeting is essential or whether work can be done by telephone or delayed.”

So, again, did you understand from this guidance, in terms of what the Welsh Government was saying, that the initial approach was to decide whether it was essential to see someone face-to-face, or to see a family face-to-face?

Ms Sharon Powell: Yes, that’s my understanding of that.

Lead 8: And then this guidance goes on, I think, to set out that only business critical work should be undertaken. And then it sets out what those functions, the business critical functions, are.

And, in essence, are those the kinds of steps that are taken whenever children might be at the most risk?

Ms Sharon Powell: Yes, so it’s looking at that identified need and whether there’s – it’s a safeguarding referral or a care and support referral from that offset, and then determine exactly what the needs are and what the intervention needs to be.

Lead 8: All right. And then it sets – we can see towards the end of the page that this guidance said that:

“Less critical work should be undertaken only by telephone/Teams/Skype. These tasks may include …”

Then we see a number of different functions set out there. I wanted to ask you about TAF meetings and what those are.

Ms Sharon Powell: So TAF stands for Team Around the Family, so it’s a meeting that would be coordinated with the family but also any of the agencies that might actually be working with the family at that time; predominantly school and health, but it could include third sector and other professionals.

Lead 8: So is Team Around the Family, is that a multi-agency team or is that just a social work team?

Ms Sharon Powell: It’s a multi-agency team.

Lead 8: And then if we go over the page, please – and again, I think:

“Practical Implications

“All home visits should be triaged by telephone in the first instance in order to decide whether a face-to-face meeting is essential or whether work can be done by telephone or delayed.”

So, again, may I ask you about that? Was the general guidance from the Welsh Government to begin with to apply this approach of: is it essential to see children who may be in these situations?

Ms Sharon Powell: Yeah, that’s right, in terms of triaging that information about whether or not it should be a face-to-face meeting or whether it can be done in a different way.

Lead 8: So it wasn’t the other way round, as it were: is it a – can this be done face-to-face?

Ms Sharon Powell: I think the decision that we took at children’s services was that every child was at risk of harm on the point of education and schools closing, so for us, it was very much about seeing children face-to-face as a priority and as an essential criteria rather than seeing them virtually as the first standing point. We realised that that was really critical in order to have that visibility of children at that particular time.

Lead 8: And so did you take this guidance, but develop it so that you were effectively applying a higher standard than the one it provided for?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: And do we see that reflected in the RAG rating guidance that Powys County Council then promulgated?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: I wonder if we could have a look at that, please. That’s at INQ000647372.

And I think we can see, Ms Powell, if we look at red, it explains, doesn’t it, that:

“children/placements/carers that are rated as RED will be visited …”

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s right.

Lead 8: “… with full observance of statutory requirements, face-to-face, and by a qualified social worker.”

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: And then it gives some examples, doesn’t it, and I think one of the examples is children on the Child Protection Register?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: So again, is this intended to reflect those children who are at the highest index of risk?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: Then if we look at amber, I think that suggests that children who are at amber could be visited or – sorry, and supported, by a combination of a qualified social worker and a non-qualified social worker; is that right?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: And that visiting could be combined, face-to-face and remote?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: Is that right?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: And again, of the examples given, one of them is that these might be the children who had moved down from the highest risk –

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: – into this category, yes. And then green was intended to reflect those children who were in long-term and settled placements; is that right?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: And I think there, where there were no unusual welfare-related issues or safeguarding issues, that families were content with the interim approach to remote visiting and supervision that these visits could be carried out remotely; is that right?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: I’m going to go on to ask you about some of the challenges about this, but we’ve heard evidence on behalf of Kent Council today about the difficulty in maintaining oversight of those families where there might, for example, be accumulated risks over time as opposed to the emergence of an acute risk. Was that a challenge in Powys as well?

Ms Sharon Powell: Yes, that was a challenge and I think for those children that were open to the service, we knew about those children. The particular challenge was those children that we didn’t know and didn’t have that information coming through, particularly when our referral rates dipped at that particular time.

What we did do in terms of every child that was open to the service, as we said, we RAG rated them, but we also made sure that social workers and any worker that was working with that family could step the RAG status either up or down at any potential point, and that they didn’t need to wait for a decision around that.

One of the challenges was maintaining that kind of consistent approach to visiting at home visits where we were increasing the amount of home visits we were doing as a result of the lack of visibility of children in schools or being seen by school health nurses.

So there was a challenge in terms of maintaining that standard, but it was very much discussed on a daily basis in terms of what those challenges might be for a particular team, or even in fact a particular family at that time.

Lead 8: All right. I think one of the things that you go on to explain in your witness statement, and I think we can see it in paragraph 77, if I could just bring that up, please, and towards the end, I’m grateful – where you set out that there were challenges for social workers:

“… in terms of understanding the lived experience for each child within their family home, and if access was denied, this became a bigger challenge in fully understanding the child’s circumstances. The lack of midwifery and health visitor visits alongside children not being in school, created less visibility from a multi-agency perspective.”

Ms Sharon Powell: Yes, that’s right.

Lead 8: So I suppose there’s a couple of things related to that, then. Can you explain a bit more about the challenges in actually being able to get into people’s houses during this period?

Ms Sharon Powell: I mean, obviously, if the family were engaging and they were willing for you to enter the home, that was a far easier challenge than actually the challenge of them not wanting you to actually cross the threshold of their door. So that became a particular challenge for some families, particularly if they were shielding or if they were really concerned about the impact of the virus. So even though you might have PPE and follow a risk assessment process of home visits to undertake that as safely as possible within the guidance, that still was a challenge for some families to actually accept you over the doorstep at that time.

Lead 8: And can I just ask, for children on the Child Protection Register, were remote visits ever used in respect of them?

Ms Sharon Powell: Sometimes they were; it very much depended on the point in which the child’s name was on the Child Protection Register, whether the plans were actually working as a multi-agency perspective, and whether there was a view that actually, you were working towards a deregistration plan, so it very much depended on the needs and the particular risks for each child.

Lead 8: And was there concern within Powys about the limitations of remote visits in terms of what social workers were able to observe?

Ms Sharon Powell: Yes, that was a real challenge, because we looked at the kind of trajectory for that child in the sense of their lived experience. So it’s very much about looking at past harm that they might have incurred, looking at the current situation, and kind of predicting and potentially what future harm might look like. So it’s very much about using that information from that child’s lived experience to actually assess whether that child is at risk of harm, and how much risk of harm that child is at.

Lead 8: So did you consider that the use of remote visits, then, limited the ability of social workers to effectively safeguard children in these circumstances?

Ms Sharon Powell: Yes, because remote visits, you’re maybe seeing that – you’re having a text message or you might be having a conversation via a network to see that child in that time, but it doesn’t give you that kind of holistic picture of that child in terms of their lived experience within that environment, within the family home.

Lead 8: All right. Another – you’ve just mentioned the point, and you set it out at paragraph 33, that one of the key concerns that you had in Powys was the decrease in the number of referrals that you had to what you’ve described as the front door –

Ms Sharon Powell: Yeah.

Lead 8: – of children’s social services; is that correct?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct. We were really concerned that actually, referral rates very much were going down when there were particular restrictions in place. When the restrictions eased or were undertaken differently, we then saw an increase in our referrals, which kind of indicates that those children were still at risk of significant harm, it’s just that you don’t know about them at that time until that referral is made.

Lead 8: And did rates recover to their normal level, in other words what you would have expected, or did they exceed what you would have expected in normal times?

Ms Sharon Powell: They didn’t exceed at the starting point but I think subsequently they have exceeded in more recent years.

Lead 8: All right. And just on that, was that concern also in the context of the understanding on the part of Powys County Council that children were at increased risk during this period of time?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: So you would have expected that the number of children coming to harm was greater?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s right.

Lead 8: But you weren’t seeing them?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s right.

Lead 8: And I think it’s also right, from what you say in your statement at paragraph 34, that there was tangible evidence of children coming to greater harm because of the increase in the numbers of children on the Child Protection Register at risk of emotional or psychological abuse, which you say is ordinarily due to domestic abuse; is that right?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s right.

Lead 8: And may I ask, you mentioned domestic abuse at the very outset of your evidence. Did rates of domestic abuse increase in Powys during the pandemic?

Ms Sharon Powell: Yes, they did. And so much so that we had to look at a particular project to support children and families in terms of May 2020 where we concentrated our Early Help Project very much on being in touch with those families that were at risk of potential domestic abuse because we recognised, actually, that we weren’t getting that information and those referrals through the front door.

Lead 8: And did those families face particular challenges during the pandemic?

Ms Sharon Powell: Yes, they did.

Lead 8: And what sort of challenges did children face who were in circumstances of domestic abuse?

Ms Sharon Powell: So children would have been exposed to that sort of continuum of domestic abuse, because you have families all in the same household all at the same time. There wasn’t much opportunity for families to have to be out and doing other things, so everybody is confined into that one environment. So therefore, the risk of domestic abuse increased in terms of frequency, then the impact on the child is greater, because they’re exposed to that more frequently in terms of visually seeing that, or hearing that, or being part of that domestic abuse by trying to prevent it or stop that. Depending on the age of the child, the risk is very, very different.

Lead 8: And were there challenges in terms of – presumably it was principally mothers and children being able to get away from those sorts of situations that they found themselves in?

Ms Sharon Powell: So there were challenges around that in terms of having those opportunities to get away from those situations, and also, in terms of people – then their, sort of, network of safety that would normally sort of wrap around that, whether that was a family member or a friend, that was significantly reduced at that particular time.

Lead 8: Ms Powell, I’m going to move on now, if I may, to a different subject, and it’s concerning the case of Kaylea Titford, who died almost five years ago now, and she was 16, wasn’t she?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s right.

Lead 8: And Kaylea had spina bifida, and she used a wheelchair, I think that’s right?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s right.

Lead 8: And she had a number of health needs as well; is that correct?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: And before I go any further, it’s right to say that her parents were found guilty of her manslaughter; yes?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: And that was owing to the conditions within which she had lived and died; yes?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: I won’t go into those conditions. I want to ask you about some of the issues that arose in her case, to try to understand how she came to be in that position. So can you tell us a bit – I think she went to a normal – a school that wasn’t a school for children with special educational needs; is that right?

Ms Sharon Powell: Yeah, that’s correct. Kaylea went to a mainstream school. She did have profound disabilities and, as you said, she was wheelchair bound, but that didn’t deter her from actually engaging in curriculum activities, and she was particularly sporty, in terms of what she was able to achieve.

Lead 8: And once the announcement was made that schools would close to most children, did she go back to school after that point, on 18 March 2020?

Ms Sharon Powell: No, she didn’t.

Lead 8: And I think it’s correct that she was identified as vulnerable so she could have attended a hub in Wales; is that right?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: But she didn’t do that. What’s your understanding as to why she didn’t attend one of the hubs?

Ms Sharon Powell: My understanding is that Kaylea was fearful of the virus herself and maybe contracting that by being a member of the hub. So she chose not to engage in that.

Lead 8: I think the case review suggests that she was shielding; is that right?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: And she was going to go back to school in September 2020, wasn’t she?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s right.

Lead 8: But she didn’t go back. And again it appears, I think, from the case review that her parents made excuses as to why she couldn’t go back?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: Is that your understanding?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s my understanding, yes.

Lead 8: Can I ask you then, during this period that she wasn’t in school, from March leading up to October, how was contact maintained with the family?

Ms Sharon Powell: So contact was maintained initially with the family with the Youth Intervention Service, very early on, but they actually ended their involvement with Kaylea at around about that March, April time, in terms of –

Lead 8: Sorry, forgive me for interrupting, but the Youth Intervention Service, was that part of Powys social care or is that a different service?

Ms Sharon Powell: It’s part of education services.

So she received some support from them because she had made reference to feeling bullied at school. So they were doing a piece of work with her to enable her to, kind of, overcome some of those complications, which she did, and then they actually closed the case file of any identified needs for her.

So from March –

Lead 8: Forgive me for interrupting you again, but just so we’re clear, so was her case closed because that piece of work with her had finished –

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: – rather than – so that wasn’t linked to the pandemic; is that correct?

Ms Sharon Powell: No, that wasn’t linked to the pandemic. That’s correct.

Lead 8: Thank you.

Ms Sharon Powell: So, in terms of education services, they were the main professional organisation that were involved in Kaylea’s care and plan at that time, so they would make routine phone calls to Kaylea during that period. I think there are two occasions when they actually spoke with Kaylea herself, but predominantly, from September to October, the conversations were held weekly but predominantly with mother, who was then actually saying that Kaylea was too unwell to return to school at that time.

Lead 8: All right. So throughout that entire period, Kaylea herself was only spoken to on two occasions –

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s correct.

Lead 8: – by education services. From the case review, there doesn’t seem to be any mention at all of Kaylea participating in school by way of remote access, or using video calls or any of the sorts of structures that might have been in place for educating children in their homes. Is that your understanding as well?

Ms Sharon Powell: Yes, that’s my understanding as well.

Lead 8: And I think from reading the case review, I think there’s a single reference to Teams being used on one occasion to speak with the family, but they weren’t able to use Teams; is that right?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s my understanding as well.

Lead 8: Do you know any reasons why or do you know anything about the fact that the family or Kaylea herself don’t appear to have had any technology or any of the assistance that might have been provided to children in order that they could have remote education, for example?

Ms Sharon Powell: Yeah, I don’t have any other information.

Lead 8: So we know Kaylea had disability and health needs. The case review said that she didn’t have any form of care and support plan. Can you explain a bit more about that.

Ms Sharon Powell: So Kaylea had a care and support plan in her early years. And again, that care and support plan would have been a multi-agency plan, so it would have involved school and health or any other organisation, as well as children’s services working with the family in terms of her care and support needs.

During her primary school years, she was – developed really well in terms of aligned with her disabilities. She was reaching her potential within school. So there was nothing being raised that was any specific concern about Kaylea having any particular care and support needs at that time.

