14 October 2025
(10.00 am)
Lady Hallett: Ms Dobbin.
Ms Dobbin: My Lady, may I please call Sir Gavin Williamson.
Sir Gavin Cbe
SIR GAVIN WILLIAMSON CBE (sworn).
Lady Hallett: Thank you for coming along to help us again.
Questions From Lead Counsel to the Inquiry for Module 8
Ms Dobbin: Can I ask you to give your full name to the Inquiry, please.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Gavin Alexander Williamson.
Lead 8: Sir Gavin, in your witness statement you’ve set out the detail of your political career but for our purposes it’s right, isn’t it, that you were the Secretary of State for Education from July 2019 until September 2021?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, that’s correct.
Lead 8: I’m sorry, I ought to have asked you before I embarked on your examination, you ought to have a witness statement in front of you that bears the number INQ000588024. Do you have that in front of you?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I have – I haven’t got my witness statement with me, because I thought it was going to be provided. It is on the computer now, yes. Sorry, yes.
Lead 8: Can you confirm that the contents of –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: – that witness statement are true to the best of your knowledge and belief?
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s correct.
Lead 8: I’m grateful.
Sir Gavin, when Sir Jon Coles gave evidence before the Inquiry, and having read your witness statement, he described your evidence in it, that your department hadn’t done any planning by mid-March 2020 for school closures because the priority was keeping schools open, as an extraordinary dereliction of duty. Do you agree with that assessment?
Sir Gavin Cbe: No. I think what was interesting about Modules 1 and Modules 2 of the Inquiry was what government had been going through was – I thought it was a process that we – there’d been for long-term planning in terms of dealing with the pandemic, and putting actions in place all the way through to try and get things right in terms of how we thought a pandemic would be, and that was sort of examined in Module 1.
I think in Module 2, I think there were failures. There were failures that were demonstrated – you know, it showed, Module 2, where those failures had been in terms of planning and really understanding the enormity of what a pandemic would mean and how that would impact every aspect of government, and government not really
grasping the enormity of that. And I think that was
really reflective in the DfE.
There were lots of actions that were being – taking
place that we thought were the right actions but, as we
look back at it now, we should have had different
actions in place in order to be better prepared for it.
So I readily accept that there were many mistakes
that were made, both pre pan – pre start of the
pandemic and in those early stages of the pandemic, because I don’t think the DfE was any different to the Number 10 or the Cabinet Office, or other departments that were leading the way in terms of dealing with that pandemic.
Lead 8: This isn’t a comparative exercise, Sir Gavin, I’m just –
Sir Gavin Cbe: I appreciate –
Lead 8: – focusing on you at the moment.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: So you don’t accept it was a dereliction of duty on your part. Do you accept it was a dereliction on the part of the government, to fail to plan for school closures?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I think we’ve – we should have done it very differently. I think we should have – pre-2020, we should have had a clear plan with a range of scenarios, not just about, dealing with the influenza pandemic, of looking at different ways of keeping schools open in different manner. There should have been a whole set of different routes that we could have gone down. And in reality, we had got one route that we thought was the right route, and we didn’t demonstrate the agility, and we didn’t have the range of options that were needed, to be ready for the pandemic that we actually faced.
Lead 8: So failures on the part of people before you came in to office; is that what you’re saying?
Sir Gavin Cbe: No, I would say – I would say failures – I’d say failures from those who were in office and those who had previously been in office. Because obviously as the pandemic unfolded during the February and the – during the February and the March period, the scale and the impact that this was having, I don’t feel as if everyone totally understood as to how this was going to change everything.
I recall being in meetings where – this is sort of a cabinet meeting where the question was asked about, you know, face masks and suchlike, and the idea of wearing a face mask seemed so alien to anything that we would do in this country. And when we were, you know, sort of advised that this actually would be a very negative thing to be doing, well, in reality is, as the pandemic progressed, things that we thought we would never have been doing or would never need to do, were things that we ended up having to do.
And I think the whole government, and my department itself, should have had a clearer sense and understanding of just how things that we could never believe would have been possible were going to be the things that we were going to have to do. And ideally, you would have had this done in 2013, 2014, 2015, where every action that you take doesn’t either feed a narrative or, you know, press speculation because it’s being done in the calm of no pandemic, but in light of the fact that that sort of pathway wasn’t there, we should have, right across government, understood the significance much better, and bitten the bullet, and made those plans in a way that would have helped later on.
I would just add, one of the challenges in – different departments are structured differently, but the Department for Education as a department, isn’t a department with – staffed by hundreds of social workers, hundreds of teachers. It’s staffed by policy officials. And so when you’re starting to develop anything, in terms of a response to something, the most important thing you usually do is actually go out and ask those people who are on the coalface, who are working in the field, as a social worker, as a teacher, as to what’s their advice as to how this would be done and how this would be sort of constructed.
And I think that, you know, we discovered that obviously a lot of the internal knowledge to enable things always sat outside of the department.
Lead 8: I’m just going to ask you to stop there –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, of course. Sorry.
Lead 8: – because you’ve – that’s a very long answer to quite a short question and I’m going to take this in stages.
Why was it apparent to people like Sir Jon Coles or Mr Barneby of another school trust, that schools would close and not apparent to you as the Secretary of State for Education?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Well, we were focused, and we were given a clear indication that we were to keep schools open. You know, there was – the key thrust of where the government policy was to maintain the opening of schools; we were being asked to develop papers and to develop the work that was required in order to be able to keep children within schools, and that was the direction that was the instruction.
Equally, you can’t – something like Covid is being directed from the centre in terms of different departments’ responses. You don’t have quite the freedom just to go and start going out and consulting with lots of people as to what school closures will look like because immediately –
Lead 8: Can just ask you to pause there.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, of course.
Lead 8: You’re suggesting that as the Secretary of State for Education you didn’t have the ability to go out to ask people what school closures would look like? Is that what you’re saying?
Sir Gavin Cbe: What I’m saying is when you’re dealing with the pandemic, all the key decisions were being taken at the centre, namely within Number 10, Cabinet Office. So to start doing – to start doing the direct work, in terms of school closures, invariably would have been quite a significant thing to do without Number 10 and Cabinet Office being in the loop that you were going to actually start doing that consultation because invariably you’re talking to numerous people outside of the government and the Civil Service, and that news would spread quite rapidly.
Lead 8: I think what Sir Jon Coles would say to that, Sir Gavin, is that he, like everyone else, was watching the news himself –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: – and watching what was happening in other countries, and therefore it was perfectly apparent to him, or to people like him, that schools would close. Hardly news.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Well, I – during that period in March, in fact the week before school closures happened, in my morning meetings it was one of the questions that we raised, where the spectre of school closures could be there. I remember asking officials to, sort of, seek further clarity as to whether this is where we should be sort of moving towards. The feedback I’d got from my officials, I think they’d spoken to someone in the Chief Medical Officer’s office. I think it had come through Jonathan Slater, my permanent secretary, that this wasn’t space that the government was going to be looking at going down.
Because, of course, it was a question that we’re asking. It was a – there was talk of firewalls and the question was, you know, is the Easter – would the Easter holidays potentially be used as a firewall? Would an extra week have to be taken off or something like that? But we were told that that wasn’t the case.
You know, so –
Lead 8: I’m just going to can you to pause there –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: – because we’re going to break this down and look much more closely at the information that was available to you.
You started off, I think, that answer by saying – or a couple of answers ago – by saying that you couldn’t start doing direct work because news would start to escape. But we’re not even talking about direct work, are we, Sir Gavin? I mean, we’re talking about the absolute basics here, of thinking about what school closures would look like, the massive ramifications that would have for almost every schoolchild in the country, and the enormous effort that would have to be made in order to ready schools for that eventuality. It’s that failure, isn’t it? It’s the failure to even contemplate – think about – that, in February 2020. I mean, that’s what is meant by a dereliction of duty, isn’t it?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I, as I said, readily accept that, as we look at this, the work that you would have liked to have had in place would have been there, and it wouldn’t have been just done in February; it would have been done a long time before that. But it would have been better if it would have been done in February. But we – we were focused, in terms of, you know, the steer that we had, the belief that – our understanding was that – and we saw that in the legislation that was being passed in terms of our approach and how we were wanting to approach it – we believed, and it was very much as part of the plan, as that was the right way of dealing with the pandemic.
Lead 8: The other thing that Sir Jon or the other school leaders had access (sic) to, but you did, was the advice of SAGE; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s correct.
Lead 8: And one of the reasons why this failure is all the more alarming is because it was being advised, wasn’t it, from 4 February onwards that school closures were contemplated and were one of the steps that might be taken in order to deal with the pandemic; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: That is correct. It was in one of the meetings on 4 February.
Lead 8: Can we have a look at that, please.
It’s INQ000061512.
We can see from the big headline, “SAGE 4 minutes: Coronavirus (COVID-19) response, 4 February 2020”.
And if we can go, please, to page 6 of this, and if we can look, please, at paragraph 38 first.
“As evidenced through previous behavioural science studies, regional closing of schools can be expected to have impacts elsewhere in the country as parents outside those regions would choose to withdraw children from school.”
Sir Gavin Cbe: Mm.
Lead 8: And then “Action”, if we go to the “Action” box, please.
“SPI-M, with input from James Rubin to consider the impact of closing schools in different outbreak scenarios, and advise SAGE on what triggers would require discussion as to whether schools should close.”
So, from 4 February, very clear isn’t it, from SAGE, that this is one of the options on the table being contemplated in order to deal with the pandemic?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes. And, indeed, SAGE highlighted many different options and different potential actions, and, you know, we, as I say – we – where we ended up, I and I’m sure the Prime Minister and everyone else would have wished at the time we’d put a much greater emphasis in terms of putting a plan, a detailed plan, in place, as to sort of what that looks like.
What we were being clearly steered towards was that we should be focused in terms of the efforts of keeping schools open. At the time of that coming out, very much the focus – I mean, at the time of that coming out, you know, and even many weeks – a number of weeks later, the focus was very much about not just schools staying open but also the Prime Minister wanted the economy staying open. And so, you know, yes, do I wish we had done it differently? Yes, I very much do.
Lead 8: I think, Sir Gavin, the Inquiry is interested in why none of this – and we’re going to go through a number of bits of SAGE advice –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: – prompted everyone to take action.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: But before I do that, we do know, don’t we, that on 6 February, the Chief Scientific Adviser to your department did commission reasonable worst-case scenario planning, didn’t he?
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s correct.
Lead 8: And were you familiar with that?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I was aware that he was undertaking it. And earlier in the year, in January, I had – when Covid first reared its head on the daily meeting, I’d asked civil servants to start work in terms of actually looking at what the Covid impacts could potentially be and how that could potentially impact education and what we needed to be doing beforehand.
Lead 8: Yes, because the Inquiry has seen that document and it’s pages of practical scenarios as to the sorts of consequences that might follow, including really practical things like social workers not being able to get inside houses to see children.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: Did you actually look at that? Did you look at that document in order to contemplate all of the different practicalities and the sorts of factual situations that would likely arise once the pandemic became more serious, never mind school closures, Sir Gavin?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I know that I’d already tasked a team being led by Nick Gibb, who was one of my most senior ministers in the department to start work on it. I’m sure – I know at the time I was looking at lots of information, lots of documents that were continuously sort of coming through.