So, in 2017, children’s services, with consent from the family, closed the case file in respect of Kaylea at that time, suggesting that there was no identified care and support needs for her at that time.

Lead 8: And that’s despite the fact that, on the face of it, she did have health needs –

Ms Sharon Powell: Yes, that’s right.

Lead 8: – it appears?

I mean, in your view, is that one of the critical points here: that the fact that she didn’t have that sort of plan, is that what – is it the fact that she didn’t have that plan that meant that she wasn’t subject, then, to any sorts of assessments during the period of the pandemic, or is it more complex than that?

Ms Sharon Powell: I think it’s more complex than that, in the sense that at no point did any agency such as health, third sector, or education services, put a multi-agency referral form around Kaylea’s needs maybe changing or being different through our front door service, which would have picked that up. I think there were agencies working with Kaylea but in terms of the joined-up thinking about her lived experience and potentially looking and reflecting on her transition points, seeing as she was nearly 16, in terms of maybe into early adulthood, there was no joined-up thinking around any changes in her needs or any changes in her circumstances, and also, in terms of her parents’ ability to care for her. So that hadn’t been raised at all either by any of the organisations in terms of them finding that more difficult or challenging.

So again, no referral had been made in terms of a carers’ assessment as one example.

So I think the situation was very complex in terms of that, but the learning very much suggests that actually, the joined-up thinking wasn’t there in terms of those agencies coming together to kind of review Kaylea’s particular situation.

Lead 8: I think you mentioned that there were some services in contact. The case review said that the team around the family, which is one of the bits of the structure that I asked you about earlier, ceased its involvement in April.

Ms Sharon Powell: Yeah.

Lead 8: And again, can you throw any light on the reasons why that contact was stopped at that particular point in time?

Ms Sharon Powell: At that particular point, my understanding is that no agency was suggesting that Kaylea had any unmet needs or any identified needs that warranted any particular service involvement at that time.

Lead 8: So is the crucial issue here that no part of any organisation gave thought to the fact that, for example, this is a child who, by virtue of shielding, might be exposed to isolation, a lack of physical – being confined within the home, not being able to get out, those sorts of considerations that might make you think, actually, this is a child who probably needs to be assessed now to make sure that they’re coping with the circumstances that they’re now finding themselves in?

Ms Sharon Powell: Yes, that’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: And again, based on everything you know, is there a point – what part of the machinery ought to have triggered that, or given thought to this child’s circumstances so that that sort of assessment took place?

Ms Sharon Powell: I think my reflection is that that could have happened at a number of different juncture points, particularly with health professionals joining up the information in terms of maybe not being brought to many appointments, and having consideration about the impact on Kaylea’s health at that time, particularly around her lymphedema, where she had a sore, in terms of her lower limbs. So in terms of health professional, that information hadn’t been joined up particularly between medical departments in terms of looking at her situation holistically.

And I think the same for education services, although they were making routine phone calls to Kaylea and she had a Statement of Educational Needs review in July 2020, whereby she did participate, albeit she was heard to participate in the background from that meeting, at no point was Kaylea actually seen, visually seen, either on a Teams call or other ways in terms of Internet opportunity. So nobody actually was seeing her visually.

Lead 8: Yes. And to come back to a point you made, there was no trigger for her family to be assessed at any point to see if they were coping with these circumstances as well; is that right?

Ms Sharon Powell: That’s –

Lady Hallett: I’m sorry to interrupt, Ms Dobbin, I’m just conscious that, you know, as dreadful as this case was, I’m not conducting an Inquiry into the circumstances of individual deaths and can we focus, please, on whether there was systemic issues related to the pandemic that we need to be talking about.

Ms Dobbin: Yes.

So just in terms of those, and I was just going to draw these things together in terms of the lessons learned for the purposes of the pandemic, but the assessment of the family, do you consider that that’s perhaps an important point of learning here, that in a pandemic situation, a focus on the family and what their needs are, an assessment of that could be important?

Ms Sharon Powell: Yeah, absolutely. I think for me, that the learning is around, if agencies were concerned about a child or maybe even there were lower-level concerns about that child, that should have kind of created a response that some things were changing for Kaylea and therefore they could have placed a multi-agency referral form into children’s services at any point. So I agree that it was that lack of joined-up thinking and that assessment process.

Lead 8: And then maybe leading on from that, I wanted to ask you whether or not it also indicates a potential systematic issue related to a pandemic about the need to assess children who are shielding as well, and to ensure that there is some sort of automatic assessment that involves seeing the child?

Ms Sharon Powell: I agree. I think, in terms of that systemic approach, that would have been really helpful to kind of had that joined-up thinking locally for children with disabilities that may or may not be open to children’s services and potentially, as you said, with shielding, their needs may have changed, families might have found that really difficult, so I think it would have been an opportunity to just reflect on those individual children’s experiences.

Lead 8: And then again, just focusing on the pandemic-related issue, the importance of the child’s voice, as well, and ensuring that there are proper opportunities to meaningfully engage with the child, as well?

Ms Sharon Powell: Yeah, absolutely. I think, looking at Kaylea’s situation, there was very limited times when she was in conversation, whether that was text message, WhatsApp or a virtual call with any professional or anyone that she might have considered a trusted adult. That was definitely a gap in terms of her lived experience.

Lead 8: Thank you. I wondered whether, following on from that, or following on from all of your experiences in Powys during the pandemic, whether there were specific recommendations that you had that you thought were important?

Ms Sharon Powell: I think, for me, it’s about looking at a child’s lived experience as a whole. So there was not brought policy that was implemented by Powys Teaching Health Board as part of the learning is a way in which you would join up the dots of a child actually having multiple health appointments so that the child would be more visible if that information was joined up.

I think the same for the eyes-on policy for education services. That has changed dramatically over recent years so children are now visually seen by education services particularly if their education drops or there’s a change in circumstances.

I think both those policies would be really helpful to be considered on a more national basis.

But I think for me, it’s about also that team around the family, that cluster group arrangement. So where professionals are coming together, that actually, the child is put at the heart of that information. So whatever agency is involved in that child, whether that’s children’s services or not, there should be more stronger protocols on what that needs to look like, what to do in the event of any change in circumstances at all, the need for a referral into children’s services or not, and then, if there are any particular challenges around that, I think it would be really helpful to have an escalation process that professionals could follow to escalate those concerns.

Lead 8: I’m just going to ask you to pause there. So is this a very specific national emergency pandemic process that you foresee that is different to normal processes that enables that escalation?

Ms Sharon Powell: I think some of that is normal, but I think it’s about strengthen it in times when business continuity plans evoke. The less professionals that see children, children become invisible. So it’s really important that the visibility of children and the lived experience of children is really central to all of that protocol and policy.

Lead 8: And may I also ask you, whilst we’re on looking to the future, we know from your evidence, and from that given from Ms Orrells as well, that it was difficult to attract children into the hub schools during the first period of school closures.

Has Powys done any reflection on, or work on that, in terms of developing its thinking about what could be done to attract more children into education in the future, in these sorts of circumstances?

Ms Sharon Powell: Yes. Reflection has been had, and some of that was highlighted in the joint investigation of child protection arrangements, in terms of that team around the cluster of a child is stronger, there’s more multi-agency focus on children that are in that cluster, and then kind of reflecting on their individual needs and what that might mean.

Lead 8: So, in other words, do you mean that what was required was more dialogue and intervention with families in order to encourage children to attend that sort of hub provision?

Ms Sharon Powell: Yes, that’s right.

Ms Dobbin: Thank you.

Ms Powell, those are all my questions.

My Lady, do you have any questions?

Lady Hallett: No, thank you very much indeed. I don’t have any questions.

Thank you very much for all the help you’ve given the Inquiry, Ms Powell. I’m really grateful to you. I appreciate it’s not easy when you’re talking about horrid cases like the one you’ve had to describe, especially if there may be failings in the system, but I’m really grateful and it’s given us some food for thought. So thank you very much indeed.

The Witness: Thank you.

Ms Dobbin: Thank you, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Very well, Ms Dobbin, is it time now to break for lunch?

Ms Dobbin: Yes, that takes us to the short adjournment.

Lady Hallett: Okay, I shall be back at 1.45.

(12.43 pm)

(The Short Adjournment)

(1.45 pm)

(Proceedings delayed)

(1.49 pm)

Ms Dobbin: My Lady, may I call Mr John Swinney, please.

Lady Hallett: Certainly, Ms Dobbin.

Mr John Msp

MR JOHN SWINNEY MSP (sworn).

Questions From Lead Counsel to the Inquiry for Module 8

Lady Hallett: Mr Swinney, thank you for coming back to help us. I’m sorry there seemed to be some technical problems, hence the slight delay in starting you. We’ll make sure we finish you this afternoon, I promise.

The Witness: Thank you, my Lady.

Ms Dobbin: Mr Swinney, can I ask you to give your full name to the Inquiry, please.

Mr John Msp: My name is John Ramsay Swinney.

Lead 8: And Mr Swinney, I think you have in front of you a statement that bears the number INQ000588143?

Mr John Msp: I do.

Lead 8: Thank you. And are you content that the contents of that statement are true to the best of your knowledge and belief?

Mr John Msp: I am.

Lead 8: Mr Swinney, I think it’s right that you’re currently the First Minister of Scotland?

Mr John Msp: I am.

Lead 8: And that you were the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills from 2016 to May 2021?

Mr John Msp: I was.

Lead 8: And that you were the Cabinet Secretary for Covid recovery from May 2021 to March 2023?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct.

Lead 8: And that you were the Deputy First Minister, in addition for those responsibilities, from 2014 to March 2023; is that correct?

Mr John Msp: That is also correct.

Lead 8: Thank you.

Mr Swinney, in your statement you are critical of the United Kingdom Government on a number of points and at various places. I don’t think I need to take you to them specifically, but at paragraphs 20, 23, 24, 29, and paragraph 30, but coming to paragraph 30, you say that you had no concerns in relation to the approach that the UK Government took to education and the care of children and young people; is that right?

Mr John Msp: Yes, that is correct.

Lead 8: And is that because you made largely the same decisions as your counterpart for the United Kingdom Government?

Mr John Msp: We made similar decisions, but there would obviously be variations in timescales where we did certain things in different ways at different times. But fundamentally we recognised that the approaches that we had to take in relation to the collective effort to contain the pandemic required us to undertake decisions in relation to schools, particularly, and other educational institutions, that were decisions we would rather have not taken.

Lead 8: All right. We’ll come on to those decisions, but in any event, education is an entirely devolved matter, isn’t it?

Mr John Msp: It is, yes.

Lead 8: And that is true also of children’s social care; correct?

Mr John Msp: That is correct, yes.

Lead 8: You also make the point on a number of occasions throughout your statement that local authorities in Scotland are responsible for the provision of education, social care and social work; correct?

Mr John Msp: That is correct, yes.

Lead 8: Responsible for local education policy; correct?

Mr John Msp: Correct, yes.

Lead 8: The provision of school education; correct?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct.

Lead 8: Improving outcomes?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: The statutory duty to reduce inequalities?

Mr John Msp: Yes, that’s correct.

Lead 8: And also, that it’s for local authorities to determine how best to ensure continuity of service provision to vulnerable children, as well; is that also right?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: But it is the Scottish Government, isn’t it, which bears ultimate responsibility for the education of Scottish children? Is that also correct?

Mr John Msp: That is correct, yes.

Lead 8: And it’s also the Scottish Government that bears ultimate responsibility for their safety, as well; correct?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: In the “Lessons Learned” section of your statement, Mr Swinney, that ranges over some 41 paragraphs, it’s difficult to identify anything that you or the Scottish Government thinks that it could have done better for children; is that correct?

Mr John Msp: I think we undertook a series of decisions that were dealing with an unprecedented set of circumstances, and we took the best decisions available to us at the time to protect the wellbeing of children and to ensure that their education and their welfare was supported by our actions.

Lead 8: The question I asked you was a different one. In your statement there are 41 paragraphs about lessons learned, and it’s difficult to identify, amongst those 41 paragraphs, what the lessons learned – what those lessons learned are, and I’m asking you directly: do you have any lessons or anything that you think could have been improved upon that the Scottish Government did?

Mr John Msp: I think what I tried to do in the “Lessons Learned” section is highlight the difference, perhaps, between the approach that was taken on some issues, for example in 2020, when we faced the first onset of the pandemic, and then what we subsequently did when we faced further periods of restrictions and lockdown in 2021.

So, for example, I think the promotion of the availability of remote learning and access to remote learning was far stronger in 2021 than it had been in 2020. So that’s one tangible example of where I think we did things differently and we improved on what had been able to be delivered in 2020.

So I think what I’ve tried to do in that section is to highlight areas where we reflected on our performance, and tried to improve the way in which we handled the situation.

Lead 8: Perhaps if we could go to that section of your witness statement. And this is at page 143 and it starts at paragraph 568.

That’s INQ000588143.

And I think in the first paragraph of that section, you say:

“I believe that my decisions at the time were firmly located within, and enabled by, the strong commitment across the Scottish Government to a human rights-based approach to legislation and policy including in relation to young people.”

Does that stand for all the decisions that you made during the pandemic in relation to children and young people?

Mr John Msp: Yeah, I would contend so, yes.

Lead 8: Right. And can I also, please, go, whilst we’re in this section, to paragraph is it 490 – 594, please. Mr Swinney, this is the closest that appeared to be a reflection on things that could have gone better. At 594 you state:

“I would also reflect that I think it would have been preferable if, in the initial phases of school closures, we had been able to more quickly put in place a national e-learning offer with a clear statement of the support and entitlements available to all learners, at all stages and all ages, and their families.”

Is that the height of the insight that you provide that it would have been preferable, in school closures, that you’d been able to move more quickly; is that it?

Mr John Msp: I think that is an important observation on where we – we had to move in a very fast-moving situation in March of 2020 to put in place arrangements which were able to – well, they were able to deliver in the best circumstances we could at that time, the continuity of education for children and young people in Scotland.

Now, that’s a very complicated piece of work to put in place because it involves us exercising that responsibility or trying to enable that across schools the length and breadth of the country, probably the best part of – over 2,000 schools in Scotland working through 32 local authorities. And we had in place some foundations for that, so the Glow system is a system of electronic access to learning that’s available to every pupil in Scotland, and that was available at the start of the pandemic.

We had other measures such as the investment that had been made in the eSchool, which was a virtual education platform, and of course, that complemented what was being undertaken by individual schools the length and breadth of the country to try to provide learning directly, classroom teacher by classroom teacher, to children and young people around the country.

So essentially, what – so we were trying to put in place a method of ensuring continuity of education when we were in circumstances where the model of education had changed very dramatically because children were not available – were not able to have access to school buildings in the way to which we would ordinarily be familiar.

Lead 8: I think that seems like a very long answer and I think the answer is that that is the height of your insight; yes?

Mr John Msp: It’s certainly my reflection on where we’d reached at that time, yes.

Lead 8: Right. Going back, then, to the decision to close schools to most children in Scotland, Mr Swinney. Were you conscious, when you made that decision, of the enormity of it for all children of school age in Scotland?

Mr John Msp: Yes, it was a decision I would rather not have had to have taken.

Lead 8: And what did you see the – what did you foresee the consequences of that decision being?

Mr John Msp: I certainly, at the time, thought there was an inevitable interruption to the continuity of education that young people were experiencing, and I was also conscious of the potential damage to the wellbeing of children and young people, given the fact that formal schooling occupies such a central part of the access to learning and to support for young people in our education system.

Lead 8: And all of those consequences are entirely foreseeable, aren’t they? They don’t require any special insight or understanding to arrive at them?

Mr John Msp: I don’t think that’s – I don’t think that’s necessary.

Lead 8: At paragraph 24 of your statement you said you had access to SAGE papers, conclusions and advice; is that right?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: And did you read those papers, conclusions and advice yourself, or were they distilled for you?

Mr John Msp: They would be – it would be a combination of both. Sometimes I would look at the material myself and on other occasions I would be receiving briefing papers that were drawing on SAGE information, and in some circumstances, I may be benefiting from the communication of SAGE discussions and papers through, for example, the contribution of the Chief Medical Officer, perhaps, to cabinet discussions or other discussions that we might have.

Lead 8: And at what point in time did you start to have access to SAGE papers and the advice that you’ve just referred to?

Mr John Msp: I think it would be difficult for me to give a definitive point on that, but I certainly was – I think I could confidently say, in early March, but it might have been before that.

Lead 8: All right, because at paragraph 35 of your statement you’ve referred to the fact that on 17 February – thank you very much – that there was an update on the reasonable worst-case scenario modelling from the United Kingdom Government; correct?

Mr John Msp: Yes, that’s –

Lead 8: And it included a reference to the potential impact of widespread school closures; yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And that is right, isn’t it, Mr Swinney, by this stage in February, SAGE was contemplating the potential epidemiological impact of closing schools, wasn’t it?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: And I think that it follows from what you say at paragraph 36 of your statement that in fact in Scotland this was something that was already in mind; yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And that some work was being undertaken at that time to consider contingency planning; yes?

Mr John Msp: Mm-hm.

Lead 8: So, in other words, it was recognised that this might be needed at this point in time in Scotland; yes?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: And can you explain, then – this is somewhere around the middle of February – what the Scottish Government then did in order to act on this understanding from SAGE that there might be mass school closures?

Mr John Msp: We began to engage in discussion with the various parties that were – that are key interlocutors in the leading of Scottish education thereafter. So in my statement, at paragraph 38, it makes reference to a dialogue from my officials with senior staff in the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Association of Directors of Education [in Scotland], and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers, because in the context of any issues in relation to Scottish education, whilst, going back to some of our earlier exchanges, the Scottish Government carries ultimate responsibility for education policy, in terms of the delivery in schools around the country, local authorities are key – are absolutely critical interlocutors, because they carry the statutory responsibility for the delivery of education.

So what that approach recognises is the need for the government to work in cooperation and collaboration with our local authority partners. And after those discussions, we were engaged in wider discussion with our local authority partners and other stakeholders in education on this question.

Lead 8: So I think two points follow from that, Mr Swinney: the first is the Scottish Government isn’t a passive bystander, is it, in planning for school closures? It had a fundamental role to play in that planning, didn’t it?

Mr John Msp: Yes. It certainly did, yes.

Lead 8: And that’s despite the fact that schools and local authorities have the operational responsibility for the actual delivery of education; yes?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct.

Lead 8: All right. So can we look at what happened, then, in light of that.

And I think you set out, we can see from paragraph 38 onwards, I don’t think we need to go through each of these paragraphs, but there were some meetings, and I think we come to paragraph 37, please, that there was a meeting on 27 February to discuss preparedness in the education sector; correct?

And what was the state of preparedness at that point?

Mr John Msp: I think it would be, I think it would be fair to say that we were in the early stages of contemplating what this might look like. And going back to one of the comments that I made before, none of us embarked on this period in any way enthusiastic about school closures. It was frankly the last thing we wanted to contemplate. So we were beginning to come to the realisation at that stage that this may be a very real prospect that we had to contemplate, and the preparations would be to answer the question at – well, the consideration of preparations was at a very early stage.

Lead 8: All right, so this is notwithstanding the sorts of information that SAGE had been providing during February, by 27 February the Scottish Government was only starting to contemplate the reality of what that might entail; is that correct?

Mr John Msp: I think that’s a fair summary, yes.

Lead 8: All right. So on the 27th you have a meeting, and I think, then, if we go ahead a few paragraphs to paragraph 40, you said that you spoke to COSLA on:

“… planning and the need to ensure an emphasis on education and social care in local plans given the ramifications of the reasonable worst case scenario.”

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: So what were the ramifications of that that you were concerned about and needed to discuss with COSLA?

Mr John Msp: There would obviously be a significant disruption to the existing models of the delivery of education and social care services in Scotland. So the conversation that I would be having with the Councillor Evison as the president of COSLA would be across a wider range of implications, more at the relationship between government and local government, but it would obviously – it would draw heavily on issues in relation to education and social care, as the principal areas of interaction.

Lead 8: So when it says, “The need to ensure an emphasis on education and social care in local plans” that relates to the plans that they were generating rather than the plans that Scottish Government was generating; correct?

Mr John Msp: I think I would tend to characterise this interaction as a joint endeavour but what I was very keen to do, and actually it’s been something that’s been a – an approach that I’ve taken in all my ministerial life is to recognise, where you have a situation, and it’s well illustrated on the question of education, where the Scottish Government has absolute responsibility for the delivery of education, it’s an entirely devolved function, but operationally, the statutory responsibility rests with the individual local authorities for the delivery of that education in that area.

We need to work very much in a collaborative environment. So it’s not a case of them and us, it’s a case of us working together to try to work through some of the difficult territory, and particularly in relation to some of the issues that we were wrestling with here.

Lead 8: So what was the Scottish Government’s contribution at this stage? I mean, you’re emphasising to local authorities that they need to put an emphasis on education and care and local plans. What was the Scottish Government’s contribution?

Mr John Msp: We’d be exploring how we worked with and supported local authorities in that endeavour, and how organisations responsible to the Scottish Government such as Education Scotland, for example, could contribute to supporting local authorities in the delivery of education, should that situation arise.

Lead 8: So you’re having a dialogue with them saying, “How can we support you if school closures – if mass school closures or isolated school closures are going to occur?” Is that right?

Mr John Msp: Yes, that would be a fair characterisation.

Lead 8: And what were they telling you? What was the other side of this dialogue? What did they need from Scottish Government?

Mr John Msp: They were – they were – I think it would be fair to say anxious about the situation, and looking for guidance about what steps to take if we were to fast forward to the eventual decision to close schools, and the eventual decision was made at a national level, but it was informed by a dialogue with local authorities about what was the right thing to do in that context, because – and I – the issue about taking a decision about school closures is not – ordinarily it wouldn’t be a decision for the Education Secretary of the government to take, because statute essentially places that responsibility for a school closure at local level. But our local authorities were looking for guidance and assurance that we were working together and collaboratively to the same agenda so that we avoided a situation where there might be, for example, an approach taken in one local authority area that might conflict with an approach taken in another local authority area.

What we were trying to do was to provide essentially a collective understanding of what we were wrestling with and how collectively we could navigate our way through a really difficult situation.

Lead 8: So I think you said they were looking for guidance and that part of the reason for that and why that would be important is to ensure consistency of approach; correct?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And that consistency of approach is critical, isn’t it, in order to ensure that children are treated fairly as well; yes?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct.

Lead 8: And did the Scottish Government issue any guidance at around this stage, or provide any of the support that was being sought at this point?

Mr John Msp: We did, and I think the – there was a letter from – I think one of the specific documents in front of me, I think, relates to a letter around about 4 March from one of my officials to local authorities, which was opening up some – essentially beginning to establish how we might all approach these questions.

Lead 8: So let’s go to that, then. That’s at INQ000520406.

And we can see, can’t we, Mr Swinney, that this is a letter that’s addressed to Directors of Education, Local Authority Chief Executives, unions, and to the schools themselves; yes?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: And I think we can tell from the first sentence of that letter that it’s being sent on your behalf?

Mr John Msp: It is, yes.

Lead 8: And can I just ask, at this point in time, did schools and local authorities, were they party to the SAGE advice as well?

Mr John Msp: I doubt schools would be, and would … I think, if local authorities had access to SAGE information, it would be through the sharing of that advice via the Scottish Government. I can’t think that they would have a direct access to that – (overspeaking) –

Lead 8: No.

Mr John Msp: – that was the case.

Lead 8: No, I mean, really it’s just about trying to understand what these schools would know in order to be entering into dialogue with you in order to be able to help inform planning?

Mr John Msp: Well, in a sense, at that time, we were all consuming information about the developing situation from, you know, a wide variety of sources and some would be available more formally to government than would be available to others, and indeed, there would be a sharing of information to the best of our ability, but I think there would be a lack of certainty about what was all involved at that stage or what was likely to be involved but the letter that was issued from my officials on 4 March on my behalf to Directors of Education and others, would be designed to signal our willingness and our keenness to engage those parties in how we worked together on what was going to be a collective endeavour.

Lead 8: That’s understood, Mr Swinney, but you were the person who had the benefit of the SAGE advice, the advice from the CMO, and the other forms of specialist advice that were available to you as a senior member of the Scottish Government; yes?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes –

Lead 8: And the people to whom this letter is sent, they didn’t have that access, did they?

Mr John Msp: No, I don’t think they would have.

Lead 8: So if we look at the first paragraph and what it is that you’re asking them, it sets out here:

“I would therefore be grateful for your support in a number of areas to ensure that there is a clear national understanding of what is happening across all education settings. This will help inform national planning and the development of any further guidance.”

So this isn’t the Scottish Government explaining to schools what’s happening, for example, in terms of the advice that’s being provided; this is you asking schools “What’s happening?”

Mr John Msp: It’s about creating a collaborative environment, is how I would describe it. It’s us indicating that we recognise we’ve got a very serious threat that we are facing and there is a need for us to work together in that endeavour.

Lead 8: So, I mean, when you ask them “What’s happening?”, what were you asking them to tell you?

Mr John Msp: It would be about the – any arrangements that would be – were made in schools that might potentially interrupt learning. If I have my dates correct, I think not long after the issuing of this letter, there would have been an outbreak of Covid in Shetland which had a significant impact on the sustainability of schools, and therefore that would be a material issue that government would want to know about to try to help, to ensure constancy of support and assistance in advancing a response to that situation.

Lead 8: So I think it’s right, Mr Swinney, isn’t it, that – I don’t think this is in dispute – Covid was in Scotland by this stage, wasn’t it? The announcement of the first case I think was made on 1 March.

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: Yes. So you knew it had arrived, and you knew that advice had been provided now for some time, that there might be mass school closures. And I think, is it right, this is your first significant piece of correspondence with schools and the other authorities to which this is addressed about the pandemic; correct?

Mr John Msp: Probably the first formal communication but there would have been informal communication that was taken forward at our follow-up conversations, if I refer back to my statement, I think there were – in fact, if you give me one moment – I think there were four conversations after the meeting on 27 February that I convened.

So there would be – dialogue would have started approximately a week before that.

Lead 8: Yes, I know, I’m not suggesting there wasn’t dialogue; I’m pointing to the fact this appears to have been the first formal communication, as you say. And I think you yourself have suggested in evidence that this was significant, because when I asked you about planning, this is the letter that you pointed to.

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And if we look on page 2, we can see that at the bottom of this page, that you identify that:

“A key issue for many schools and parents over coming months will be planned school trips overseas, and receiving appropriate health advice as to whether or not these trips [should] go ahead.”

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yeah.

Lead 8: So again, despite the fact that Covid-19 was in Scotland, there doesn’t seem to be any understanding on your part that issues like overseas travel were now, you know, becoming completely vanishingly unlikely, and unrealistic, no?

Mr John Msp: Well, I think the pointing out of these points to schools is essentially, you know, drawing the attention of the schools to the advice that’s available from the recognised sources, whether it’s NHS inform or the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, about these questions.

Now, I accept that we were not saying at that stage “Do not do this”, but in a sense what we are doing in this communication is raising with schools the relevant issues that they have to consider, and with local authorities, about the relevant issues to be considered in that respect.

Lead 8: Forgive me, Mr Swinney, I think I meant rather more that this doesn’t impart any urgency or any sense of the gravity of the position that schools were now facing, because you can’t really impart that and, on the other hand, be suggesting to schools that one of the most serious issues they might be thinking about is overseas school trips?

Mr John Msp: Well, I would suggest that the gravity is illustrated by the contents of paragraph 1 of the letter, where we say that:

“The situation continues to develop rapidly, and it will be important we work together closely to contain, delay and mitigate the impact of the virus.”