Lead 8: And none of that made you think: we really, we need a plan here? And again, I’m stressing, never mind school closures, Sir Gavin. I’m talking about the potential impact of a pandemic on all schoolchildren and in relation to social care, as well, which was your responsibility?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yeah, and that’s why we had started much of the work in terms of legislation, in terms of actually looking about how we deal with some of these issues. Some of these issues – the – some of the challenges that we faced and the solutions that we sought for them, some of them were the right solutions, some of them people weren’t so keen on them, but we were already trying to make sure many of those problems were being addressed.
Lead 8: I’m going to ask you about another document that emanated from this early period of time.
INQ000542415, please.
Thank you.
The Inquiry understands that this document emanates from around 7 February, Sir Gavin, and it sets out – it’s a document, we can see from the title, “plausible worst-case scenarios for the education system”, and it sets out information that was new, and I don’t need to take you through all of this about transmissibility and impact.
If we could just scroll through this document, please, to page 5. “Children’s social care”. That’s a blank.
Thank you.
If we could go on, please, to page 7. We can see there that consideration was being given to school closures; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s correct.
Lead 8: And it sets out, we can see from the first paragraph underneath, I’m grateful, that school closures can be effective in controlling influenza, and then setting out that there was uncertainty and it would depend on the disease type; yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: And if we could go over the page, please, thank you. It says, if we look at the first bullet, school closures early in the outbreak can be effective at slowing the spread. Benefit needs to be weighed against the cost.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Mm.
Lead 8: And then it sets out costs. And then, at the very end, it also sets out some information about alternatives to school closure.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: So, for example, I think that that’s really setting out that rotas, for example, or internal movement restrictions could also be effective.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yeah.
Lead 8: So that would tend to suggest, wouldn’t it, Sir Gavin, that your department was well aware and understood that school closures could be an eventuality on 7 February 2020?
Sir Gavin Cbe: But there are many eventualities that could have gone forward, and we see through SAGE and many sort of documents through there that there are many times where, you know, it sort of references the fact that children should be sort of staying in school. And when you’re seeking a steer as a department as to what to do, because, you know, the Department for Education wasn’t a department with a knowledge base of dealing with a pandemic as to, you know, is the main thrust, is the main approach of what we should be doing about the right one still? That was the steer we were getting, that that was the case.
That was my experience as a politician, but also I think that was also the experience of civil servants who were also working in the department at the time, and so Jonathan, who was my permanent secretary, that was the exact same sort of steer that he was getting, because obviously as things were moving, and things are changing, and the information and the data around you are changing, you constantly look to sort of have that sort of guidance.
Now, that was the, as I say, that was the continuous steer that we had had, and that was why, you know, the pandemic plan that we had and we had developed and we had been working on in terms of to be implemented, which actually, of course, did involve school closures, but it was believed that they would be shorter-term school closures in differing areas, was still the right place to be.
But I readily accept, you know, as we, you know, what – the route that should have been taken was not the route that was taken. And, you know, I regret that, and I wish we had very much done it differently. But we were, at the time, sort of acting in what we believed was the best interests and under the best guidance.
Lead 8: Who was giving this steer, Sir Gavin, to you that you shouldn’t be planning for school closures?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Also, it was whether it was through Number 10, whether – I believe that Jonathan was taking the lead and he had many discussions with – attended SAGE meetings himself, and he was in contact with people within DHSC, and it wasn’t – it wasn’t being flagged to us that this was the case. And indeed, you know, just days beforehand, the work that we were being asked to generate in relation to this, and on Covid, you know, at the very start, in January, it wasn’t very centralised you had sort of DHSC and Matt sort of pushing it and starting to lead it and highlight it and flag it up, but then it started to get increasingly centralised as to who was commissioning the work and in terms of where departments would go.
And, you know, I readily accept that the mistakes were sort of made here, you know, I mean, I remember sat in a COBR meeting discussing as to, you know, the sort of discussions about whether Cheltenham Festival should sort of go ahead, which now seems utterly insane when we know what we know now. But at the time, even those sort of days before where everything changed so much and so dramatically, there were still debates about, you know, racing festivals.
And it’s difficult, as we sit with the knowledge and have the ability to look at all the information there, but whether it was the failure of both politicians and civil servants to truly grasp the magnitude of it, maybe that was the case. But I – that was – that was part of that failure, and we would constantly look to take the steers and we would try and act in the best possible way on the guidance and instructions that we were being asked to do ask in order to ready the system from the direction of the centre.
Lead 8: I’m just going to stick at the moment with the objective scientific evidence –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: – that was being provided. We’ve looked at the early acknowledgement, it would appear, on behalf of the department that schools might close. If we go and we’re still at a very early stage here, if we could go, please, to INQ000075447, please.
Again, and it may be, Sir Gavin, that we can start skipping through some of this, but again, early consideration by SPI-M-O of mass school closures, so not individual school closures, mass school closures. We get that from the top, don’t we?
And again, if we look at the – paragraph 4:
“Because of the higher reproduction number, if school closures have an impact, it would be more likely that it could reduce incidence at the peak … rather than to reduce the cumulative number of people infected.”
At paragraph 5:
“If there is a value in school closures, it may be greatest around the peak … If the peak is to be chosen as a trigger to close schools, it is likely that this point could be identified in real time …”
Et cetera, et cetera.
Sir Gavin, this is not, you know, this isn’t – this isn’t pie in the sky, is it? This is serious scientists contemplating the point at which school closures might actually be needed; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: And this is why we were seeking advice as to when to go forward with this. But we are being asked by Number 10 to focus and generate documents about keeping schools open, not closing schools. That is the emphasis. And that is what had been the focus and, you know, sort of a, you know, we were generating those – the documents, the policy documents on the, I think it’s 15 March as close to the change in decision at that point. But, you know, the significant shift in terms of, you know, there was a clear pandemic plan that was in place that we, you know, Cabinet Office, Number 10, knew exactly what every department’s pandemic plans were as part of the sort of structure of government and their reach across government.
You know, to have a very different pandemic plan is not something that you can then just do completely solo as a department without Cabinet Office and Number 10 being aware that that is what you’re going to do and, you know, it seems difficult to imagine but, you know, even, because people often believe that as a Secretary of State, you maybe have an awful lot of power, but invariably you are a member – you know, you have collective responsibility, and to do something that was – had become such an important top priority and make a unilateral decision to develop a full set of new pandemic policy, without the authorisation of Number 10, I just don’t think that would have been allowed.
Lead 8: Sir Gavin, in the course of that very long answer, I think, when this was put to you, you said “when” school closures would happen. Can I take it from that answer that it wasn’t a question at this point in time of if school closures would happen; it was a question of when school closures would happen, per the advice that was being provided?
Sir Gavin Cbe: On 10 February? Sorry, did –
Lead 8: Yes, was it a question of when school closures would happen?
Sir Gavin Cbe: It was – it is very much “if”. And indeed, I don’t think it was even a – if you thought – if I think back to 10 February, I don’t believe that most people felt that school closures were something that was much of a possibility at all to happen.
Lead 8: Not much. Okay, we’ll hold that in mind. Not much of a possibility.
Can we go, then, to the next bit of scientific advice, INQ000106109.
It’s three days later, on 13 February.
Can we just look, please, first of all, at page 1, paragraph 5. Paragraph 5:
“SAGE and wider [government] should continue to work on the assumption that China will be unable to contain the epidemic.”
It was by this stage, wasn’t it, well clear, Sir Gavin, that this pandemic was now out of control; yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I would sort of add yes, it was obviously getting much more widely spread.
Lead 8: And again, if we drop down to “School closures”:
“Any decision to close schools must consider what objective is being sought …”
Yes? And then repeating the advice that they could delay the first wave of an epidemic; yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: Do you see that at 11?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I can.
Lead 8: We’ll start to see this, and “would require closures lasting weeks”; yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: So, again, maybe we make a mental note of that: 13 February, you’re being warned that they could last for weeks. Correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Note that.
Lead 8: And again, can we take it that this didn’t prompt on your part, and I’m not talking about, as you described it a moment ago, a whole new set of pandemic policy, but this didn’t prompt you to think, on 13 February: we really need to start thinking about what this could mean for children in this country if this comes to pass?
Sir Gavin Cbe: What the clear steer on all of this was that the policy was to keep schools open, the policy was at the time to keep the economy open. If you look at the broader sweep of where government policy was on 13 February, it was not in a position where it was looking at closing schools. Indeed, the government policy at the time wasn’t really looking at closing anything, I don’t believe, probably, at 13 February. It sort of evolved very, very quickly as the month went on.
But, you know, we, in terms of – as a department, you know – you know, the advice I was getting from officials, the advices I – and steer that I was hearing from, whether it was in cabinet or anything else, was to keep things open, not about closing things.
If we had had permission and we’d had the – you know, to sort of – and, you know, if the steer had been to develop policy for closing all schools, and obviously we had an understanding that some schools would have been closing, you know, that would obviously have been the main effort of everything that went on. But it goes back to earlier, is that what would have been the perfect – or not the perfect but the better scenario is to have multiple scenario plans for a pandemic as against just one pandemic plan.
And the pandemic plan that we had, we continued to believe and to be of the view, because this is what we were, sort of – this was what we had to have there – was the right one, which it didn’t prove to be.
Lead 8: So, I think – is that answer suggesting you needed permission to think from Downing Street –
Sir Gavin Cbe: No, it isn’t, no.
Lead 8: – about the possible ramifications of school closures for children?
Sir Gavin Cbe: It has, it has the – it means that you have the need for permission to sort of basically act. And as I sort of touched on earlier in my evidence, as you’ll probably recall, is invariably the moment, in terms of the development of any substantive and much wider policy, needs multiple input of many other people, most of whom will sit outside of the department, because of the nature of the department, and the sector, is dependent on the expertise of those who usually sit outside of the department.
So, by the nature of doing it, you are in a position of you’re making quite a statement that this is being moved onto the agenda in a much more significant way.
Lead 8: Can we go to INQ000546701, please.
These were the COBR readiness questions that were sent to your department. The deadline was amended, so that the answer could be provided by 14 February.
And we can see, Sir Gavin, can’t we:
“What are your key decision points/milestones, working backwards from the peak of a pandemic …”
And it set out very clearly, isn’t it:
“Key decision at peak of pandemic would focus closure of educational institutions on a more widespread/National scale (providing CMO/PHE/DHSC advice supported such a decision).”
So there was no doubt, was there, within your department, that that was the key issue that you faced? Never mind all of the other eventualities that SAGE might be advising government on, that was the key issue in mid-February? Yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Mm. It was one of the key issues, yes.
Lead 8: Can we just look at what you said about that, please, in your statement.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: I think it’s at paragraph 4.10, thank you. You’ve said there:
“I note that the Inquiry refers to a DfE response to a [Cabinet Office] commission in their questioning, where DfE states ‘a key decision at peak of pandemic would focus closure of educational institutions on a more widespread/national scale’ …”
As we’ve just read.