And that represents a reflection of where the government’s actions were at that time.

Lead 8: I see. Can we go over the page, please, to “Contingency planning”. Thank you.

This sets out – and I think this must be when you referred earlier in your evidence to this demonstrating the Scottish Government’s contribution to planning, you set out:

“We are working closely” –

I’m afraid I don’t know what the SNCT is. You might be able to help me.

Mr John Msp: It’s the – the SNCT is the negotiating forum between the Scottish Government, local authorities, and the teaching trade unions around a – terms and working conditions within the education system. So it’s a negotiating body between those – in that tripartite arrangements. So any discussions, for example, about pay for teachers is carried out in that forum, any discussion about terms and conditions. Staff wellbeing, for example, is carried out on that tripartite basis in the SNCT.

Lead 8: I understand. And the SQA I think we know is the Scottish Qualifications Authority; correct?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: So you go on to say:

“You will want to ensure you are making appropriate contingency plans locally. Part of this may include Glow, Scotland’s nationally available digital learning platform. Learners and teachers can access all the tools and features of this at any time, on any device with an Internet connection.”

I will come to whether that was realistic in one moment, but the point “You will want to ensure you are making appropriate contingency plans locally”, what – I mean, what were you even suggesting to schools they should be making contingency plans for?

Mr John Msp: They might be increasing the volume of material and – that might be available for use through the digital platform of Glow for how they might essentially be preparing educational materials that could be utilised on that platform to minimise the disruption of education for children and young people.

Lead 8: Forgive me, Mr Swinney –

Mr John Msp: – (overspeaking) –

Lead 8: – I mean, are you asking them to prepare for mass school closures, isolated school closures, staff absences, pupil absences, the maintenance of child protection? It doesn’t say anywhere what it is that they’re actually supposed to be making these plans for.

Mr John Msp: Well, I think what – you know, the document goes on to talk about the digital learning platform Glow, and the different ways in which educational services can be continued, should there be a difficulty in pupils or staff being unable to attend school. And that was a recognition that at that stage, we – you know, we did not know definitively what situation we might have to be dealing with, but if there was, for example, pupils who were – who had Covid and who were unable to go to school, that their education could be sustained on an isolated basis by using Glow because there would be materials available to allow them to continue that objection, from – from that individual isolated example to a more comprehensive example about the wholesale closure of the school estate as a consequence of Covid.

Lead 8: The emphasis, again, is on what schools and local authorities will be doing; correct? “You will want to ensure you are making appropriate contingency plans locally.” Where was the Scottish Government’s role in making contingency plans? Where was its support at this point?

Mr John Msp: Well, its support would be essentially through the means of communication that we are talking about just now, because, going back to the structure of Scottish education, we rely on local authorities to manage the delivery of education in 32 distinct local authority areas in Scotland. Indeed, it’s not that we rely upon that; that’s what statute requires of us. So the operation of education at local level is not carried out by the government; it’s carried out by schools.

And what we’re doing here is essentially providing advice and guidance about how that can be sustained during a period of interruption to the continuity of education. And then there would be the role that Education Scotland would be taking on behalf, as a Scottish Government agency, taking forward in their interaction with local authorities and schools in supporting the delivery of education at local level, which is part of their remit.

Lead 8: Mr Swinney, there’s no guidance in these. You’re saying to them, “You’ll want to ensure you’re making appropriate contingency plans”; you’re not providing them with any guidance as to what might be required if schools have to close their doors to most of their pupils.

Mr John Msp: Well, I think –

Lead 8: There’s nothing like that in this letter.

Mr John Msp: I think we go on to say that in the later parts of that paragraph about the steps and the techniques that are available to ensure the continuity of education, because if there was to be a period in which individuals were not able to attend school, or there was to be a period in which schools were to be closed, then there had to be alternative means of delivering education, and this is the government pointing to resources and approaches that could be taken in that respect.

Lead 8: So let’s look at that:

“Learners and teachers can assess all the tools and features at any time, on any device with an Internet connection. This can help learning to continue outside the classroom in a variety of ways when pupils or staff are unable to attend school during events such as school closures.”

Then you go on to say that a user name and a password is needed.

I mean, the first point is yes, children could access that if they had a device – yes?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: Obviously this letter, I mean, it raises no question, does it? It doesn’t provide any guidance, it doesn’t ask any questions, for example, about what access children had to devices. It doesn’t ask schools to start, for example, gathering information about what children – what access children have to devices. That’s the sort of guidance that might have been expected at this point, Mr Swinney. No?

Mr John Msp: We – there would be a variation around the country in some of the steps that would be available here. In some local authorities, for example, there would be – some local authorities have gone down the route of providing devices to every pupil as part of the learning proposition in their areas. And again, that’s within each local authority’s entitlement to take such an action.

There would be – but as other events have demonstrated, we went on to provide much more digital access as a consequence of the experience that we had, and those arrangements were incrementally built up and, indeed, that would be one of my reflections about the provision in 2021 as opposed to in 2020, that by that stage we’d made much greater headway in making sure there was availability of digital infrastructure to enable that to be the case.

But I would accept that at that stage we did not have a complete picture nor did we have nationwide delivery of digital devices to enable that to be the case.

Lead 8: No, I mean, Mr Swinney, you hadn’t asked any of the basic questions that a government would need to ask in order to implement any sort of planning or guidance to schools as to how to deal with, for example, the digital divide. That’s right, isn’t it?

Mr John Msp: But the fundamental point that we are raising there is about the importance of the delivery of education being, you know, a priority being attached to ensuring the continuity of the delivery of education in very challenging circumstances.

Lead 8: Right, Mr Swinney, I’m going to keep on with the issue of planning and what the Scottish Government did. I think, and I don’t think we need to go to this, you set out in your witness statement at paragraph 45 that there was further analysis by SAGE about the contribution that school closures might make to meeting the pandemic, and that on 9 March you asked for advice about the likely impact of school closures; is that right?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: And I think if we go to this, this is INQ000182838, please. Is this the first time that you had asked for advice as to the likely impact of school closures?

Mr John Msp: It would be the first time, yes.

Lead 8: And why did you wait until 9 March to ask for this advice?

Mr John Msp: Well, let me just, just for completeness, I think the, you know, the issues of the potential for closures, I think, were aired in late February, particularly around 27 February, but we would still be dealing with an emerging – a speculation about whether or not that would be likely. But this would perhaps be the first formal request for advice that I would have asked, and – in relation to the question of school closures.

Lead 8: I think, Mr Swinney, if we just look at the first page of this document, please, we can see that you sought it urgent, you wanted it ahead of a COBR meeting at half two; yes?

Mr John Msp: That’s right, yes.

Lead 8: And it would appear that at paragraph 3 it set out that:

“[The] current understanding is that widespread school closures are not part of the measures [that the] UK Government [is] currently considering …”

Yes?

Mr John Msp: Correct.

Lead 8: But that didn’t mean that they weren’t in prospect; do you agree?

Mr John Msp: Yes, I agree with that. But I think the sense that I had at the time was that the United Kingdom Government had as little enthusiasm for school closures as I had, so we were, you know, I think the United Kingdom Government at the time was taking much the same view as I was taking, which was: I would rather avoid this if I possibly could do.

Lead 8: Yes.

Mr John Msp: And – which I think – so I think that text is a fair representation of the fact that this was not a preferred scenario, or anything like it.

Lead 8: Yes, I think that gives rise to two points, Mr Swinney. The first one must be trying to do everything to avoid school closures, and what it was that you were doing at this point in time to avoid that eventuality from becoming a reality.

So can you identify what you were actually doing, then, to prevent this from happening?

Mr John Msp: I think what we were doing then was trying to take forward the wider measures within society, which were, I think, underrated in this paragraph, about the isolation of symptomatic cases, whole household isolation, social distancing, and, you know, the other measures of that type which were designed at that time to avoid the spread of the virus to such an extent that it would require much more, you know, the type of – the contemplation of some of the options that we then had to contemplate.

Lead 8: So this wasn’t about thinking about what could actually be done inside schools themselves in order to be able to keep them open? So this wasn’t about, for example, consideration of social distancing in school or the use of alternative venues in order to be able to keep schools open on a longer-term basis?

Mr John Msp: I do remember at different stages contemplating, but it was actually – it tended to be later in the pandemic, contemplating the use of, you know, wider facilities to try to sustain education, but I think at this stage we were looking at wider societal factors to try to avoid school closures, and that was about trying to slow up the spread of the virus.

Lead 8: I’m just going to go back, Mr Swinney, to the second point you made just there, which was about you and the UK Government being of one mind in terms of really not wanting to close schools, and I assume the prospect of closing schools being so seismic; correct?

Mr John Msp: Yeah, yeah.

Lead 8: But, I mean, wasn’t that the very reason why all governments of the United Kingdom needed to start at a much earlier stage really preparing for the reality of what this would entail?

Mr John Msp: I think there’s – I think the – I think that’s a fair observation, that trying to contemplate how we could slow up the circulation of the virus was an issue that could have helped us to – well, could have assisted in that endeavour, but I would make the observation that the period of time before the realisation of the early cases of coronavirus in Scotland and the closure of schools was a very, very short window indeed.

So I think we’re – you know, I think in the other exchanges you indicated, Ms Dobbin, that the first case was identified in Scotland on 1 March, I think what was we said, and we made the announcement about the closure of schools on 18 March.

It’s a relatively short window in which alternative approaches could be put in place, when in actual fact there were various things being applied to try to avoid the spread of the virus at that time.

Lead 8: Mr Fins, isn’t that an entirely artificial approach? Because it was being warned by SAGE from February onwards that mass school closures might be an eventuality in the event that the virus couldn’t be controlled in the United Kingdom.

Mr John Msp: And there were measures being taken to try to ensure that the spread of the virus was interrupted. And I think as we know from events, those efforts were not effective in stopping the spread of the virus, hence we ended up having to face up the issue of school closures.

Lead 8: Yes. And I’m just going to stay focused on school closures and Scottish Government planning, then, and at around this point in time, because obviously we’re late in the picture now, aren’t we? It’s 9 March, yes?

Mr John Msp: Um … I’m not following what –

Lead 8: Yes, sorry, I am looking at the –

Mr John Msp: Sorry, excuse me, my apologies. Yes, it’s 9 March in this, yes.

Lead 8: Yes? And if we look, please, at paragraph 11 of this, which is on page 3, this was the advice, I think, provided to you on that day about the implications of school closures; yes?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: But focused on ad hoc closures not mass school closures; yes?

And I think we can say – I won’t read out every one of these paragraphs, Mr Swinney, but this focused on (a) workforce?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: At (b), the inability of parents and carers to work?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: Educational continuity we see at (c):

“The pandemic and the planned interventions could have a significant impact on educational continuity …”

Yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And if we read on, it says:

“This will be particularly important for those … preparing for and sitting exams …”

Yes?

Mr John Msp: (No audible answer)

Lead 8: Then, at (d), a reference to free school meals.

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And then a bit about teacher qualifications.

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And then a paragraph on child protection, youth justice and secure care.

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: But I don’t think, Mr Swinney, looking at that, that that, in fact, relates to school closures. I mean, it doesn’t talk about child protection in schools or continuity of child protection within the education system.

Mr John Msp: Not in that particular paragraph.

Lead 8: No. No. And if we go on and look at, then, the impact of general school closures, so this is the advice contemplating mass school closures?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And it just says:

“The impact of a wider policy of school and [early learning] closures would be similar to a significant level of ad hoc school closures with a few differences due to it affecting all families with children equally.”

Yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: So not imparting any sort of further advice or deep thinking about what mass school closures would entail; correct?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct. I think I’d simply add to that that the – I think that’s indicative of the fact that we – this was not our preferred scenario. We did not want this to happen.

Lead 8: Yes, but Mr Swinney, not wanting something to happen doesn’t mean that you don’t grapple with the realities of what it might mean when it does happen, and that must be all the more so when it comes to children’s lives.

Mr John Msp: Well, which is why I think the issues that are set out in detail on page 3 and page 4 cover the significant issues that are involved in that guidance and advice, because it goes through those implications for children and families.

Lead 8: Do you, Mr Swinney, do you really consider pages 3 and 4 to be detailed advice on the implications of school closures for most school-age children in Scotland?

Mr John Msp: Well, it’s rehearsing the issues that have got to be considered and addressed and would be the subject of further work and advice that would arise as a consequence, which is the purpose of the submission to me of 9 March.

Lead 8: Yes, this is headline stuff, isn’t it, dealing with the realities of children’s lives at best at a superficial level; do you agree?

Mr John Msp: No, I don’t agree with that, no.

Lead 8: You don’t?

Mr John Msp: I – I think it’s covering the issues that we have got to undertake in detailed planning to address the implications of those issues which we then – which consumed all of our time and thinking in wrestling with those challenges.

Lead 8: Sorry, is this the detailed planning that you are referring to? Or was there some other detailed planning going on at around this time?

Mr John Msp: Well, I think what this – I think what this demonstrates, this is a submission to me from one of my officials which would be setting out to me the various issues that we had to contemplate and consider as part of the impact of Covid on the sustainability of school education, and that was briefing me in advance of a COBR call to consider some of these questions on a much wider platform.

Lead 8: Sorry –

Mr John Msp: – (overspeaking) – a whole range of follow-up actions that dominates their thinking for some considerable time.

Lead 8: Okay, I’m going to come to some of that follow-up action, because I think in fact one of the next things that you did, and this was on 13 March, was to write to local authorities and schools once again; correct?

Mr John Msp: Um …

Lead 8: I can take you to that letter. It’s INQ000529991.

So this is 13 March. It’s a letter, I think it’s addressed to schools again, and to local authorities.

Mr John Msp: Yes, it’s addressed to Local Authority Chief Executives and Directors of Education who are in the 32 local authority areas in Scotland, and then it’s copied to a much smaller – so they will be responsible for the over – approximately 3,000 schools in Scotland, and then the independent schools and grant aided schools to which it’s copied are a much smaller cohort of those organisations and SOLACE and the Association of Directors of Education, the professional bodies for Directors of Education and Local Authority Chief Executives.

Lead 8: I’m grateful to you for clarifying that, Mr Swinney.

If we just look at the bottom two paragraphs of this letter, please. So you have, in the first two paragraphs, to be clear, you’ve talked about the 4 Nations Coronavirus Action Plan.

Mr John Msp: That’s correct.

Lead 8: And about the Scottish Resilience Partnership writing to local authorities seeking confirmation that appropriate plans are in place, so this is what this is referring to:

“In support of this work, we are writing to … set out some key potential impacts of Covid-19 … to help inform your planning activity. These key impacts, and some considerations, are set out …”

In annex 1, which we’ll come to.

Then this, underlined:

“If you are confident that you have considered these impacts in full, you should indicate this under the relevant ‘Developing’ field in the Covid-19 Readiness Dashboard that is being returned … If you are confident that appropriate plans are in place, this should contribute to your assessment of readiness under the ‘Prepared’ field.”

Correct?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And then we have at annex 1 the impacts that are identified; yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And again, I’m just going to pick up the second paragraph but – let me pick up on the first:

“On the basis of scientific advice, we are currently not recommending widespread school closures for public health reasons – however, this position will be kept under close, regular review.”

Correct?

Mr John Msp: Correct.

Lead 8: Then you go on to say:

“However, local public health advice or workforce difficulties … due to illness, self-isolation of staff … knock-on impacts … may result in some schools having to close as a result of Covid-19 …”

Yes?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: And then at the very end of that paragraph:

“We believe it will be important to have confidence that the following key issues have been considered and addressed …”

Yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: Again, Mr Swinney, the onus being put on local authorities and/or schools or the Directors of Education to inform you about their address of the key issues; correct?

Mr John Msp: Yes, but that, to repeat things I’ve said already, is a reflection of the structure of Scottish education, that there is no operational locus for the government at local level in the determining of these questions. We rely on the interlocutors who are local authorities and their professional leadership through elected members, chief executives, and directors of education in that respect. So we are, you know, we are essentially providing support to enable local authorities to come to conclusions about the steps they need to take to prepare for the situations that we were facing, and to deal with the operational implications of that.

Lead 8: I think it’s really important, Mr Swinney, we just nail down what the role of the Scottish Government is, because, I mean, you agreed with me earlier when I asked whether or not it was just a passive bystander to planning. You said that it wasn’t a passive bystander; yes?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: And you also agreed with me that it had an important role in planning for the continuity of education; yes?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: And planning for that is an entirely different concept and different thing from the operational delivery of education; yes?

Mr John Msp: No, I don’t agree with that, no.

Lead 8: Okay, well, what’s the difference between the two things?

Mr John Msp: Well, I think, because – for example, as Education Secretary, I am not in operational control of a single school in the country. I can’t employ a single teacher – I don’t employ a single teacher. As Education Secretary, I don’t employ a single teacher. I don’t have any operational control over a teacher’s conduct in the classroom or the actions they take. I don’t take a single decision about the allocation of resources to the core funding of schools other than what the government itself directs for particular purposes directly into schools.

So the overwhelming majority of resources in a school are determined by and directed by the local authority.

So what we’re trying to do here is to create a collaborative framework in which we are working – we are, as the government, ultimately – so I accept ultimate responsibility – you know, I totally accept that ultimate responsibility for education in Scotland, but the operational delivery is dependent on the actions of local authorities and the leadership of education around the country.

And what the government is trying to do here is to help those responsible for the operational delivery of education to plan for really challenging circumstances that are coming – that are likely to be coming our way.

Lead 8: So we should hold on to two things, I think, from what you’re saying: your role was to help schools in their operational delivery of education. Is that the height of the Scottish Government’s responsibilities at this point, Mr Swinney?

Mr John Msp: Well, ultimately – well, we’ll possibly come on to this in talking about the actual decision to close schools, but we are trying to work – if we go back to what I said in my call with Councillor Alison Evison of 3 March – I’ll just – of 3 March, I was indicating that the government was keen to work in a collaborative way with our local authority partners in this really difficult situation. And I would say this is evidence of the government doing exactly that. You know, we are reliant on individual local authorities and individual schools for the delivery of education in local communities, and we are trying to be as supportive as we can in raising the issues and the considerations that have got to be looked at community by community.

Now, by the time this letter has been issued on 13 March, there has already been an ad hoc school closure issue wrestled with in one part of Scotland, which was in Shetland, which I think was wrestled with or started to be wrestled with on 9 March. So we are essentially acknowledging the difficult context in which we’re all operating and trying to work together to navigate a way through that.

Lead 8: And Mr Swinney again, that was a very long answer to a question that I think was quite a short one, which was making sure I had accurately captured what the role of the Scottish Government was in planning for school closures, and I think, as I understood your answer, you were saying that it was the role of the Scottish Government to help schools to prepare for school closures; is that accurate?

Mr John Msp: I think that’s a fair summary, yes.

Lead 8: Right. And when you talk about collaboration, Mr Swinney, and this being a collaborative effort, all of the focus appears to be on schools telling you what they are doing, as opposed to the Scottish Government providing schools with an idea as to the state of advice, the reality of what school closures might entail, the need for schools to start thinking about the identification of vulnerable pupils, for example, the need for schools to have a digital strategy in terms of identifying children who don’t have access to devices, the massive range of things that were going to make the closure of schools such a seismic and difficult eventuality?

Mr John Msp: Well, I contend that the advice that was being offered through communications of this type or the support that was being offered through Education Scotland, who are the education agency that acts on the government’s behalf to support local authorities and schools in the development of educational approaches, or the emphasis on the technology platforms that we had in place through Glow, for example, or eSchool, these were some of the practical measures that were being taken forward to support schools in that endeavour, and to support them in making the preparation should there be an eventuality that we had to close schools.

Lead 8: So, I’m just going to come back to this document, then, and I think your description of it as a device, this is – this demonstrating the sort of support and help that the Scottish Government was giving to schools.

So, if we look at:

“Potential key impact 2: Knock-on impacts on ability of parents and carers to work.”

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: So you explain to schools that if settings might close, then parents and carers might need to take time off. And then – so there’s a single paragraph on that. And then:

“We believe it will be important to have confidence …”

So “we”, that’s the Scottish Government, yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: “… confidence that the following … issue has been considered and addressed:

“• Do local authorities have plans in place to mitigate the potential impact of localised school or early learning and childcare closures on working families, particularly key workers?”

So again, Mr Swinney, nothing here to sort of help local authorities to provide them with the sorts of plans that might be needed to mitigate those particular impacts, yes? You’re asking them if they have plans; correct?

Mr John Msp: Well, in a sense it’s a recognition of the way in which Scottish education is structured, that we rely upon localities to choose the way in which they deliver education. That’s, you know, the foundation of Scottish education. So we’re essentially trying to work with authorities to ensure that they are prepared for these situations.

Lead 8: Yes, but this is a pandemic, Mr Swinney. This is schools having to pivot to completely change the ways that they provide education and support to almost every child of school age in Scotland. This isn’t business as usual, is it?

Mr John Msp: No, it’s not. No, not in the slightest, no.

Lead 8: Can we look at “Potential key impact 3: Educational continuity”. So, again:

“If schools and early learning and childcare settings are required to close due to workforce/public health issues, or if pupils are required to self-isolate in accordance with public health advice, there could be impacts on educational continuity for [schools]. This will be particularly important for those pupils in the senior phase …”

Yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: That’s your advice to schools, yes?

Mr John Msp: That’s the advice, yes.

Lead 8: “At present, there is no change to the [public] National Qualifications 2020 examination …”

Yes? So that’s a bit of an explanation that at that point in time exams hadn’t changed; is that correct?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: And then again the same wording:

“We believe it will be important to have confidence that the following key issues have been considered and addressed:

“• Do local authorities have plans in place to ensure the educational continuity for pupils in the event of localised school closures or a requirement for pupils to self-isolate?”

Yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: So, again, this isn’t the Scottish Government providing plans, guidance, ensuring consistency across Scotland; you’re asking them if they have plans.

Mr John Msp: Because that’s ultimately where, in a situation where there is, at that moment, we are still dealing with a situation that is contemplating the likelihood of localised impacts, those terms are essentially trying to avoid any inequity for pupils because they, for example, have got to self-isolate or their school individually has got to close. And we are trying to establish that there needs to be protection in place for children and young people in such circumstances.

We also say very shortly thereafter, from this, the writing of this note, have to contemplate a whole-systems school closures and that’s a very different scenario altogether.

Lead 8: I’m going to come on to that. I’m just going to stay with this advice that you were providing to local authorities and schools.

If we go over the page, please, to “Potential key impact 4: Vulnerable children”, and then in parenthesis, “(free school meals, underlying conditions)”:

“If schools and early learning and childcare settings are required to close due to workforce/public health issues … or if pupils are required to self-isolate in accordance with public health advice, this may result in children who are in receipt of free school meals, including those in early learning and childcare being unable to attend school. This could have an impact on the welfare of children.”

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: Is that the height of the advice being provided about vulnerable children in schools at this stage?

Mr John Msp: Well, this is set against the established ethos within Scottish education where, across the board, we are focusing, or the system is focused on concepts such as ‘Getting it right for every child’, which is an underpinning of our approach shared between Scottish Government and local authorities about ensuring that the individual circumstances of individual children are properly and fully considered in support that’s available through the education system. So that is the policy backdrop. That is the context in which schools are operating. And what the government is setting out here is how that established, longstanding policy approach will continue to be applied in the changed and challenging circumstances that we were wrestling with.

Lead 8: I just want to, and perhaps this is a good place to end before the adjournment, Mr Swinney, if we go to paragraph 99 of your statement – that’s at page 30 – where you are explaining:

“That is not to say that I was not acutely aware of the potential and likely impacts of the decisions to close schools.”

And if I follow that down to the final couple of sentences:

“Our joint letter with CoSLA sent to all Directors of Education on 13 March 2020 illustrates the depth of our shared understanding of the potential range of impacts and, critically, a desire to do everything we could to get on the front foot in terms of preparedness for mitigating those impacts …”

Is that right, Mr Swinney, that this letter of 13 March which we’ve just gone through, is that really what it does: demonstrate the depth of your knowledge and understanding as to the potential ramifications of school closures?

Mr John Msp: At that moment I think it does, because I hold to my view that at that moment we were trying to avoid school closures if we possibly could do. And indeed, I narrate that in my statement, that – and as I said earlier on in my evidence, it was not my preference to close schools. I wanted to avoid that if I possibly could do. So the advice at that moment was focused very much on the implications that we knew at that time of the potential interruption and disruption to education that would be faced by ad hoc closures, for example. Because on 13 March 2020 it was not, at that stage, part of my thinking that we would have whole-scale school closures at that time, and I was trying to avoid that if I possibly could do.

Lead 8: Mr Swinney, you’ve answered, I think, a different question, and you answered again by reference to the fact that you didn’t want to close schools. My question is really, it’s whether – my question was really whether it is correct, and that the Inquiry should proceed on the basis, that this letter of 13 March demonstrates your deep knowledge and understanding of the potential implications of closing schools to children, be it ad hoc school closures or general school closures, as at 13 March 2020?

Mr John Msp: Well, I think the letter does – fulfils that purpose, the purpose for which I specified that it was set out.

Ms Dobbin: Thank you.

My Lady, is that an appropriate or a good time to have a break?

Lady Hallett: Certainly.

You’ll remember, Mr Swinney, after your experience, we have a break for the stenographer. So I’ll see everybody again at 3.20.

(3.05 pm)

(A short break)

(3.19 pm)

Ms Dobbin: Thank you, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Ms Dobbin.

Ms Dobbin: Mr Swinney, I wonder if we could pick up the chronologically, please, and we’ll stay on 13 March. We have some emails that were sent on this date, and that’s INQ000520437, and if we could go to page 2 where this starts.

Thank you.

This, it would appear, was an email sent to the then First Minister, yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And it sets out:

“You asked for advice [as to] what steps we have asked local authorities to put in place for [school] resilience during the outbreak and what assurance we have that this is being done. This note summarises the current position.”

So it would appear that the First Minister saw no difficulty in asking local authorities to put things in place in order to support resilience; is that right?

Mr John Msp: Yes, that’s what we’d expect, yes.

Lead 8: Right. So there isn’t – perhaps we’re at cross purposes, Mr Swinney. So the government can ask local authorities to put things in place to support school resilience?

Mr John Msp: Yes, that’s been the substance of my answers to say (inaudible).

Lead 8: So you can ask; the issue, is that you can’t mandate that it’s done. Is that the distinction you’re trying to draw?

Mr John Msp: That’s exactly right. It’s essentially recognising what the statute says, which is that the operation of delivery of education in Scotland is delivered by local authorities.

Lead 8: Yes, thank you, Mr Swinney. I may have misunderstood. I thought you were trying to suggest that it was difficult for the Scottish Government – I’ll just check, we may have lost the chair.

Sorry, Mr Swinney. Ah.

My Lady, may I just check, we lost you for a moment. Oh, and you’re on mute. I take it from that you didn’t miss anything?

Lady Hallett: Sorry, I turned the camera off because I spilt something.

Ms Dobbin: Ah, okay. Unfortunately that wasn’t apparent to us. But thank you, my Lady.

So Mr Swinney, coming back to this, and I’m grateful for the clarification, then. There’s no problem about asking, the issue is you can’t require it; yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: Thank you.

Mr John Msp: Forgive me, Ms Dobbin, which is why I’ve been suggesting – why I have been taking the approach which is that I was keen to create a collaborative environment, because I felt that we could only, as a community in Scotland, navigate our way through these difficulties if there was a collaborative environment between the government and local authorities, and that’s underpinning my approach here and the expectations of the First Minister in the note that you’ve drawn to my attention.