And if we go down a few lines, you say:
“I have not seen this commission response before; therefore I can only assume the official who responded was using the worst-case scenario document to inform their response.”
So I think you seem to be sort of disavowing what was said in that –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Well, I hadn’t seen it, so I wasn’t – (overspeaking) –
Lead 8: What does it mean “I can only assume the official who responded was using the worst-case scenario document to inform their response”?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I – as – well, obviously, the worst-case scenario would be that schools would not be open so – but I hadn’t seen, on 14 February, I hadn’t seen the document and wasn’t aware of it, or its circulation in the Department for Education.
Lead 8: And you set out there at the end:
“The position across the whole of the government in February was largely monitoring the situation and there was no suggestion that DfE should prepare a plan or policy for mass school closures. It was very much a case of the whole of government waiting for No. 10 and [Cabinet Office] to give a lead and clear direction”.
Is that really right?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, it is.
Lead 8: Is that what was going on in the Department for Education?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Because what we were doing was we were working furiously on what had been the pandemic plan, which is what was signed off and what was agreed, and what was there, you know, the steer as to how to respond, and we saw quite a bit, in terms of – I think sort of the Prime Minister at the time, Boris Johnson sort of admitted that – you know, I can’t quite – I can’t, sort of, quite remember, sort of, exactly what he’d, sort of, said but he, sort of, noted – you know, acknowledged, sort of, that the scientific evidence that was available was not appropriately prioritised by government at the time, and as a department, you, you know, that isn’t involved in the, sort of, the health aspects or the epidemiological aspects of the pandemic, you are waiting for a clear steer from those who were coordinating the response and dealing with that as to what actions need to be done.
That doesn’t – sorry – I didn’t mean to –
Lead 8: You’re the Secretary of State for Education. You’re being advised that schools might close. Are you really suggesting that you have to wait for Number 10 to give you a steer before you can start thinking about what the implications of that might be?
Sir Gavin Cbe: But we were thinking about these things, and we were – we had – we, with the benefit of hindsight, we made the error of sticking with the plan, the pandemic plan that had been there and had been set there. We were probably overly focused on the mission to keep schools open because that was both the political steer that we had and the policy steers that we were getting.
But we were trying to do everything within that to actually, sort of, take the steps that were going to be potentially required to deal with, you know, an evolving and different situation.
But, you know, we constantly, you know, the work, as in making sure that we could do our very best to deal with the evolving pandemic was going on, but I do accept that it wasn’t being done in the best way, because it didn’t end up being totally focused on the eventuality that ended up transpiring.
Lead 8: I thought, Sir Gavin – and we’ll come to this – that the whole tenor of your evidence is that you didn’t start planning for school closures until about 16 March because that’s the first time that Downing Street asked you to provide a plan?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Well, we’d already started – we’d obviously started making plans for individual school closures and how school closures would happen, that could be on, sort of, towns and on a regional basis. The whole – the concept of this shutdown of the whole school system and, you know, the single document to deal with that, absolutely right, in terms of that. But, you know, we were – we continued to be focused in actually trying to look at different interventions that would help to deal with the pandemic, and help to deliver education sort of through that. But the – I don’t think it was just my evidence, but it was also my permanent secretary’s evidence that, you know, the steer that we’d had and the focus that we had been given was to make sure that schools would stay open, and we look at every way of making sure that those schools did stay open.
Lead 8: I think we’ll come to the plan to keep schools open because I think it’s important that we understand what that plan was. But again, and I’m going to take this very quickly, you will have seen in your papers, and if we can just go to this, please, INQ000075404.
Again, this is 19 February. I think we can go straight to paragraph 14, please, which is on page 3.
Yes, so again, school – “duration of closures (6 weeks or longer)”.
Paragraph 15 sets out that shorter – the effect of shorter duration much less clear.
Paragraph 21, please.
Lady Hallett: Sorry, whose plan is this?
Ms Dobbin: Sorry, I’m going too fast. This is more advice from SPI-M-O of 19 February, so it’s advice.
Paragraph 21:
“The question [of] selective school closures with specific year groups requires further consideration and discussion with [the department].”
Yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: (No audible response).
Lead 8: So there are early again indications that there might be scope for looking at bringing in, for example, rotas at an earlier stage; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s what it says, yes.
Lead 8: And then at paragraphs 24, 25, giving access to relevant data.
But again, I think from everything you’ve said, Sir Gavin, that didn’t prompt the planning –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Um –
Lead 8: – about school closures nor, indeed, early thinking about whether or not they could be negated potentially by looking at other forms of intervention.
Sir Gavin Cbe: When we were – when I was asking Jonathan to have the – who was in regular discourse with my – sorry, when I was asking my permanent secretary, who was having regular discourse with them, this was not being then fed to me to – as in the sense of this is the action that was wanted or that was required.
And when we were sort of, say, approaching the Easter period, and we were saying is there going to be a different approach? Because obviously you’re seeing a whole set of, you know, Covid evolving and developing in terms of, you know, what is happening on the ground, moving faster than people were sort of – had been talking about. So peaks had been talked about in June and other times. We were being told that this isn’t something that would be happening at this stage.
So when, like you say, in my evidence – my evidence said, you know, there was that sort of sea change moment, that had been the case, because we did keep asking the questions as to, you know, what additional needs do – sort of – do we need to, sort of, change the plan? Do we need to, sort of, look at doing things differently? You know, because you’re seeing events going around. But that’s equally why we’d started to, you know, you know, start to try and get our heads maybe around the fact that there is a different type of plan and eventuality that has to happen.
But I readily accept, as I’ve mentioned before, as I feel had been the case across government, that the depth of the challenge that we’re facing hadn’t been properly grasped. And which, you know, I obviously very much wish we had approached that differently.
Lead 8: I’m just going to stay with the advice that was being provided. I’m going to skip some of the advice, but we’re still in February 2020.
If we go, please, to INQ000087503. And this is the 25 February, this is a SAGE meeting. If we could go to page 2, please, and paragraph 10:
“SAGE discussed a paper modelling four non-pharmaceutical interventions: university and school closures, home isolation, household quarantine and social distancing.”
Again, 11:
“All measures require implementation for a significant duration in order to be effective”.
Reference to evidence about social distancing and school closures implemented in Hong Kong, Wuhan and Singapore. And the effect they had on the reproduction number.
And then:
“Reduced spread in the UK through a combination of these measures was assessed to be realistic.”
Thank you.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Sorry, I –
Lead 8: When you saw this advice, again, was there any realisation on your part that, again, this could have profound implications for children, should it come to pass?
Sir Gavin Cbe: The whole government policy at the time was about maintaining both the economy and schools to be open, and I do not believe that as, you know, the – significant weight was attached to maybe the scientific advice that should have been, that would then have informed and changed the approach that policymakers, both civil servants and politicians, would have had in relation to dealing with this.
Lead 8: So you accept that there’s no issue with the scientific advice that was being given; the issue is how that advice was taken by government ministers like you?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I would – I don’t think it’s probably my place to sort of, as not a scientist, to sort of judge the quality of scientific advice, and there’s an immense amount of scientific advice, a lot of it which was excellent, some of if it which wasn’t always as strong, but I think everyone, you know, in that February period wasn’t putting – I think this was what we saw repeatedly in Module 2: that the weight wasn’t put on to that sort of emerging scientific evidence that did clearly prove to be right and didn’t put enough weight on to it.
And the whole focus and emphasis of government wasn’t probably sharp enough, in terms of dealing with that. And that was the case in my department, of which I am sorry for, because I readily accept that, you know, I am secretary – I was Secretary of State, and it was my responsibility, and, you know, I would, you know, understand that, you know, with the benefit of knowing what we know now, I would have certainly wished to do things in a very, very different manner. And –
Lead 8: Sir Gavin, forgive me.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: The reason why I’m focusing on this, and the reason why it might be thought important, is that this is advice from early in February which is really specific to your department and really specific to children.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yeah.
Lead 8: So it stands out in the advice that was being provided for that reason, and because the consequences of that advice could hardly be more serious.
Sir Gavin Cbe: So – so one of the mistakes I think we’ve made within the department – and we didn’t, actually – our scientific advice was very much through what I would describe as a spectrum, probably almost as analysis and sort of – sort of – traditionally, the DfE hadn’t carried any form of expertise or really tapped into any form of expertise of people with understanding of pandemics, because it was outside of – you know, it was just not something that was really on the radar of what we should, sort of, do.
I believe that – and this is, you know, the fault of both politicians, myself, civil servants – is, you know, the interpretation of this advice and the priority of this advice wasn’t given enough emphasis and brought forward probably clearly enough to ourselves, and, you know, that’s something that we should have done.
Lead 8: Did you ever speak to Sir Chris Whitty or Sir Patrick Vallance yourself in February?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Err –
Lead 8: – in order to say to them “Can we discuss the potentiality or the potential for school closures?”
Sir Gavin Cbe: I didn’t have a discussion with them on that.
Steven – sorry – so, I didn’t have a discussion with them on that. My permanent secretary was in regular contact with them, and it was done on a sort of official-to-an-official sort of basis. Obviously discussed with lots of political people as to where the emphasis and the focus was, sort of, going to be, and the direction of travel, where that was sort of going to be in terms of the government response. But my permanent secretary was the one who largely led in terms of discussion between officials on the issue of, you know, the scientific advice that was coming through.
Lead 8: So there’s no – I mean, your officials were attending SAGE, weren’t they? I mean, there’s no issue about that, is there?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Oh, no, none at all.
Lead 8: You had access to the specialist advice?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: Yes. Okay.
Does it come to this, and if we can cut through it, Sir Gavin: there was no – by the time we get to February, there is no plan in your department, is there? There’s no physical plan. There’s no document, is there, that demonstrates this pandemic we saw, this – China doesn’t have control, China has lost control of this pandemic, things are getting incredibly serious, this pandemic could have really severe consequences for children, here’s our worst-case scenario planning, here’s a plan to deal with all of those things – or even some of those things that might eventuate?
Sir Gavin Cbe: So we had our influenza pandemic plan which we had established. We were working out – we were putting up a resource in order to be able to deal with that as that unfolded. We were putting the effort in terms of putting forward – making sure we had the appropriate legislation, and we had the flexibilities that we believed that we felt and understood that we needed to deal with that.
So, yes, we had a pandemic plan, but we didn’t have the pandemic plan that was required. And –
Lead 8: Can I just – sorry –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: – because I don’t want to take a bad point, Sir Gavin. Are you talking about the emergency response plan –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: – that’s in your papers?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes. But it was – but actually it was also more the planning that we had done in terms of – it was actually more in terms of the planning that we had done in terms of how the school system would cope, how classes – we had identified the key issue was going to be workforce shortages. So it was how do we continue to deliver education with workforce shortages, as against anything else. So then it was trying to look at how do you make sure children continue – have continuity of education when maybe you’ve lost 20% of your workforce capacity due to Covid.
So that’s where all the planning had been, and it was maybe sort of – and obviously with the benefit of how the pandemic developed, it was looking at how we delivered that teaching still within school settings with that reduced workforce. And that’s where the effort for time and the work had gone into, and continued to go into.