Lead 8: Yes. So just moving on and she asking what steps had been asked of local authorities. I mean, I’m not going to go back over the note that had just been sent. It wasn’t asking for things to be done, it was asking them to essentially provide you with confidence about what the state of their planning was; yes?

Mr John Msp: Right.

Lead 8: And if we look at paragraph 1, for example, it sets out:

“As part of regular resilience and business continuity planning [purposes], local authorities will have a range of measures in place to deal with the immediate impacts of school closures”, and that this might include snow packs; is that right?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: And if we just go over the page, please, and then we can pick up the interrelationship between this email and the letter that we have just seen. It sets out:

“We have had regular discussions” –

I won’t read all of this out, Mr Swinney, but:

“… Cosla, SOLACE and …”

The Association of – I think that’s of Education – yes:

“… (the Association of Directors of Education …) about contingency planning … Cosla’s view is that many local authorities will already have well-developed plans in place similar to those seen in Shetland …”

That’s a reference to the outbreak you were talking about; yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: So “local authorities will … have”, that’s not a “local authorities do have”; no?

Mr John Msp: Correct.

Lead 8: And you hadn’t seen any plans by that point; is that also correct?

Mr John Msp: Other than seeing the practical implementation of the arrangements in Shetland, no, I had not seen plans from every local authority in the country, no, I hadn’t.

Lead 8: That’s why we see paragraph 6:

“However, to gain greater assurance, we have been working to secure agreement from Cosla and the Scottish Resilience Partnership to (a) issue some key potential impact scenarios …”

And we’ve just seen those; correct?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And if we read down, (c) to:

“… ask what further support they may require.”

Mr John Msp: Correct.

Lead 8: And then it sets out the main potential impacts.

And if we go, please, to page 1 of this, it sets out that:

“The First Minister noted and commented that this was very helpful.”

That she said that COSLA needed to be encouraged to accelerate the planning, and:

“… consequently gain assurance for us that plans are in place in the event we get to a situation where the general advice to school is to close, potentially for quite a lengthy period.”

Yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And then:

“[The First Minister] is particularly keen to know what plans are in place for remote learning …”

And again, then, reference there to what might be done to allow the children of healthcare workers to be looked after.

And I think it’s right, isn’t it, Mr Swinney, in terms of what plans were in place for remote learning, we’ve seen reference to you writing to schools to remind them that they have access to Glow; correct?

Mr John Msp: Correct.

Lead 8: It doesn’t go beyond that, I don’t think, but please say if it does.

Mr John Msp: Well, the other measures that would be in place are the availability of, at that time, eSchool, which was a remote learning proposition that was available, and the support of Education Scotland to assist local authorities and schools. And obviously at that particular time we also had collaborative arrangements in place at regional level within Scotland which helped with work on school improvement, which was a key priority, and some of that impacted ultimately on remote learning.

Lead 8: Mr Swinney, when did the penny drop with the Scottish Government as to the gravity of the situation and the reality of schools having to close on a long-term basis? When did that crystallise?

Mr John Msp: I think it would be, it would be in the air around about the time of this exchange, around about the weekend of 14 March. And if I go to the situation that, you know, over the course of that period culminating in the cabinet meeting on 17 March, we discussed at the cabinet meeting on 17 March the current situation with the pandemic. We were considering what were the right steps to take generally about the situation that we faced, and what degree of restrictions might have to come in place, and at that cabinet meeting I took the view and shared it with colleagues that I was not at that stage – did not at that stage believe that – well, I wanted to avoid any school closures before the Easter break. I hoped that the Easter break could give us a bit of a firewall in the spread of the pandemic with the schools not meeting at that time, but it was – but that situation changed dramatically over the course of that day, 17 March, leading into 18 March when we ultimately took the decision that we couldn’t sustain the schools being opened for much longer, and indeed made the announcement, which I confirmed to Parliament on 19 March, that schools would close on the 20th.

Lead 8: So are you suggesting that it was only on 17 March that it crystallised that schools may have to close, and on a long-term basis; is that right?

Mr John Msp: I don’t think – the word “crystallised” suggests that we weren’t thinking about it. We were thinking about it, but we were hoping that we could avoid it, is the best way I can express it to the Inquiry. And because, you know, I remember quite vividly speaking to cabinet on the morning of 17 March, and saying, as I’ve just narrated, that I hoped that we could avoid school closures, but as the day proceeded and as I got more intelligence from around the country and around the education system, it became more apparent to me how difficult it was going to sustain the education system because of the incidents of Covid and also the degree of alarm and concern that there was amongst teachers and families and amongst children, and the increasing concern that was being represented to me through the education system that our school system would face challenges in being able to be safely operated with the degree of staff absence, for example, that we were having to contemplate.

Lead 8: Can we pick up that issue, then, in the advice that was provided to you on 17 March 2020.

This is INQ000256717. If I could go to page 1, please.

So this was advice provided to you about the closure of schools, early learning, and childcare settings. We can see that from paragraph 1, yes?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: And if we go over the page and just to pick up the point you’ve made, it refers, doesn’t it, to there being very significant and building pressures in respect of public confidence?

Mr John Msp: Correct.

Lead 8: Schools finding it difficult to hold the line, being inundated with parental concerns and decline in pupil attendance; yes?

Mr John Msp: Correct.

Lead 8: Paragraph 8 reflects that there was now a need for decisive action; correct? Yes?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes, yes.

Lead 8: Sorry, didn’t mean to hurry you.

Then we’ve got “Options for school closures – how can we best protect key interests?” I won’t read all of this out, Mr Swinney, but we can see “educational continuity”, the suggestion there that pupils would be able to go to school in order to complete some of their course work, I think that relates to exams, doesn’t it?

Mr John Msp: Correct.

Lead 8: Vulnerable children, so recognition here, I think we see a couple of lines down, “Many more families may become vulnerable (redundancies, zero hours contracts)”; yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: Health vulnerabilities, as well?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: Paragraph 11, I think reflection of the line that you – that had been taken to date:

“Our view is that it must be for local authorities to make the arrangements … most suited to their local circumstances.”

Yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: “Most … authorities are taking similar approaches”; correct?

Mr John Msp: Correct.

Lead 8: And then we see the reference there:

“Some local authorities may struggle to keep their entire school estate open on a partial basis, and may wish to make other arrangements … for example through ‘hubs’ across groups of schools or supervised activities …”

Correct?

Mr John Msp: Correct.

Lead 8: And then if we come down – I’m going to paragraph 12, please, it says:

“Even if we promote a local approach, there are actions we can take at national level to support local authorities in developing and implementing local solutions.”

Yes?

Mr John Msp: Correct, yeah.

Lead 8: So promotion of a local approach; correct?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: But recognition that there was action that could be taken; yes?

Mr John Msp: Correct, yes.

Lead 8: And that was action that had not been taken until that point?

Mr John Msp: Well, it’s action that’s contemplating a more widespread problem, because essentially the advice up until then has been about ad hoc school closures. What this submission is contemplating is essentially widespread closures.

So, in the ad hoc arrangements, there would be – what would be envisaged as is narrated in this submission, the availability, as indicated on page 3 of the implementation in Shetland, of a hub arrangement. This was a concept that I think, as the documents show, was quite regularly considered to be an approach around the country. So, essentially, it was – what this advice is indicating is that there are approaches that can be deployed to deal with the situation of a widespread school closure situation, and, for example, the hub arrangement is one that could be utilised and in fact was utilised in many parts of the country.

Lead 8: Yes, I’ll come back to that. I’m just going to go to paragraph 16. And it says:

“In advance of receiving feedback from local authorities tomorrow we cannot be certain that appropriate arrangements are under development across all local authorities. The timing and the sequencing of any announcement on school closures is therefore of critical importance – getting this right could help relieve some of the pressures/anxiety …”

Yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And then at paragraph 18:

“On balance, we believe that an early announcement … is needed … Our judgement is that, in view of building public pressure, it’s highly unlikely we will be able to keep … schools open until the Easter holiday.”

Yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And then I don’t think I need to go through the rest of this, but it deals with the fact that you didn’t have a legal power to close schools, but that wasn’t going to stop, was it, you in fact making a decision or asking schools to close; correct?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: So, Mr Swinney, is the reality of all of this that on 17 March, the Scottish Government did not have a plan for school closures? There wasn’t a document that set out any sort of planning or guidance, was there, to schools, as to how they should or how they could, or asking them to do anything in terms of the maintenance of education for children?

Mr John Msp: I would contend that the various submissions and communications to Directors of Education that we have considered so far are the documents that demonstrate what we were contributing as advice and guidance to the school system to deal with an unprecedented set of circumstances, whilst respecting the fact that statutory responsibility for the delivery of education lay with local authorities across the 32 local authority areas in Scotland.

Now, what we faced ultimately on 17, 18 March – and perhaps if I could explain the arrangements around about powers. On the arrangements for closure of school, the power lies with a local authority to close a school. That invariably in history in Scotland, that’s been mainly about weather-related incidents or about, perhaps, a public health outbreak in an individual locality, maybe a norovirus outbreak or something of that type, and the powers are very localised in that respect. So a director of public health can make a – can take a decision to close a school based on public health issues. A local authority can close a school because it’s difficult to access because of weather issues.

When it comes to – as we found out on Covid, when it comes to a national closure programme, the powers did not exist on 17 March 2020 for that to be undertaken. Hence why I’d invested so much time in creating a collaborative environment with local authorities so that when it came to the point where somebody had to say, “The schools are going to have to close”, there would not be a body of opinion saying, “We don’t agree with that” because we’d built up the agreement to get to that point, which I recognised was unavoidable by the time we got to 18 March.

Lead 8: Mr Swinney, by 17 March, parents and families were voting with their feet, weren’t they? We’ve already seen that referred to in this advice to you: schools were finding it hard to hold the line; correct?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: And the Scottish Government hadn’t done anything before that point in order to stop it reaching this point, had it?

Mr John Msp: Well, I think we had set out the guidance that was set out –

Lead 8: Right.

Mr John Msp: – but there was increasing public alarm about the situation which we had to respond to.

Lead 8: So just coming back to these points, the Scottish Government had plans, as reflected in the letters we have been through, is that your position –

Mr John Msp: (inaudible).

Lead 8: – these are the plans; correct?

Mr John Msp: Correct, yeah.

Lead 8: And you didn’t know what plans local authorities had in place because you hadn’t actually seen them, had you?

Mr John Msp: No, but I was respecting the statutory duty of local authorities to prepare for the continuity of education at local level.

Lead 8: Yes, but Mr Swinney, you would want to see, wouldn’t you want to have some idea as to what those plans looked like and to ensure that children in Scotland were going to actually have continuity of education and child protection arrangements, wouldn’t you?

Mr John Msp: Yes, and I would contend that I was exercising my duty to do that. But I was also doing that in a way that was respectful of the statutory right of local authorities to deliver education at local level, and there would be, you know, there would be significant, you know, in putting this in a context, there is a very careful and delicate balance that is pursued, that has to be pursued by education ministers in Scotland who, as I’ve said on a number of occasions already this afternoon, carry ultimate responsibility for the delivery of education in Scotland, but the operational delivery is, by statute, the responsibility of local authorities.

So I didn’t feel I could – well, I felt I had to respect the statutory arrangements that were in place in Scotland in all of that preparatory period. I was keen to nurture a collaborative environment with local authorities to make sure that we could navigate our way through an incredibly difficult set of judgements at that time.

Lead 8: And you had no certainty, did you, as to what appropriate arrangements were under development across all local authorities in Scotland? That’s correct, isn’t it?

Mr John Msp: I was aware that, as the documentation that’s in front of us indicates, that local authorities would be having discussions amongst the local authority communities about some of the models for educational continuity, which would include the concepts such as the hub arrangement that had been put in place in Shetland in early March.

Lead 8: I am going to come to the hub arrangements, Mr Swinney, but do you accept that you made the decision, and I’m putting to one side the issue as to whether you had the power – you don’t dispute, do you, you came to a decision that schools had to close, yes?

Mr John Msp: I came to that conclusion, yes.

Lead 8: And did you come to that conclusion effectively blind to what the state of planning was across Scotland for that eventuality?

Mr John Msp: I wouldn’t say blind, but I felt I also had no alternative but to announce the closure of schools.

Lead 8: Yes, and you had no alternative, and you ended up in this position, didn’t you, because you hadn’t taken effective steps at an earlier stage to start planning for this prospect?

Mr John Msp: I have rehearsed with the Inquiry this afternoon that the steps that we were taking in a relatively short space of time were steps working in partnership with local authorities to address an unprecedented set of circumstances.

Lead 8: Have you reflected, in retrospect, Mr Swinney, why you didn’t act on the information that was available from SAGE from February 2020 onwards in order to put in place or to take more effective steps so that planning was at a more advanced stage by the time you made the announcement or the decision to close schools?

Mr John Msp: Well, I was trying to focus on the sustainability of education as my priority. I did not want to take steps to move to school closures. And then in relation to the question about SAGE’s advice and the advice that was sent to me on 17 March by the director of – the Learning Directorate in the Scottish Government, in paragraph 4 it says:

“We understand that SAGE is now expected to recommend on Thursday that school closure is the appropriate course of action.”

So up until that moment, the word “now” is critical in that statement, that up until then, SAGE had not been recommending school closures as the appropriate action.

Lead 8: Why is it critical, Mr Swinney? School closures had been contemplated by SAGE in February. We’ve already rehearsed that. You weren’t going to wait until they actually recommended it to start doing any planning, were you? I mean, you’d –

Mr John Msp: Education was not operating in a compartment of its own. It was operating within the wider suite of public policy where we were trying to avoid the situation where the spread of the virus would become so widespread that it would require us, as we eventually found ourselves in on 18 March, having to take a decision to close schools, because, as all of our communication indicates, the closure of schools was an element of the process that we regretted the most, and wanted to avoid the most.

Lead 8: But none of that precluded you from starting to put in detailed planning in order to deal with the ramifications of closing schools, did it?