Lead 8: I’m going to move forward, if I may, Sir Gavin, in time.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: But I think, as we know, things changed from about 15 March onwards.
And I think we can pick this up at INQ000286012, please.
And this was the document that had been commissioned by the Cabinet Office; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, it is.
Lead 8: And I think, is this right: this was the first time that the headline implications of universal school closures had been set out to the Cabinet Office?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, it was.
Lead 8: All right. I don’t think we need to spend time on this, but obviously the most glaring and most serious one is probably the first.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: That 9 million children wouldn’t be guaranteed to receive an education; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s correct.
Lead 8: And indeed, I shouldn’t – if we go to the bottom of this document, please, third bullet up, that there were 400,000 children who were in need.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: And that school was the better place for those children –
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s correct.
Lead 8: – to keep them safe; agreed?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I agree.
Lead 8: So what you’ve explained in your witness statement, and I think, again, we can pick this up from INQ000075397 – thank you – I think that this is the commission that was sent for the Department for Education; yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, I –
Lead 8: Of 15 March. The first thing –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: – develop a package of measures to make it easier for schools to stay open; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: So, despite whatever planning had been going on before this point to keep schools open, this is what you were being asked to do on 16 March; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, correct.
Lead 8: And we won’t go through all of this, but effectively asking all of the steps that might need to be taken and about vulnerable children as well?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: We see that at the bottom; correct?
Was this the first time that any such paper had been commissioned?
Sir Gavin Cbe: From Number 10?
Lead 8: Had you commissioned a paper along these lines that set out everything that would be needed to keep schools open?
Sir Gavin Cbe: We’d been working continuously to – on how we keep schools open, so it had been a continuous piece of work. It was where the focus was.
Lead 8: Was there a plan? Is there a – do we go back to the emergency response plan for that?
Sir Gavin Cbe: No, because what we were doing is we – it was actually much wider than that, because we were trying to look at how you gave schools the flexibility and the resilience to be able to stay open with, you know, as I say, the – one of the key challenges, as we saw, was, you know, a much more significantly reduced workforce.
Lead 8: Shall we go to the document that was provided in response to this.
That’s at INQ000075398, please. Page 1.
To be clear, this is a two-page, two-line document, isn’t it? Yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: And it says:
“This note responds to the ask for a package of measures to support schools in staying open for as long as possible. We have set out our thoughts, which seek to respond to what we have heard over recent days from school and trust leaders.”
Correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: And if we drop down a couple of paragraphs, I think it’s acknowledged that schools might be forced to close.
Fourth paragraph:
“The context for this note is that schools are starting to find it challenging to stay open …”
And then this is the six strands of the programme. Is this the programme that you had been working on? Is this what you’re talking about?
Sir Gavin Cbe: No, because this is a brief document that’s sent across government as a request. What we’d been doing was looking at, as I say, how you create the flexibility within the workforce in order for schools to be able to continue to deliver education. You were looking at ways that they were able to teach more children in one class, lifting restrictions, creating flexibility, which I think, if I recall correctly, it sort of mentions within the document.
It was lifting a number of the burdens that – and some of the requirements of schools to do, such as in primary schools, that might be in areas such as testing. It was looking at every single possible way that it meant that a school was going to be able to continue to function, if not normally, but as best as possible.
But, you know, that is where we had been looking at how we can sort of strip things down in order for things to continue to function.
Lead 8: So just looking at this very briefly on these six strands, the first strand:
“A call to arms for schools as community leaders.”
Second:
“Reducing the burden of accountability …”
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: Three, I think cease inspections.
Four, that’s a reference to the draft emergency bill, isn’t it? Deregulating –
Sir Gavin Cbe: It is, yes.
Lead 8: – the right numbers of teachers.
Meeting additional costs, working with local government, reassure parents, remote working; yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, correct.
Lead 8: So none of that is concerned with any of the sort of steps that you might take in relation to infection control, none of this is about rota systems, any of that sort of practical – any of the practical steps that might need to be taken to keep schools open; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Well, we weren’t looking at rota systems at the time, and I think rotas – I mean, everyone will have a different view on, sort of, the rota system, but we weren’t sort of looking at rota systems. We were very much looking at, in terms of I think there’d been early advice in terms of dealing with Covid, but it was what you’d probably describe as very sort of similar to what the overall government advice was, was about, you know, you know, minimising contact, but sort of cleaning hands, wiping down surfaces, and everything else like that. But I believe that had already been issued to schools at an earlier date.
Lead 8: On 16 March. Can we look then at what happened to change –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: – that changed your direction, and go to INQ000075399. And we can see if we go, please, to page 3 of this, thank you, and I think this is the point, isn’t it, at which things changed, Sir Gavin? An email that is sent at quarter to nine on 17 March 2020?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Mm.
Lead 8: That there had been a meeting. This is – sorry, I should say this is sent to your permanent secretary referring to the meeting of that evening. Not sending a formal commission, but sending an email. Yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: I think, is this – and I just want to identify this – is this the point at which things changed and this is the commission to close schools –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, it is.
Lead 8: – is that correct?
So just to be clear about it, and let’s look at that because I think we’re coming to the adjournment – we should look at that paper before we do.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: That’s at INQ000107248, please. This is the paper, isn’t it, on closing schools?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: And I think if we could go to page 2, please. We can see in the second paragraph – and I’ll come to this, about – that schools should close to most children after the Easter break. We can see the recommendations, just a little further down that page, that the Prime Minister recommends – the recommendation:
“That the Prime Minister announces on Wednesday, 18 March that the Government will bring forward plans on schools.”
And then at the bottom, the summary of the proposed way forward.
Thank you.
And if we go to the bottom of page 3, please. So vulnerable children and – thank you – if we go to page 5. Key exams and remote learning. And page 6, please.
I think, Sir Gavin, there’s an annex attached to this, but I think that is – that’s the plan, so to speak, that central government –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Right.
Lead 8: – in England, for closing schools on 17 March –
Sir Gavin Cbe: It was a – they wanted to have a submission for that day. That’s correct.
Ms Dobbin: My Lady, I wonder if that would be an appropriate moment.
Lady Hallett: Yes, of course.
Sir Gavin, as you’ll appreciate, we take regular breaks for the stenographer. I think you might appreciate it, as it’s going to be quite a long day for you.
The Witness: I should think so.
Lady Hallett: So I shall return at 11.35.
(11.16 am)
(A short break)
(11.35 am)
Lady Hallett: Ms Dobbin.
Ms Dobbin: Thank you, my Lady.
Sir Gavin, before the adjournment we had been looking at the paper that had been commissioned overnight on 17 March and which you agreed on 18 March.
Can I just pick up your statement, then, at paragraph 4.42, and that’s paragraph 25, please. If paragraph 4.42 could be enlarged.
And you set out there, and this is the reference to the meeting that we saw the email about:
“At this meeting, in what was a discombobulating sea change over a 24-hour period, No. 10 officials commissioned [the Department for Education] to produce a paper on closing schools and other options for the … Prime Minister …”
Correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, that’s correct.
Lead 8: And that had been drafted overnight; yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, correct.
Lead 8: And it was drafted overnight because, as we’ve rehearsed, no such plan existed before this point in time; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Well, no, because we’d been asked to do a paper at 8.45 on an evening, and you have to produce the paper on the basis of what they asked for the paper for.
Lead 8: And similarly, if we go to paragraph 4.35 of your statement, that you hadn’t had any discussions with stakeholders about the possibility of school closures prior to that point because, at that point in time, you did not understand closures to be under consideration –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, and we –
Lead 8: – correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: – just on the Friday beforehand, I had attended the Association of School Colleges and Lecturers’ (sic) annual conference in Birmingham, where teachers from across the country had all gathered together, had teachers from largely secondary schools and colleges, and the key message, which had been cleared by Downing Street in terms of a speech to the union, was that schools and colleges were to stay open. That was the absolute clear theme of the message that we were – they were wanting us to get out on to the media.
That wording had been agreed before I went, because usually when a secretary of state makes a speech, especially on something that was going to touch on the most – the biggest issue of the time, you generally have to, sort of, get that cleared and approved, which that was sort of done.
And we then – obviously into the next week was then things started to shift much more dramatically.
Lead 8: Yes, and just looking at paragraph 4.53 of your statement, where you set out that no impact assessments had been made –
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s correct.
Lead 8: – prior to the announcement on 18 March, because:
“… the position, backed by SAGE advice, continued to be that schools should remain open. I knew that closing schools would present a number of risks to children, which is why I continued to push for schools to be open for as long as possible and [to] ensure the most vulnerable could continue to attend school.”
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s correct.
Lead 8: So the bottom line is this, isn’t it, Sir Gavin: that by 18 March, and the day when school closures were announced, there had been no planning, there was no plan to implement the closure of schools in England?
Sir Gavin Cbe: We had a good base of knowledge that we were going to be able to sort of draw on, but we – what we couldn’t have done before that point was to really start consulting with stakeholders, where the value would have been doubly added. Because actually, one of the key criticisms, which is a very valid criticism, is the ability for people to have the time to stand things up.
But the challenge –
Lead 8: Sir Gavin, I’m going to –
Sir Gavin Cbe: No, of course.
Lead 8: I’m sorry to cut you off –
Sir Gavin Cbe: No, no, no, I appreciate it.
Lead 8: – but you haven’t answered my question and it’s one of the most important questions possibly that Module 8 will ask.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Okay.
Lead 8: When it came to 18 March and the Prime Minister announced that schools would close to almost all children in England, there was no plan, there was no written plan, there was no document, there was nothing concrete in existence that planned for the closure of schools, was there?
Sir Gavin Cbe: There was a whole set of body of work that had already been started, whether it was discussions and work with Ofqual in terms of the potential impact of what happens if we’re not able to proceed with exams. There was people within the department who had started to do that thinking.
What we couldn’t do, and you can’t ignore where the media interest was, the moment we had gone out and sat down with the trade unions or the different organisations and said, “This is an option that we are looking at doing, at closing them, we don’t think it will happen but we think it may happen, there’s a possibility”, it actually would have become a self-fulfilling prophecy because the moment you have that conversation, every single newspaper would have been reporting that schools are closed because discussions have been opened with unions and everyone else like that, and this is one to the biggest challenges because, actually, to get schools in the best place to deal with these things, you either needed to have a really good set of plans that had been there for a long time, long before we’d started talking about a pandemic, and there’s this scenario or this scenario and this scenario, and they can get it.
But the ability to have a whole set of confidential conversations with stakeholders that this is going to be a real prospect in terms of how they are going to have to sort of do things and implemented things, it would have ended up making the decision for schools to be closed before any decision for schools to be closed was the case. And still, the steer, all the way through, was that schools were to stay open.
But, you know, had work started in terms of, you know, what does it actually look like if we can’t have exams? You know, what are some of these sort of issues? But in one collective body of work, and talking with the unions and talking with other people about it, no, that hadn’t happened.
Lead 8: No, Sir Gavin, I mean, let’s get really down to basics here.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Okay.