Mr John Msp: What I’ve rehearsed with the Inquiry this afternoon is that we were taking steps to work collaboratively with our local authorities who are responsible for the delivery of education at local level. And if I had tried – if I’d started, on 27 February, by issuing directives about what schools had to do and what schools hadn’t to do, beyond what I was doing, I think I would have had quite significant – a quite significant backlash from the local authority community in Scotland, and I was intent on working, given the gravity of the situation, in a collaborative way with local authorities to try to address these issues.

Lead 8: Mr Swinney, I’m going to move on, then, to one of the elements of the Scottish Government’s policy, and I think this is an area where the Scottish Government did provide guidance, and this relates to its vulnerable children policy. Yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And you did provide guidance, didn’t you, to help local authorities identify those children who should be able to attend hub schools; yes?

Mr John Msp: We did, yes.

Lead 8: And that policy, it didn’t work, did it, insofar as the number of children who attended those schools was extremely low indeed?

Mr John Msp: Well, we were providing support in a number of different ways. Some of that was through the education system, where, I think in summary I would characterise it as hub arrangements were in place in different – on a fairly extensive basis around the country, a very extensive basis around the country, and then there was also the support that was being provided through public services in the support to families in the home to support vulnerability in a variety of different ways, and that would be through the intervention of social work staff, and the provision of wider financial food and service support to families in their own homes.

Lead 8: I’m just focusing on hub schools for a moment, Mr Swinney. Those had been set up to enable the children of critical workers and vulnerable children to attend; yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And what was the purpose of drawing up criteria so that vulnerable children could attend that provision?

Mr John Msp: To make available that option to ensure that we could support families that were facing vulnerability, but it was not the only intervention to support families with vulnerabilities.

Lead 8: No, I’m not suggesting that; I’m just asking why there was specific provision made for those children so that they could go somewhere other than being in their homes?

Mr John Msp: It was essentially to recognise the vulnerability of those children, and to support them as effectively as we could.

Lead 8: It was a safeguarding measure, wasn’t it?

Mr John Msp: Yes, it was, yes.

Lead 8: And it was a safeguarding measure for the obvious reason that children who are at risk in their home would be better being somewhere else where they’re safe and looked after by other adults; correct?

Mr John Msp: Correct, but it wasn’t the only safeguarding measure in place.

Lead 8: No. And insofar as that was one of your policy interventions, I accept there may have been others, do you accept that it failed because of the very low number of children who made use of that provision, but in particular the very low number of children from vulnerable families who used it?

Mr John Msp: No, because there were other interventions available that were regularly reported upon to ministers.

Lead 8: So it doesn’t matter, then, that children took up the places at such a low level; is that what you’re saying?

Mr John Msp: I’m not saying that, I’m saying that there were other interventions that were available.

Lead 8: I’m going to go, if I may, to INQ000651635.

This is a presentation from Scottish Women’s Aid. You’ve set out the figures, Mr Swinney, in your statement, as to the numbers of children who attended, so I’m not going to take you through that. But if we look, please, at page 6 of this document:

“Fewer than 4.5% [of children and young people] with multi-agency plans accessing hubs …

“Processes for school spaces patchy across Scotland.”

We see at the bottom:

“Only 30% of [Women’s Aid] groups reported being able to make referrals for vulnerable [children and young people] to school spaces through a local process.”

Page 7. I think it says at the top they also had difficulty in getting access to them for their own staff. And it goes on to explain that despite its ties with the local Violence Against Women Partnership, not approached or made aware of discussions regarding spaces for vulnerable children and young people.

And then we can read on:

“… due to internal council confusion as to where responsibility sat regarding vulnerable children accessing spaces, the situation did not change for the entirety of lockdown. There were available spaces in the hubs throughout the lockdown period.”

And if we may, over the page, page 10, please. Sorry, it’s page 10. Forgive me.

“The patchy local provision of school spaces for children living with domestic abuse, and the lack of engagement with specialist support services delivered an outcome: the failure to protect some of the most vulnerable children in Scotland.”

Mr Swinney, do you accept that? Do you accept that the reality on the ground was that children who could have done with being out of their homes and in a hub and kept safe were failed?

Mr John Msp: Well, I obviously very much respect the evidence put forward by Scottish Women’s Aid, but I think there were other interventions, as I talked about, that were available to provide assurance on the fulfilment of child protection issues. So there were was regular reporting, which the Chief Social Work Adviser in the Scottish Government presided over, engaging with local authorities about the contact with families, and there was also interaction with Police Scotland on this information, as well, in providing a picture of the degree to which children that were living in, you know, children in a child protection situation were being properly supported.

But these conclusions from Scottish Women’s Aid are difficult to refute, despite the other data that I had available to me during the pandemic.

Lead 8: But Mr Swinney, aren’t they making a really obvious point, putting aside the data: first of all, that school is of critical importance to vulnerable children because it is the place they go to for safety, where they are observed, taken care of, offered support; yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And no amount of social work or contact with a family can help to replicate that, can it?

Mr John Msp: I wouldn’t take that view. I think there are other interventions that can be made available to try to protect children. I accept that a primary objective of our approach has got to be to make sure children are well supported in school. I’d always want that to be the case. That’s why I was so reluctant to close schools at any stage.

But in the context of the situation we faced, there were a range of interventions, one of which was the hubs, but others were the interaction of social worker and local authority personnel and third sector organisations that were working extensively to support families in their own homes.

Lead 8: I’m going to move on, Mr Swinney, to the separate issue of exam assessment. This issue relates, doesn’t it, to the decisions that were made about the assessment of children in 2020, the assessment of all of those children in Scotland who would have been doing public examinations; correct?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And on 18 March 2020, you commissioned the Scottish Qualifications Authority to arrive at a process of assessment for those children who were going to sit those public exams; is that right?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And at paragraph 179 of your statement, this is on page 94 – sorry, 49, you say:

“The SQA went on to develop a model based on the principles of fairness to all learners; the safe and secure certification of qualifications, in accordance with public health advice; the maintaining of integrity and credibility … [and] ensuring that standards were maintained over time in the interests of learners.”

The model developed didn’t achieve any of those things, did it?

Mr John Msp: The model was designed to achieve those objectives, and as I narrate in my statement later on, the model essentially demonstrated the delivery of an exam – a set of exam results that were consistent with the principle of maintaining standards, and which demonstrated an improvement in the attainment of learners from deprived backgrounds and the closure of the attainment gap within our education system.

But what the exam did not do was deliver the estimates that had been put in place by teachers, and that was the issue that I had, ultimately, to confront in the aftermath of the publication of the exam results.

Lead 8: Have you read the Priestley report, Mr Swinney?

Mr John Msp: Yes, I have, yes.

Lead 8: Maybe we’ll come to that, to see what the Priestley report said, but do you disagree with the findings of the Priestley report?

Mr John Msp: I accepted the findings of the Priestley report.

Lead 8: Okay. Well, we’ll come and look at that in a second.

You set out at paragraph 183 of your statement part of a press release that was set out by the SQA. I think I can take this fairly quickly, but it’s right, isn’t it, that the bit – you haven’t quoted all of it but I don’t think this is controversial, that what they explained was that schools and colleges would provide estimates of the grade bands and rank order for each learner for each of the courses at National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher. Yes? You understood that that was part of the approach to moderation that would be taken, yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And I think at paragraph 184 you set out the update that you were provided with by the SQA, and it explains – thank you – and I think we can see it, it’s about four paragraphs down:

“Prior attainment data is also not available … This means we will not use a purely statistical approach to moderation.”

Correct?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: Did that ring any alarm bells with you when they said that it wouldn’t be purely statistical?

Mr John Msp: I don’t think it did, no.

Lead 8: And you didn’t ask any questions about how this model would work or how it would moderate children’s assessed grades?

Mr John Msp: I think it’s important to recognise the way in which our approach to examination is undertaken in Scotland. Essentially, the conducting of the examination system is undertaken at arm’s length from the government by the Scottish Qualifications Authority. So – and my view in all of this was that, having taken a decision which I felt I had to take, given the nature of the pandemic, to see that the exam diet could not go forward, I had to enable the Scottish Qualifications Authority to deliver an exam diet to the best of their ability, recognising the importance, which I think was highlighted in the – some of the earlier material, in a way which would maintain standards within the education system, so that people could have confidence in the qualifications that they had achieved.

Lead 8: So is actually your short answer, Mr Swinney, “No I didn’t ask any questions about it”?

Mr John Msp: Well, it’s essentially, it’s the – I was respecting the arrangements that we have in place, which is that there is an arm’s length system for the undertaking of our examination approach in Scotland, and not one dictated or directed by ministers.

Lead 8: And is asking questions about how grades are going to be arrived at, is that dictating an outcome?

Mr John Msp: No, but I would have, you know, I would have had dialogue with the SQA about these issues, but I can’t recall any particular discussions that we had.

Lead 8: So what about when concerns were raised directly with you in mid-July 2020 by Johann Lamont? I understand he’s a member of the Scottish Parliament.

If you need a reminder of that –

Mr John Msp: Actually – it’s actually Johann Lamont.

Lead 8: Ah, forgive me.

We have that at INQ000182832, and just so that we can be clear, this is the Priestley report that was commissioned by you, wasn’t it, Mr Swinney, after this arose?

And if we could look at page 25, please. So we can see, if we just read from the top, that you were sent a letter in July dealing, or detailing comments that had been made by constituents; yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes, I see that, yes.

Lead 8: And explaining that one of the ways that – and I’m paraphrasing, Mr Swinney – that moderation would be undertaken was that pupils’ grades would be changed to ensure attainment in line with the prior attainment of that centre; yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And making the point that this would disproportionately punish schools in the most deprived communities; yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: So this is drawn to your attention in mid-July; correct?

Mr John Msp: Correct.

Lead 8: And this isn’t any sort of complicated issue about an algorithm, is it? What’s being pointed out to you is a principled problem with the approach that was going to be taken; correct?

Mr John Msp: I think that’s a way of describing it, yes.

Lead 8: And it would appear that Ms Lamont’s constituents were able to point out this problem to you; yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes, but I think if, going back to the point that was made earlier about the communication from the SQA, I think it was far from certain that that would be the case, or that could not be demonstrated at that time.

Lead 8: So can I be clear about this: did you raise this concern with the SQA? Did you say, “Look, ordinary people are pointing out there’s a problem with the approach you’re taking; can you tell me about it”?

Mr John Msp: I don’t recall doing that because I was taking the view that I had essentially commissioned the SQA to undertake the design of an alternative certification model, and to make sure that all of the principles that we rehearsed earlier on around about fairness, about the delivery of reliable qualifications, about the reflection of attainment, that the SQA would be operating to fulfil that mandate.

Lead 8: So you’re a bystander, essentially? People can tell you there’s a problem here, and you can do nothing about it; is that right?

Mr John Msp: I wouldn’t characterise it as that. It’s respecting the fact that there is an approach taken in Scotland which was that we should have qualifications certificated by an external body, and that external body should apply professional judgement to enable that to be undertaken in the interests of fairness to all learners.

Lead 8: I’ll come back to fairness, if I may, Mr Swinney. But what Dr Priestley, I think it is, goes on to explain is what the constituents of Ms Lamont had pointed out was that this outcome might have been anticipated, and Dr Priestley goes on to explain why that was likely to happen, at paragraphs 1 and 2; correct?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: And then he goes on to explain, in the following paragraphs, what it was that went wrong with the model that was adopted, and I think the line or the description that he uses on a number of occasions in this report is that it’s “arbitrary”; correct?

Mr John Msp: Correct.

Lead 8: And do you understand why he regards it or thought that it had arbitrary elements?

Mr John Msp: I understand why Professor Priestley takes that view, yes.

Lead 8: And sorry, is that a view you disagree with?

Mr John Msp: No, I can see why that view has justification.

Lead 8: And if we – and I’m just going to point to some of the evidence he points out also for this, if we could look at page 26. Sorry, page 25 – yes, 26, sorry, by the INQ reference. Thank you.

So in the second paragraph here, he’s explaining, isn’t he, some of the evidence that had been presented by schools as to what had happened. So although the 2020 grade distribution at the level of schools broadly resembled historical grade distributions, there were huge variations between the 2020 results and the historical trends for some subjects.

And he goes on, doesn’t he, to say that there were many candidates whose grades were moderated down in an apparently arbitrated way.

Lady Hallett: Are we on the right page?

Ms Dobbin: Ah, yes, forgive me, I’m looking at my hard copy. It’s the second paragraph down “Some schools presented …”

So it picks up “there were huge” – forgive me.

And goes on to point out, doesn’t it:

“Conversely, mediocre students in high-performing schools may be unduly rewarded with higher than their estimated grades.”

And he goes on to say that whilst the latter problem was far less discussed in the media than the former one, that many teachers felt very strongly about that as well; yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: So this is – and in fact what the entire tenor, I think, of this report, Mr Swinney, suggests is that this is about unfairness at the level of the individual child; correct?

Mr John Msp: Correct.

Lead 8: And if we go on, there were also problems, weren’t there – so problem 1 was the issue that had been drawn to your attention in July. Problem 2 was that there was no equalities assessment; correct? For a very considerable period of time.

Mr John Msp: It was undertaken, but – as part of the exercise, but not at the earliest moment.

Lead 8: Now, if we could pick up, please, on page 33, and it’s the paragraph second one down, that begins “Moreover”, and if we read a few lines down:

“Concerns about the absence of an Equalities Impact Assessment … were raised as early as May by the Scottish Parliament … At this point, the [Deputy First]” –

I’m sorry, I’m skipping down a couple of lines, Mr Swinney.

“At this point, the [Deputy First Minister] stated it was a matter for the SQA …”

Yes? So you – second problem, but that’s a matter for the SQA as well; is that right?

Mr John Msp: That’s consistent with the view that I have expressed to you that this was – you know, I’d commissioned the Scottish Qualifications Authority to take – to design an alternative certification model to replace exams, and it was – essentially, I was respecting that independence of judgement to be applied by the SQA, given the principles that I’d set out that had to be undertaken.