Lead 8: This is about almost every child in England not being able to go to school and requiring education in their homes. That, for a start, requires thought about massive infrastructure, doesn’t it?
Sir Gavin Cbe: It does.
Lead 8: “How do we possibly even start to do that”; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: And I think you raise a really important question here, an incredibly important question, and I thank you so much for raising it, because you’re spot on. To have got this right, you’re absolutely correct: that needed a whole set of decisions, not actually just in February, but it needed actually decisions probably to be taken in January. So if we look at remote education, for example, which I know we’ll move on to at a later stage, I imagine, but, you know, what you would have needed to do, you’d have needed authorisations of Treasury in order to be able to start spending the type of money that would be required in order to be able to deliver that continuity of education, and that contingency.
But, you know, the idea that in February, I had turned round to Treasury and asked for an additional £100 million to purchase laptops on the possibility, which wasn’t government policy, wasn’t what the Prime Minister was saying, wasn’t what the Chancellor was saying, that I could purchase, I don’t know, you know, a few hundred thousand laptops, that just wouldn’t have been available.
And I wish, I wish that could have been available, and I wish it could have been done, but I think we – it would be misleading, and I think, you know, we all know that it just wouldn’t have happened in that timescale.
Lead 8: Vulnerable children, thinking about who might be – what children might need to be protected? That was done on 18 March, wasn’t it?
Sir Gavin Cbe: The details of it was formalised on 18 March, but the thinking had been done long before that. And one of the great successes, well, one of the things I feel very proud of, we were the first country in the world to say that vulnerable children were going to be children that were going to continue to have access to school. Now, you hadn’t seen that happen in Italy or France or Spain or Ireland or anywhere else. It was England, it was here in the United Kingdom, that we did it first. And that was driven out of the Department for Education, because we knew how important it was for vulnerable children to have that link.
And we also knew that, you know, even though we didn’t expect to see the mass closure of schools, or maybe there was an optimism bias where we just desperately hoped we wouldn’t see a mass closure of schools, but we knew that schools would close, but even when we were planning it, we were planning it to make sure that vulnerable children would be core, a part of something that was protected.
So yes, it was formalised in a document that was sent to the Prime Minister on 18 March, but the sense and understanding of what we were wanting to do in priorities, because actually the work that we had been doing prior was still sometimes valid and had a crossover into the changed circumstances that we then found ourselves in.
Lead 8: I’m just going to move on, Sir Gavin –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: – to the provision of remote education. I don’t think I need to rehearse this, but in June of 2020 the Department for Education estimated, didn’t it, that there were 1.3 million children who didn’t have access to an appropriate device. Is that a figure you’re familiar with?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, it was, it was the figure that we provided.
Lead 8: And 12,500 schools didn’t have access to a cloud-based learning platform; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, that’s correct.
Lead 8: And the Inquiry has heard evidence, and I won’t rehearse it, from the Sutton Trust, for example, that as of March 2020 they were gathering data about the differential access children had to education in their homes. Are you familiar with that?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: And if I can just, please, bring up your statement at page 72, paragraph 9.23, this is the table of devices that were delivered to children. It’s a cumulative table, isn’t it?
Sir Gavin Cbe: It is.
Lead 8: So these aren’t separate tranches, and I think, for our purposes, what might be helpful to know is, and to have confirmed, that as at 30 June 2020 of that 1.3 million children who didn’t have access to an appropriate device, that 202 – just over 202,000 devices had been delivered; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s correct.
Lead 8: The rest after the school holiday. And I think we can see that devices were not – the figure that needed to be gotten to wasn’t reached, in fact, until March 2021 or thereabouts. That’s slightly shy of 1.3 million, isn’t it?
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s correct.
Lead 8: And do you accept that for the duration of the first set of school closures, that had a serious impact on the ability of children to receive an education in their homes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, and that’s why we had already undertaken additional provisions to try and – and we had looked at everything from voucher schemes and many different other schemes in order to be able to look at ways of making sure children could access education even if it wasn’t the best way, we were asking schools to use any devices they had to make sure that they were out with children as against out at schools. Part of the reason that vulnerable children were allowed to keep coming into school was because we were conscious that those who were most vulnerable were probably the ones who were going to struggle most to have a device. So the idea of at least if they’re able to go into school, they – they might not be able to have a device but they’re still able to get education.
But if I can just take you back, the global – the ability to procure 1.3 million laptops is sadly quite, sort of, challenging. And this is where we see one of the consistent weaknesses in this country is that there is a total unwillingness, because of economics, to carry contingency. And we have very little contingency in this country. In fact, the only place in terms of departments that carry contingency is Defence, because they have to, by nature, Defence is a contingency.
But until you have a different mentality – but the first mention of – on the first mention of the pandemic in mid-July, let’s assume Treasury had a totally different approach than Treasury have ever had in my experience of 15 years of being a Member of Parliament, and I go to them and say, “I’ve heard that there’s a pandemic in Wuhan, I need to procure 1.3 million laptops”, one, they would have said “no”, but let’s say they say “yes”, then the ability to get 1.3 million laptops, largely produced in the People’s Republic of China, we do not have any significant domestic manufacture of mass market laptops or devices –
Lead 8: Sir Gavin, I’m going to interrupt you. I’m not –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Can I – sorry.
Lead 8: You’ve made the point that laptops were difficult to get hold of.
Sir Gavin Cbe: You wouldn’t have been able to – just the supply chain of shipping them from China to the UK and having them manufactured, at the time, we were the largest purchaser of laptops anywhere in the world, and the reason you can see, and you can see through the numbers, I kept purchasing them and purchasing them, was because I knew how important it was. And do you know what was really frustrating? What was so frustrating back in – back in the – back in April, I was asking – not asking for extra money, but I was wanting to use £168 million of my own budget that I’d got as an underspend to buy more laptops, but I wasn’t allowed to do that. So instead of spending £168 million, I ended up being only able to spend £85 million of the money that I had there.
And this is one of the constraints, because you would – often, as Secretary of State, you are desperately trying to do absolutely the right thing, but you are constrained from doing it and you don’t always have the freedoms that you wish to do. And if we’d been able to do that, that would have had a material impact in terms of those numbers coming through, but it’s not always down to the choices that we have as an individual Secretary of State.
I’m sorry for going on.
Lady Hallett: If I just interrupt, I think – when you began your answer, I think you said had you gone to the Treasury mid-July, did you mean mid-January?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Mid-January. Thank you ever so much, my Lady, I was – definitely. Thank you for correcting me.
Ms Dobbin: We’re going to move on, Sir Gavin, to a different issue, which might be headed lack of transparency –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Okay.
Lead 8: – and whether that was an issue.
Can I ask for, please, Sir Jon Coles’ witness statement to be brought up, please.
It’s at INQ000651602, please, and it’s page 12.
And this is paragraph 37, Sir Gavin – I won’t read all of it out – and he has given oral evidence to this effect: he was appointed to be a member of the recovery group convened by the Department for Education, and sought to give advice, and the Inquiry has seen contemporaneous evidence of this, asked for access to modelling and scientific advice, and he has explained that it wasn’t provided, and he sets it out there.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Okay.
Lead 8: He explains in this paragraph that he was a strong advocate for a rota model, but never had access to what advice was being given about that. I don’t know if you saw his evidence or if you’re familiar with the evidence that he provided to the Inquiry about that?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, I heard some of it.
Lead 8: And I think, in your witness statement, you have also dealt with a matter that arose from a notebook that was kept by Sir Patrick Vallance in which it was suggested that the Department for Education wasn’t seeking advice from SAGE.
Yes, I’m going – before you go on, I’m just going to say something about that.
My Lady, obviously Sir Patrick Vallance hasn’t been called as a witness in this module and therefore can’t explain the notes himself, so I think it is important to say what he has said about them before I go on.
Lady Hallett: Also, he did say it was a brain dump – I can’t remember –
Ms Dobbin: Yes.
Lady Hallett: It was at the end of a long day and he wasn’t necessarily confirming the accuracy of every entry.
Ms Dobbin: Precisely. He has set this out, and I think it’s right and fair to say:
[As read] “These notes were not carefully-considered, objective reflections written in the cold light of day of the type that I have set out in this witness statement. They were hastily written, subjective, reflective of my mood at the time of writing and were often partially informed thoughts which I put down on paper simply as a means of clearing my head and enabling me to focus on the challenges of the next day. They were placed in a drawer at my home and that’s where they would have remained had the Inquiry not requested their provision and decided to disclose them. I ask that if they are to be read by others, that they should be read with that context in mind, and that my privacy should be respected.”
If we go to your witness statement, please, Sir Gavin, at paragraph 8.4 – that’s page 63, I’m grateful – diary entries were put to you. And if I just read what you said:
“I note the Inquiry has asked me for my view on two diaries entries from Sir Patrick Vallance dated 23 June … and 25 June … These relate to the publication of SAGE advice. I can see that the entries state that the [Department for Education] didn’t want to ask SAGE about schools as the minutes would be published. I do not have any recollection of this. DfE used SAGE advice throughout the decision making around schools reopening. Whereas No. 10 and [the Cabinet Office] put a higher and lower emphasis on SAGE advice and its importance at different points throughout the pandemic.”
So, Sir Gavin, I’ve put what Sir Jon Coles said about his inability to have access to scientific advice that you were receiving.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: And obviously, you were asked to comment on those entries that were made by Sir Patrick Vallance. So can I ask you the question outright: was there a reticence on the part of your department to seek advice for fear that it would be published? And that I assume, or I think the suggestion would be put, that the department would have to deal with people who would use it as ammunition for not reopening schools?
Sir Gavin Cbe: So, no. And obviously all SAGE advice is published regularly. I wasn’t obviously privy to the conversation between Sir Patrick and Jonathan at the time.
I – my recollection of Lord Vallance and Sir Chris Whitty and the Deputy Chief Medical Officer and so many others, and the, sort of, Chief Nurse, is actually, we tried to bring them into conversations with stakeholders. This may shock you, but actually, if you’ve got a politician telling trade unions about their right interpretation of scientific advice, they don’t put quite as much weight on it as someone who actually is qualified in that area. So we almost tried to use them more to have those discussions with people.
And I think, and I may recollect this incorrectly, and please correct me if I do, but I think Sir Jon referenced the fact that he was on one of the groups. I think that we’d even got some of the – either our, when we had our own epidemiological – sort of scientific lead in the department was liaising with these people, but we were also trying to bring in those – that expertise from the Chief Scientific Officer, the Chief Medical Officer, the Deputy Chief, Jenny Harries, where – we worked incredibly closely with all the way through. And we tried to – it sounds a horrible thing to say, to use the phrase “use them”, but we did actually try and get them to have face time with people to talk about these issues, because they could better explain it in a way that, you know, I couldn’t, who didn’t have the depth of understanding.
Lead 8: Sir Jon Coles was appointed to be a member of a recovery group –
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s correct.
Lead 8: – to provide advice to your department.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: And, we’ve heard evidence from him, was really keen on finding ways –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Absolutely.
Lead 8: – to reopen schools and wanted to find pragmatic ways to do so. I’m summarising.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: But that’s what the tenor of his evidence was.
Sir Gavin Cbe: And maybe could you just –
Lead 8: Why was there an issue about – why was he – he’s given evidence to the Inquiry, and you’ve seen in his statement –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Could you bring up his statement again? Would you be so kind?
Lead 8: Of course.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Thank you so much. Sorry, I’d only just briefly read it. So it would be very kind if that could just be brought back up, the previous slide that you had.
Lead 8: That is INQ000651602, page 12, paragraph 37.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Sorry, thank you. Yeah, so it did include (unclear - reads document to himself).
I mean, I’m not sure as to why that hadn’t sort of been shared. I don’t think there was any – there’s certainly no sense of where there wanting to be conspiracy at all.
We – I mean, as has, sort of, been mentioned also in the, sort of, statement, a briefing, a private briefing from SAGE for teaching unions was made available, but I don’t know why that wasn’t made for recovery advisory group. But I would have thought, and I could be wrong on this, so, I would have thought that the recovery advisory group would have certainly had exposure to either the Chief Medical Officer or the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, or some of those who were advising very much of the sort of top of government.
I can’t imagine they would have been excluded from that, but I don’t know for certain.
Lead 8: I’m going to move on. I mean, it appears from what he’s saying that he didn’t – when he saw SAGE papers published in May, that that’s when he realised that the rota model had been raised. So I think that suggests that he hadn’t …
Sir Gavin Cbe: I think, though, obviously though SAGE produced a lot of comments and a lot of minutes, and a lot of suggestions, but then often what that was done was then that was taken up and developed through either individual departments, Public Health England, would obviously be one of those key delivery for what they were, sort of, doing. And then, you know, so SAGE, as we know, is not just two, three scientists. It’s a very large group of people contributing their expertise. And I would have thought that the Recovery Advisory Group would have had one of the, sort of, senior government medical people probably talk to it at some point. But I could be incorrect on that.
Lead 8: There was secrecy, wasn’t there, around the decision at the point in time when government had decided to reopen schools, and was thinking about the contingency measures that might be required from September 2020 onwards? You agree with that?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Um …
Lead 8: Do you want me to –
Sir Gavin Cbe: So I would say that there was – we worked very closely in terms of actually talking with a broad range of people on things. You know, everything was ultimately going to be public documents. How do you mean by “secrecy”?
Lead 8: Well, let’s have a look.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: Can we go, please, to INQ000088256, please. And page 1. This is a Covid Strategy Group of 6 August 2020. Just so you can orientate yourself.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: This is your paper. And then I think on paragraph 39 on the next page, it explains that there was a national fallback plan. Yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: And I won’t read all of that out. It goes into the next page. It sets out the operational challenges of the fallback model.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Mm.
Lead 8: It was kept a secret, wasn’t it –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Um.
Lead 8: – from schools that there was a fallback plan?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I would say that we were mainly keeping the focus on the core aim of opening schools, because at the time, if it looked as if we were – it looked as if we were planning for another scenario, then the other scenario could end up becoming the default scenario.
We sort of – we were, I think, probably learnt a number of the lessons of our – where we had failed, in February and March, to make sure that there were two properly and very fully developed scenarios that – so we weren’t in a position where we didn’t have a sort of set of policies as well developed.
Lead 8: Can we go, please, to INQ000088257, please.
This is the Covid strategy meeting of 6 August 2020; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Correct.
Lead 8: And if we go over the page – sorry, if we go to page 6, and:
“In discussion …”
If we see at the very bottom:
“… the following points were made:
“n) schools should not be told of a fallback plan as it would allow them to have an excuse not to open in September.”
Yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Correct.
Lead 8: Hadn’t one of the main lessons from March 2020 been that not letting schools know that they might have to close to most pupils put them in the terrible position of having to pivot to provide an education to children in their homes without being able to plan for it?
Sir Gavin Cbe: So we – we knew that we had to have the development of a contingency plan if the September return wasn’t going to be the case, but we had the strong belief that if it was widely advertised that there was an alternative proposal in order for schools not to return, it would become much more – significantly more difficult to get the full return of all schools in September. And I wish that wasn’t the case, but that was the situation that we faced.
Lead 8: Is that really the state of discourse about children’s education in this country, that a government can’t be open – that it is, on the one hand, opening schools, but, on the other, having to have a contingency for the possibility they might close?
Sir Gavin Cbe: The difficulty is people will say they want absolute certainty and then at other times they will say that they want to see every single option. We believed that to get schools back we had to give an absolute certainty and determination that schools were going to go back and we needed children to go back.
This was – and I will accept fault on this – during that first lockdown, I saw – and we saw not just – you know, with our own eyes, with our own children, with our friends’ children, through the evidence that was accumulated, that children had actually suffered as a result of not being at school.
And we also saw that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, not, like, you know, lucky children like mine who – and, you know, many others, who, you know, you can move a world for in order to try and look after, but ones that had no one to look after them, they were going to be the most disadvantaged. And the difficulty we were going to have was that if we didn’t have the clarity and the determination that schools were going to go back, there was – and it’s a disappointing thing to say, but there would have been some schools and there’d have been some actors that would have tried to use that as a reason not to allow schools to go back.
Because while you would like to think that every single person that was involved in this wanted to see children back in school, that, frankly, just wasn’t the case. And yes, of course, in a perfect world everyone would be totally united with the exact same aim of getting children back into school, the safest place is in the classroom, but that wasn’t the case and wasn’t what we were having to deal with.
I didn’t believe – at every stage, whether it was advice to – scientific advice and people who had a knowledge, I tried to make them available to unions, other sector bodies – that was really important, because that hopefully gave them the confidence. But the political reality is that if every – there’s a number of people who thought that if there’s a cord that they could pull that could mean they could stop schools returning in September, I think sadly – and it’s very disappointing to say this – they’d have grabbed the cord and they’d have tried to yank it.
But, you know, we hadn’t got things right in February and March, so I was very clear that we had to have a contingency plan in place. Of course, it would have – you know, of course some schools would have liked it, but what most schools wanted was a clarity and a certainty of what they had to do. And I felt – and maybe this was my fault – I thought it was really important to give them the clarity and certainty that I wanted those schools back, I wanted those children back in, and I wanted those vulnerable children back in.
Because we saw all the way through, we saw all the way through that first lockdown, the number of vulnerable children that were actually going into school was so incredibly low. And actually the only way to get them all – you know, more of those children back in, the only way to do that was getting all children back into school, because they’re the ones that – you know, yes, of course we’re talking about all of them, but those are the ones who were – that had – were most in danger. So it was so important.
And, you know, you might think it was wrong. I think actually it was right, because we got all the schools back and we got the children back into schools.
So whether it was – you might think it’s, you know, not the proper thing to do, actually, I think it was the proper thing to do, because it got what I needed to happen, and that was children back into schools.
And if you have an issue with that, well, you’ve got an issue with that, haven’t you?
Lead 8: In terms of who it was that was applying the pressure or who you thought would get in the way of schools reopening, are you talking about individual school leaders or who – who was this? Who was it that could –
Sir Gavin Cbe: So if I look across the school system, we have an amazing school system, you’ve got amazing teachers, you’ve got amazing head teachers, who work so incredibly hard, but you did have some actors – you took the National Education Union, for example, they quite simply opposed teaching in school and they opposed teaching remotely as well.
I mean, you know, I’m not sure what they expected teachers to do, but they certainly didn’t want them to teach during the pandemic.
And so you have a very large militant organisation that was willing to throw resources in, and wanted – you know, would occasionally pay lip service to wanting schools open, but more often would not. So these were some of the challenges that we sort of faced.
Lead 8: So it was union pressure, is that the –
Sir Gavin Cbe: That was very much what one of the – and can I just say, many of the unions were absolutely fantastic and had an amazingly constructive approach in terms of trying to work through some of the really, really difficult problems that we faced.
Lead 8: I’m just going to move on, just while we’re on Sir Jon Coles, the Inquiry has also heard evidence from him about exams.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: And about his concerns that accrued over the spring of 2020 –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: – about the – I say “exams” – assessments?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Assessments.
Lead 8: So the replacement for exams. And I know that you’re familiar with the background to this, Sir Gavin. You set it out in your statement.
You made a direction, didn’t you, to Ofqual to develop and implement an alternative system of grades; yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, that is right.
Lead 8: And one of the directions you gave them was to put in place arrangements for standardising results across schools as well, yes?
And we know, from what he has said, and we have seen the letter, that Sir Jon Coles went to you because he was so concerned –
Sir Gavin Cbe: He did.
Lead 8: – about the potential unfairness of this; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s correct.
Lead 8: And we’ve seen his letter. I mean, I can take you to the letter, if it would help.
Sir Gavin Cbe: I’ve seen it, but – I’ve read it.
Lead 8: Do you agree that he sets out in that letter why, as a matter of principle, the model that had been arrived at was unfair?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I could see his arguments, yes, and that’s why I asked to have a meeting with him.
Lead 8: Yes. And he explained before the Inquiry why the model was unfair and he was asked in his evidence, is that – was that broadly what he had explained to you, and I think he agreed that it was. So can I ask you, then, at that meeting, were you – did you understand why he was saying it was unfair?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I very much understood the concerns of where he was, and when we were looking at Sir Jon’s evidence, we didn’t have the way you went through the whole model, and how Sir Jon so articulately and clearly sort of explained it. That wasn’t quite the discussion that we had. It was slightly more generalised as I recall it.
But what really stood out to me, it was, I think it was Sir Jon – because if we go back to the March period when we had first talked about the standardisation of grades or the moderation, I think the phrase was used at the time, what everyone was clear on, there needed to be a moderation mechanism that sat over what was then, in the first year, referred to as centre-assessed grades. This was universal, it was an approach that had been taken not just in terms of England but also Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well.
And this was driven because there was a real fear that children from most disadvantage backgrounds were going to be most disadvantaged by centre-assessed grades or effectively teachers making those decisions. So it was felt to be the right thing.
Sir Jon’s voice was the first voice I had heard that said there was something sort of wrong on this. And when I sat down with him and, as you know, Sir Jon is a very thoughtful, experienced individual, both – experienced in both teaching – sorry, in the school system, but also in government as well – and that’s why I immediately asked him to sort of follow this up with my policy adviser, with Nick Gibb, as well, who was my Minister for Schools standard to actually sort of further that discussion to try, then, to put some sort of a challenge to Ofqual.
Nick had been meeting Ofqual I think on a sort of weekly basis all the way through this point, and I had also, sort of, met them, and they’d got their own expert panel in terms of the sort of moderation element, and everything we’d been told was that this was absolutely the right system, and so it was really worrying, when you have this sort of key voice come up, and sort of flag that.
Lead 8: Yes, so you took it, presumably, really seriously that he had these principled concerns about the model that had been arrived at?
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s correct. That’s why I think, in a space of a very short period of time, I think only a few days or maybe a week, from receiving the letter, I had organised a meeting with him.
Lead 8: Yes. He told the Inquiry that you said at the meeting with him, “Well, I think you might be right, Jon, but I think it’s too late now to do anything about it.”