Lead 8: So that’s problem 2.

If we go over the page, please, to page 34 – thank you – problem 3 was that the SQA were in serious difficulties about doing an equalities assessment. That’s right, isn’t it?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: Because they didn’t actually have access to any of the data that you would need in order to be able to do an equalities assessment. They didn’t have data about the protected characteristics of the children who were doing the exams; yes?

Mr John Msp: Correct.

Lead 8: So that’s problem 3.

And they approached the government about that, didn’t they?

Mr John Msp: That’s correct, yes.

Lead 8: And what did you do about that?

Mr John Msp: From my recollection, I think we made analytical support available, I think, to the SQ – but I’m not certain about that.

Lead 8: Well, I think from reading the Priestley report, the decision was taken that the Scottish Government couldn’t take pre-moderation data, and apply or, as I understand it, provide the data. So, I mean, the Priestley report suggests that that couldn’t be done.

Mr John Msp: I can’t recall the detail of that.

Lead 8: It says:

“Two alternative approaches to this analysis were not subsequently possible …”

I’m looking at page 33, thank you.

“… SQA’s view was that they could not take receipt of equalities data from government … and the government deemed that it could not undertake … analysis prior to [the] results day as this might be seen as an unwarranted interference in the workings of an independent exams regulator.”

Mr John Msp: Okay, I’m grateful for the reminder of that point, but I can recognise and understand both of those points.

Lead 8: So, problem with the fairness of the model brought to your attention in July; correct?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: Absence of an equalities impact assessment drawn to your attention in May; yes?

Mr John Msp: Correct.

Lead 8: Criticism in this report that that analysis wasn’t carried out until the last moment. You might recollect that, Mr Swinney?

Mr John Msp: Yes, certainly later in the process.

Lead 8: And then an equality impact assessment that couldn’t be effective because there wasn’t a way to resolve the problem with the data that would have been needed to do it; is that correct?

Mr John Msp: (Inaudible).

Lead 8: And still, could you not intervene or custody or suggest how this was going to be resolved?

Mr John Msp: I don’t think all of those issues would have crystallised until a very, very late stage in the exam process. And indeed, in the information that was shared with me in advance of the publication of the exam results, which would be a matter of days, the exam results would have come out on Tuesday, 4 August, and days before that, on 30 July, I would have been given a briefing on the contents of the exam results, and what that showed was that young people in the lowest Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation bandings were not adversely affected by the revision of the estimates. So in the information available to me, that was what was presented to me on 30 July.

Lead 8: Shall we just look at that? If we look at page 34 of the Priestley report, and if we look, please, at the paragraph that begins “The circumstances outlined above”, so those are all of the circumstances that Dr Priestley has described in the report:

“… seem to have led to a situation where some of the impacts of the moderation model were not fully anticipated or mitigated. We have, for example, found little evidence in email communications between or public statements by the SQA and the government that the equity nuances had been anticipated or publicly acknowledged (even fully understood) prior to the furore that erupted after the publication of results. Emails for example, those sent internally on 4 August) suggest a government priority to defend the position that the system is fair on low [I think that’s socially economically disadvantaged] students in the face of accusations that low SES centres were more likely to have their awards downgraded (eg, emails about suggested lines of argument to justify the position). Within this dichotomous argument, some implications were clearly grasped …”

Then it goes on to say:

“… but the focus on this, combined with a lack of systematic statistical analysis at a fine grained level, seems to have obscured other effects …”

That’s essentially what you’re trying to do in this Inquiry, it seems, Mr Swinney, is to carry on with the line that somehow the way that these results were produced isn’t that bad, because of the discrepancies or because of the disadvantage gap; is that correct?

Mr John Msp: How I would characterise it is that the general position that was presented to me in the normal fashion of a minister hearing about the exam results, which is to be briefed a matter of days beforehand with no prior knowledge of the contents of the exam results, that there had been a situation where pupils in the most deprived areas had increased in their pass rate at a sharper rate than those in the least deprived areas, and there had been a narrowing of the attainment gap. But what followed from the publication of the exam results was a demonstration of a much greater degree of adverse impact on young people in the difference between the estimates that had been supplied by their teaching centres, and the outcome of the exam results. And that that essentially presented a picture of disadvantage that concerned me in the aftermath of the exam results that had been published and concerned public opinion and Parliamentary opinion into the bargain.

Lead 8: At paragraph 189 of your statement, Mr Swinney, and this is on page 52, you carry on the line, and we can read this from the top:

“On results’ day, some of the ‘real life’ impacts of the outcomes … became clear.”

And you again restate there that:

“… the pass rate amongst pupils in the most deprived areas had increased at a sharper rate …”

I think the point that Dr Priestley was critical of.

“… schools in areas of higher deprivation had been downgraded more than schools in more affluent areas. This had left many young people feeling that their future had been determined by statistical modelling …”

It wasn’t a feeling, was it, Mr Swinney? That is what had happened to them; do you accept that?

Mr John Msp: I do, yes.

Lead 8: Right. And at the end of all of this, you did direct the SQA to reissue grades based solely on teacher judgement, didn’t you?

Mr John Msp: I did, yes.

Lead 8: So you were able to issue a direction which corrected the position, but only after the prediction that was made by the constituents came to pass; correct?

Mr John Msp: Correct.

Lead 8: And you had an opportunity to reflect on this in your statement, if we could go to paragraph 200 on page 54, please. Sorry, that’s page 54.

200:

“I have reflected on the events following the cancellation of the exam diet in March … many times …”

And your reflections set out at [paragraph] 201. I won’t read that out, Mr Swinney, but what it seems to amount to is your view that it was an opportunity to move away from an overreliance on exams to determine the future of young people. There’s absolutely no reflection there, is there, on the consequences that this disaster over exams had for young people?

Mr John Msp: Well, I reflect on that, I think, in other aspects of my statement where I made clear that I recognised that we had – you know, I had a – it was necessary for me to offer a direct apology to the pupils whose teacher estimates had been higher than their final award, at paragraph 195, and I set out – so I’d – I offered that direct apology to pupils, and I rectified the situation.

Lead 8: Didn’t the Children’s Commissioner of Scotland have to write to you after you issued that apology, because you said something in a BBC interview that seemed to entirely undermine it?

Mr John Msp: I don’t recall that, but I offered the direct apology to the young people of Scotland in a statement to the Scottish Parliament on the official record, and that is, obviously, a very open and longstanding statement of the regret and the apology I felt about the distress that was caused to young people at that time.

Lead 8: I’m going to move on then, if I may. There are some questions that Core Participants have asked, Mr Swinney.

First of all, I’m just going to go back in time a bit. Section 16 of the Coronavirus Act made specific provision for Scotland, didn’t it? It enabled Scotland to effectively – or gave a power so that local authorities didn’t have to comply with certain duties. Do you recollect that?

Mr John Msp: I do, yes.

Lead 8: So you could disapply duties in respect of preparing a young carer’s statement, regulations dealing with the identification of carers’ outcomes and the need for support; yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: The duty to assess the needs of a child affected by disability; correct?

Mr John Msp: Correct.

Lead 8: Those sorts of statutory duties.

Can I just ask, in terms of the supervision of that, or supervision of how that – those relaxations had been used, did the Scottish Government take up data from local authorities so that it could interrogate the extent to which those relaxations had been exercised?

Mr John Msp: In a – I would – I think if the Inquiry was looking for a tabular assessment on each of those factors, I think the answer would have to be no. But what the government was provided with by local authorities was information about engagement with families where there were vulnerabilities or where there were child protection circumstances, which was data that was collated by the Chief Social Work Adviser to the government and was the subject of, you know – the Chief Social Work Adviser has a lifetime career in child protection and child support, and it would have been the subject of interaction with local authorities about the delivery of those, of that support.

So, in that, in an assessment of engaging with families that faced – with children that faced vulnerabilities, then the answer to that question would be yes.

Lead 8: Right, but not a sort of systematic oversight as to how statutory relaxations were being used? I think that’s quite a simple question, Mr Swinney?

Mr John Msp: But I would contend in a general sense then, yes, that information was available to the government, because of the data that was provided to us by the office of the Chief Social Work Adviser.

Lead 8: All right. In your statement at paragraphs 445 to 456, you set out evidence about the use of remote education, and how it became more effective in the second set of school closures. Yes?

Mr John Msp: Yes.

Lead 8: Do you consider that remote education has a place in future options for educating children and young people outside its role as an emergency measure or indeed as part of an emergency measure?

Mr John Msp: As – as a complement to face-to-face learning, yes.

Lead 8: Thank you. And just this: one of the approaches that the Scottish Government took, Mr Swinney, was to allow children to ask questions of the First Minister, is that right? In other words, children were allowed to speak to her, I think, directly and to ask her questions?

Mr John Msp: I can’t – well, certainly there were various opportunities where we have interaction very shortly, the cabinet will meet with representatives of Children’s Parliament and the Scottish Youth Parliament and that’s been a habitual part of our work. I’m not familiar with other direct engagement, but the Inquiry may have information on that.

Lead 8: All right. It was more about the importance to the Scottish Government of being able to hear from children directly, Mr Swinney – (overspeaking) –

Mr John Msp: Well, that’s my point about the interaction that we have with, you know, the cabinet, for example, meets on an annual basis with representatives of the Children’s Parliament and the Scottish Youth Parliament, and the former First Minister and myself as current First Minister, engage actively with children and young people on a regular basis. I was at a discussion with children and young people just the week before last on the Cost of the School Day, so there are various opportunities for that interaction to take place.

Ms Dobbin: Thank you.

My Lady, I think there is a question from a Core Participant.

Lady Hallett: There are two, I think.

Ms Hannett first, please, for Long Covid Kids.

Questions From Ms Hannett KC

Ms Hannett: Thank you, my Lady.

Mr Swinney, I appear on behalf of Long Covid Kids and Long Covid Kids Scotland. I’m going to show you two documents on the screen and then ask you a question about those documents.

The first is INQ000470032, page 3, please.

I don’t know if that is being put up, my Lady. Ah brilliant, thank you very much.

Mr Swinney, this is an internal email exchange with the Scottish Government at the end of July 2021 and you’ll see on the page that’s on the screen, just below the sort of main email that you can see, below “Hi, Orlando”, you’ll see that it sets out:

“… [The First Minister] is concerned that we seem to be taking decisions based on a view that Covid is not a serious risk to children, when there still seems to be a lot of scientific disagreement on risks of, for example, Long Covid …”

That’s the first document.

The second document is INQ000530236, page 2, please. And that’s an email exchange in late July/early August 2021 discussing the removal of all non-pharmaceutical interventions for children under the age of 2. On page 2 you can see that, I think the fifth paragraph down commencing “The other part”:

“The other part” – it’s setting out that if those NPIs are removed, that could mean tolerating a high rate of prevalence within children.

Mr Swinney, do you agree that the Scottish Government’s subsequent decision to remove all NPIs for children under 12 left a significant number of children at greater risk of developing Long Covid?

Mr John Msp: I … I don’t agree with that course of – I don’t agree with that assessment in the sense that I think there were a whole host of steps being taken to try to – to support young people and to protect their health and wellbeing through some wider interactions of the health and care system, but obviously, I’m, to go back to the first message, I’m obviously concerned about the experience of Long Covid and the issues that young people would face.

Ms Hannett: Thank you, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Thank you, Ms Hannett.

Mr Broach.

Questions From Mr Broach KC

Mr Broach: Thank you, my Lady.

Mr Swinney, I have a question for you for the Children’s Rights Organisations, and it’s on a similar point.

We know that Scotland adjusted the rules on social distancing and into household mixing during the pandemic to take account of the interests of children. For example, from 3 July 2020, those under 12 were exempted from social distancing requirements, and then, later, exempted from all the rules on inter-household mixing in September 2020. Why did Scotland do this? And do you think it was, on balance, the correct decision, which benefited children overall?

Mr John Msp: I think it was the correct decision, because we were constantly concerned about the impact of Covid on the wellbeing of children, and I mean it in that – the widest sense of the concept, and we were concerned that children needed to have access to interaction and engagement in family and friendship situations, and we believed that children and young people were suffering significantly and in – and as I have set out in my statement, we took a rights-based approach to all of these questions.

We were of course, around about the same time, contemplating the incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into domestic Scots law, so we were very much thinking about these perspectives as we considered those issues.

Mr Broach: Thank you.

Thank you, my Lady.

Thank you very much, Mr Broach.

Lady Hallett: Mr Swinney – sorry, First Minister, I’m sure you’ll be relieved to know that that is the end of the demands that this Inquiry, the UK Inquiry, will make on you. I’ve no idea of the Scottish Inquiry may – what demands they may make, but thank you very much indeed for all the help you’ve given to the Inquiry and for all the time, given all your other responsibilities. And now you can get back to them, so thank you again.

The Witness: Thank you, my Lady.

Ms Dobbin: My Lady –

Lady Hallett: Sorry, we’ve got some other matters, yes?

Ms Dobbin: Yes, my Lady, that concludes the evidence for week 2 of Module 8 but with your permission we’ll also adduce into evidence a number of witness statements relative to the evidence you’ve heard this week – and there they are with their INQ numbers – relevant to education, health and social care and online harms. These include statements from the UK governments, the Local Government Association, and the Welsh Government Association, as well as a number of unions, charities and non-governmental organisations, and, my Lady, we will also publish the addendum expert report on Long Covid by Dr Terry Segal and Dr Elizabeth Whittaker.

Lady Hallett: There they are, they may be published, thank you.

Well, that completes the evidence session for this

week, and we shall return at 10.30 next Monday. I can’t

work out what the date is – 13 October, I think. And

we shall sit at 10.30 and I shall be attending the

hearing centre. Thank you all very much indeed.

(4.32 pm)

(The hearing adjourned until 10.30 on Monday, 13 October 2025)