Sir Gavin Cbe: Well, I certainly have no recollection of saying – we always understood that there were going to be some students who wouldn’t get the grades that they would deserve, and that’s why an appeals system – and this is why mechanisms to actually get that corrected were needed to be put in place, because, quite simply, you know, there is no perfect form of assessment. Even exams are not a perfect form of assessment. But they are probably the best form of assessment that we have.
But without – over the previous – over the previous 11 years, there’s been a significant shift in terms of how assessments are done, moving away. So when I did my GCSEs many years ago, some of my GCSEs were a hundred per cent coursework. Most of them would have a 25% coursework component. Virtually all GCSEs and A levels had virtually zero percentage coursework. So there was no sort of structural body of work that you could base, you know, any other form of assessment on.
So we knew that there was going to be weaknesses within the system. That’s why I insisted on having an exam programme that people could take in the autumn – which again, wouldn’t be perfect. But we were aware that it wasn’t going to be a perfect system.
I didn’t – I don’t recall looking at the minutes of the meeting. I don’t recall saying what was attributed to me, and nor do I, actually, you know, because at the time, we were still having Ofqual be quite clear that the system was robust and proper and absolutely the best system.
Lead 8: I’m just going to pin down whether or not you agree with what his fundamental objections were to the model, and that you understood them as set out in his letter. You did understand, didn’t you, or let me ask you: did you understand what he was saying, that for all large subject entry cohorts, they will discard the centre assessment grades in their entirety, and rely solely on their statistical model combined with the centre’s rank order?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, I understood.
Lead 8: And that’s really the nub of what he thought was so unfair about this.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: Do you agree?
And he set out in the letter to you:
[As read] “The problem with this rationale is that their statistical model will not be statistically valid for large cohorts either.”
And he explains it clearly in the letter:
[As read] “It is easy to build a model which calculates an expected grade distribution for school but there’s too much variability in outcomes for this to be accurate in all but a minority of cases.”
Correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I note that was one of the points, yes.
Lead 8: And that’s not complicated, is it? He’s just making the point that you can – you might be able to say “This school normally gets ten grade 5s”, but that isn’t fair on the individual who’s sitting the exam that year and who might exceed that. I mean, that’s the – I think that’s the basic point, isn’t it?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: And that this was a model that was favouring consistency of outcome and controlling inflation, rather than recognising fairness to the individual?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes. I think the model was – the model was quite clearly wrong, we – we felt at the time, and when we consistently went to Ofqual for reassurances about the issue of fairness, was that – that it was a – the correct model to be pursuing.
Lead 8: There was nothing wrong with the model as such. The model was doing what it said on the tin, wasn’t it?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I don’t think there was a – there wasn’t a realisation in terms of the individual impact in terms of students.
And I think this was something that we saw in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, as well as in England. I think that there was too much of a collective groupthink. And this wasn’t just in terms of just in England, but I think it was actually in terms of the devolved nations as well, that this was, you know, the best route.
And I don’t think that we – people hadn’t understood and truly comprehended the unfairness that it would sort of kick out, and at the scale that it would do. And there’d been a belief that by robust appeal systems and other measures, that where there were unfairnesses, that that would be something that could be dealt with.
Lead 8: You must understand that telling children that they would be assessed on a model, that I think you seem to accept was problematic, “But it’s all okay, you can appeal”, is deeply unfair to children?
Sir Gavin Cbe: The whole premise of what we came up with was – as you look back on it, was just not the right approach. And I’m afraid to say, even with Sir Jon’s changes to the system, it would still have ended up being the wrong approach.
And the reason it ended up being the wrong approach is the school system is – you know, it is incredibly diverse and it is incredibly autonomous. But there is a couple of things that people will always hold true, is that the person that knows the child will best understand the child, and any system, and even with various modifications put into it, would have actually been the wrong system, because anything that would have varied what the class teacher was saying a child was worth compared to what, you know, Ofqual, or whoever had designed it, or the Scottish Qualifications Authority or the Northern Irish or the Welsh, it would have – you know, it would have always seemed to be unjust.
And we should have – though everyone at the time, in March – and indeed, when I tried to – when my – getting more and more concerned about the system and was trying to look at different ways to put – because we don’t get the detailed data until the day before. You know, we get a briefing at, sort of, 6 o’clock the day before. I mean, very much in the way you would do in peacetime, not in, sort of, wartime. But even before that, and seeing what had happened in Scotland, the real worry and the real concern of, sort of, changing that, trying to put, sort of, mitigations in place.
The reality is, whoever – you know, when you put in that moderating system over and above teacher-assessed grades, it was always going to create a sense of conflict and a sense of unfairness. And that’s why, in the following year, we took a completely different approach. But we should have – we should have understood that – that position. Sir Jon’s concerns that were – were raised should have made us change – change the system.
But equally, at the time, was listening – all my professional advice, in terms of qualifications and assessments, sat within Ofqual. That had effectively been hived out of the department, I think probably ten years beforehand, into a sort of non-ministerial government department. And it wasn’t totally my decision, because they are the awarding authority. So you had to bring them along. And they were very clear that their system was right.
And I think if I had turned round to them – and I probably should have done – but if I had turned round to them to say, “We’re scrapping the system, we’re going straight to centre-assessed grades”, I think the Chief Regulator and the whole Ofqual board would have resigned at that point and they wouldn’t have accepted it or they wouldn’t have – they would have tried to resist that implementation, because even when we tried to do changes to what I would say – and make it fairer and try to deal with the rising concerns, it was incredibly difficult to get them to agree to any of those changes.
But in reality, on 18 March, we should have probably understood, everyone should have understood, where people’s faith would be. It’s not in any form of moderated system, it would always be with the teacher that knew the child.
Lady Hallett: Why were they so concerned about grade inflation? Given it was an emergency and a crisis one would have hoped would be over by the following year – we know now that it wasn’t, but that would have been the optimism bias – why were they so concerned about grade inflation? And did you challenge it?
Sir Gavin Cbe: My Lady, I think it was always – I think it was set up as an organisation to be obsessed with grade inflation. Education thinking, actually, for 15 years, has been concerns about grade inflation. So I think that Ofqual – I mean, within its structure, its sort of founding principles is to make sure, you know, a standard and maintenance of standard. I think it’s just that sort of ability to shift. And, as politicians, we’re equally sort of – and civil servants – because we’ve all been saying the same thing for so long – hard to believe, both – you know, we do actually believe what we say. You know, we sort of – we sort of – we thought this – this is the right thing. And so even though the scope had been given to show more leniency, I still think it’s just systematically the way the organisation thought. It was almost institutionalised within it.
And I do think, in terms of how we – like, some institutions are designed perfectly for peacetime, but when we’re in a different phase, actually the structures, how they operate and how they work with the rest of government, you can’t operate like that. And, you know, I would certainly say, if, god forbid, any of my successors were in the same position that I found myself in, is: You’ve got to sort of bring all of this into the department and it’s got to be owned, it’s got to be directed, it’s got to be – you know, if it’s – we literally spent probably about 72 hours in desperate negotiations waiting for, like, six hours for board meetings to conclude to see if they would moderate or change things. You can’t do that in a pandemic. And – and I think that we’ve got to have a different set of thinking for when we’re in a very different set of circumstances that was – you know, wasn’t quite there.
Lady Hallett: Thank you.
Ms Dobbin: Sir Gavin, I think you have accepted, in response to what my Lady asked you, that moderation, it wasn’t just Ofqual driving moderation, to be clear, it was you also.
Sir Gavin Cbe: It was the Labour Party, it was the –
Lead 8: I’m asking questions about your responsibility.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course. But the reason I was driving it was because if I spoke to the general secretary of every one of the teachers unions, they would say the same: moderation was required. Every one of the head teachers would say moderation was required. Every one of the schools bodies, they would say moderation was required. And –
Lead 8: And Sir Jon Coles – sorry to cut across you. Sir Jon Coles also agreed with you that moderation was required. It wasn’t the issue of modification, it was just how it was done; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: No. I don’t think moderation in the way that we were taking – what you had to do was make sure the evident – teachers could have as much as – so the second year we had the opportunity for the teachers to properly evidence-base how they were coming forward with their grades and that worked very well, but I think any form of moderation that we had put over on the centre-assessed grades would not have worked.
And I think that, you know, if you’re not able to, and I don’t know what the examination and assessment system for GCSEs, A levels will be in 10, 20, 30 years’ time, when, if there is another pandemic, but if they haven’t got that sort of body of cumulative evidence, which is something that we, you know, now ask all schools to sort of do, you are going to – you’re going to have the same difficulties as we did.
And any moderation system, and a moderation system fundamentally means someone other than a person that knows the child changing a grade from maybe a C to a D, or a B to a C, is going to be met with the same problems as this one, even though this system was imperfect. But every system will end up being seen as imperfect as well.
Lead 8: All right. I’m going to move on, if I may –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: – Sir Gavin, just to deal with an issue that you raise in your statement that I think it would help to have clarity with –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: – about, sorry. And I mean, this really relates generally to the period of time late summer leading into the reopening of schools and it’s the criticism you appear to make of Mr Johnson at paragraph 8.11 of your statement.
I’m going back slightly in time to ask you about the reopening of schools.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, of course.
Lead 8: And you set out here that on 9 May you were informed that the Prime Minister had made the unilateral decision that he would announce the following day that there would be a phased reopening of schools; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: And I think if we read down, read everything, we see a few lines down:
“I also agreed with the concept of getting all primary school children back into school before the summer holidays, but I knew that this wasn’t possible to deliver.”
And then following this on down, if we pick it up:
“This meant that unless the Prime Minister decided to go against his advice and changed these rules, this was a promise that [he] wouldn’t be able to keep …”
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: And then you set out:
“I believe that prior to making the announcement, the Prime Minister had been advised about this from his own officials and DfE officials. The Prime Minister understood that I did not agree with his announcement. This was because it was destined to fail, as he would not commit to removing the social distancing restrictions.”
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s correct.
Lead 8: Sir Gavin, can I just understand what it is that you’re …
Sir Gavin Cbe: Getting at.
Lead 8: – you’re getting at and what you’re saying that he was doing that you disagreed with at this stage?
Sir Gavin Cbe: So, prior to the announcement, we had agreed the return of a number of years back into schools, and this was to cover across, you know, secondary schools and primary schools, touching on transition years and everything else at that – that had all been agreed. And we’d been in the position of talking with stakeholders across the board, letting them know that this was going to be the case in order to be able to get them to be prepared for that.
Then, when the announcement happened, it was all of those years that we had sort of believed we had agreed with Number 10 were all coming back and we’d, you know, been having that dialogue and discussing with others about them coming back, but then he’d also said he wanted all primary school children coming back as well, which can I just say, I’m totally in support of, but the difficulty was that we weren’t going to be able to get all primary school schoolchildren back under how the current social distancing rules were, because if you can put yourself into a primary school, you know, an average primary school will be, you know, even the largest classes, at maximum, you can get, under the social distancing rules, which education settings are as bound by as any other government institution or commercial institution, as, sort of, an organisation are bound by, can only get a maximum of 15.
So unless – so obviously the transition years and the years that are coming back, so what was having to happen is those, instead of all those 30 children being in one classroom, 15 were in one, 15 were in another. Obviously if you bring all primary school children back you don’t have a spare amount of double the classrooms, or double the teachers, necessarily, to be able to sort of teach them all in.
So what we needed to do, if we were going to be able to deliver on that ambition, and I think the Prime Minister wanted to set a big ambition, but the only way we could deliver on that is if he said, “Well, actually, social distancing rules means that you can have 30 children in each of those classrooms, so relax it for everyone”, which, to me, it was absolutely clear the government wasn’t going to relax social distancing rules at that level at that time. Or they were going to have a carve-out or an exemption for education settings which means we could have done that. Otherwise there was just no physical way you could do it without asking every school to basically break the law.
Lead 8: You’ve obviously raised this in your witness statement as a distinct criticism of him, and I’m really asking on behalf of the Inquiry to identify what the criticism is. Is it that he cut across the work that you were doing to make an announcement that was completely un – I mean, was it damaging for you? Was it damaging for schools?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I think it was actually – I think it was damaging for schools, and I think it was damaging for children and parents, because, actually, what parents heard was the Prime Minister saying, “All your kids are going to be able to go back to primary school before summer”, which is what actually every parent – myself included – really wanted to sort of see happen.
But we all knew that we weren’t going to be able to deliver on it, because there was no chance, or seemingly no chance or will to change the social distancing rules either for the whole country to make that happen, or create a carve-out to do so. So I felt it was giving people a false sense of hope and belief of something that was going to happen and inevitably, two, three weeks later, you then have to tell everyone, “Oh, we can’t deliver on this.”
And I think it becomes quite clawing and undermining of the system, because, you know, would I like to do it? Yes. But I can’t ask every head teacher in the country to break the law in order to deliver that. And I think Number 10 knew that was the case, and I always recall my private secretary, principal private secretary at the time, Warwick Sharp, phoning me up just literally before it’s going to happen and say, “He’s going to announce this”, and he was like, you know, you know, why is it off script?
And also, you know, you did try your hardest to build a bond of trust between stakeholders and I’d been saying to them one thing, and then to – them to hear something completely different to what you’d been telling them was, you know – makes them think that you’re either being, you know, sort of not fully open with them, which certainly hadn’t been the case.
Lead 8: Can I ask you, then, whether it goes to this thematic issue that has been raised by other witnesses, as to whether or not decisions that went fundamentally to the education of children were, in reality, being made by Downing Street rather than the Department for Education?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I think that’s a very thoughtful question, because I think that if we look at education, if we look at sport, if we look at virtually every aspect of life, the decisions that were being made that were impacting those areas, whether it’s children in terms of education, whether it is business, or whether it was – you know, so many different sections of society, they were, you know, often being made away from the department. And, you know, obviously the priorities of the Department of Health were the ones that possibly overrode all other interests.
Understandably, with the challenges of the pandemic, you know, there is obviously going to be a much greater emphasis on that, but – and we may come on to this later in terms of January reopening and everything else like that, but what you were seeing is, a number of times where I thought the interests of children were better served by doing one thing, you still found yourself in a position where you were having to do something quite different because that is – that was in the interests of a different part of government, and that was a decision that’s effectively between Cabinet Office, Number 10, and Department of Health were making those decisions.
Lead 8: I’m not going to bring it up, there’s a different extract from the Vallance notebooks, and obviously all of the caveats previously stated apply, whereby the Prime Minister was suggesting the plans for schools “feeble”. Was that being communicated to you from the centre, that it wasn’t thought that the Department for Education was doing a sufficiently good job?
Sir Gavin Cbe: So, Boris – Mr Johnson would sometimes veer between, you know, sort of different positions. I know that in the August of 2020 he was really concerned about our plans to get schools back, especially in terms of home-to-school transport, and I think that might have been what it was in reference with, because we had a meeting. He was really, really concerned about this. We – I think this must have been early August in which it had occurred, and especially in terms of some of – you know, getting children from home to school, also children travelling across London and such – suchlike, and the Prime Minister was actually incredibly helpful in terms of actually making available Lord Hendy in order to be able to try and help us and support us to get a much better plan.
But I know that was a particular criticism, because I don’t think he felt that that was well thought through enough and well developed enough, and we worked with Lord Hendy, Sir Grant Shapps, who was Transport Secretary at the time, to get a much better plan, because it wasn’t in a good enough place.
And I have no doubt – I have no doubt that my department – there are many times that there were, sort of – you know – we did get things wrong, and, you know, I am sure that will have caused him frustrations, as it caused all of ourselves frustrations when we didn’t get things right.
Ms Dobbin: Thank you.
My Lady, I think that brings us to the short adjournment.
Lady Hallett: Certainly. I shall return at 1.45.
(12.48 pm)
(The Short Adjournment)
(1.45 pm)
Lady Hallett: Ms Dobbin.
Ms Dobbin: Thank you, my Lady.
Sir Gavin, I want to move on, if I may to another topic, which is that of the school closures in January 2021.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: And I wanted to start at your statement at page 84, paragraph 10.29, please, and if that could be brought up on screen.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: Thank you, if that could be enlarged, please.
In that paragraph, you set out that you remain of the view that school closures, as part of the third – yes – (overspeaking) –
Sir Gavin Cbe: No, no, please – yes, sorry.
Lead 8: I should say, Sir Gavin, before I put this, I’m simply asking – I’m not asking you to explain all of this now, we will go through all of it in detail.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: I simply want to ascertain that you stand by this.
So, you set out, paragraph 10.29, that:
“[You] remain of the view that the second set of school closures as a part of the third national lockdown was a mistake and [that] the government should have kept schools and colleges fully open to all pupils.”
Do you stand by that?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: You also set out:
“It felt like the government was taking all possible measures, including … schools, partly just to get people’s attention and alert them to the seriousness of the situation.”
Do you remain of that view and stand by that?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Very firmly.
Lead 8: And you say:
“I thought the decision was taken to close schools to the majority of pupils, not because this would have a significant impact on the infection rate, but more because the government had to be seen to be using all possible options available to them, to turn things around.”
Correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s what was said, and yes, that’s my view.
Lead 8: That’s your view. You then go on to say:
“I recollect the then CDL …”
I think that’s Sir Michael Gove?
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s correct.
Lead 8: “… I think, comparing it to smashing a Ming vase on the floor to get people’s attention.”
Yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: And then you go on to say:
“I think, as I say above, we should have the government should have given the mass testing regime that we had put in place, as well as all the other closures announced as part of the third lockdown, a chance to work. It should only have closed schools when all other options had been exhausted.”
Correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: So you were putting the mass testing regime that you had implemented to the fore of the reasons why schools shouldn’t have been closed; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: No, it was one element, because there was a whole set of other measures that, whenever schools were open, that there were controls and restrictions and constraints in place to limit the spread of Covid. So it wouldn’t have been just mass testing but that would have been an element, but it would have been an additional element over and above anything else that we had done previously.
Lead 8: And how important did you regard the testing in schools, the regime that you had implemented as part of the rationale as to why schools should stay open in January 2021?
Sir Gavin Cbe: So as Secretary of State for Education, I wasn’t sat there thinking, “I want to do an enormous exercise in mass testing”, in fact for the largest single testing, sort of coronavirus testing, certainly in this country that had ever been done, probably one of the largest ones in the world, for the sake of doing that. The only reason I was doing it was because I was of the understanding that by doing it, I would then have the ability to open schools. So I was doing it as a means to keep schools open and to get schools open after Christmas because that’s what I was led to understand was one of the criteria that originally the Department for Health and Social Care put a high value on at Number 10, and they thought it was one of those control mechanisms.
So that’s why I set about trying to deliver that.
Lead 8: All right. We’re going to come on to look at that in a bit of detail but before we do, I just want to check, as well, that you stand by what you said at paragraph 12.8 of your statement at page 98. And you’re referring here to the decision to close schools and you set out:
“Firstly we had seen the impact, especially on the most disadvantaged children, of not having schools open and operating as normally as possible. My concern was that a second set of restrictions would set back children’s educational recovery and progress even further.”
Correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: “Secondly, I felt it was wholly unnecessary. We had seen exceptionally high rates of COVID-19 in a number of northern towns and cities, yet had been able to keep schools open in these areas over this period. Whilst this would be exceptionally challenging at a national level, I felt it was the right thing to do, as keeping children in school was so beneficial to do them.”
Yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: And you go on to say:
“I still believe that the decision did not sufficiently take children’s interests or wellbeing into account.”
Correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: Do you stand by that?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: And then you go on to say:
“I believe that the decision to close schools in January 2021 was not required. It was a panic decision, made without having children’s interests front and centre.”
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, that is correct.
Lead 8: Sorry, forgive me, that’s a grave allegation to make against those who took the decision?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Well, I think when you hear phrases like “closing schools is smashing a Ming vase on the floor to get people’s attention”, I don’t think – I think it shows a lack of seriousness of actually not putting children first.
As I mentioned earlier, we’d seen an enormous impact on children in that first lockdown. We’d been able to avoid children being sent home and schools closed in the second lockdown, and I felt duty bound to do everything that I could do to keep schools open and fight that corner for children, and what I firmly believe was the right thing to do.
Lead 8: And that lack of seriousness in not putting children first – you’ve mentioned Sir Michael Gove and what he said – were there others who demonstrated this lack of seriousness, in your view?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I feel that – I feel that the decision was made to close schools, and I understand and there’s – maybe it’s sometimes easier being just in charge of a department, as against being in charge of a whole government or having a much greater cross – cross-government sort of reach, but, you know, I could understand their concerns, especially about the new variant of the virus and the spread of it, but I felt that it was as much done for messaging, and it was trying to influence and change behaviour, because the closure of schools on the first lockdown had been quite an important part, in terms of changing the patterns of behaviour.
So I felt that they were reaching that lever – for that lever, because they felt it was the easiest lever to reach for. This is why, every time another obstacle was put in our way to say, “Oh, you can only open schools if you do this or you do that”, I was so determined that we tried to do everything that we could do, and even if it meant having to make some compromises that we weren’t comfortable with, because I just didn’t think it was justified.
And I appreciate there were some children – there are some children that were vulnerable to Covid, but there was a good understanding of who those children were, and Covid wasn’t going to be having the impact in terms of children’s health that it was maybe first feared. And I felt that – and I felt that it was really important to get them back in for January after they had had so much disruption.
Lead 8: So, can I – just coming back to my question as to who this was a lack of seriousness on the part of, Sir Gavin, is that a lack of seriousness on the part of the Prime Minister?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Well, I think maybe actually … I think they – they chose to prioritise different things. Which is ultimately a choice a prime minister has to make. He has to prioritise one set of needs. And I think he chose the – the NHS over children. Obviously as the minister – the Secretary of State, ultimately, for children, in many ways – in all ways, you want to be the one who is, you know, fighting the corner for children.
So, ultimately, the decision was disappointing, and it was probably more so because we thought we had won the argument. I actually personally felt the Prime Minister, every instinct of him, wanted to see children remain in school. I’m certain he did, because he – I remember speaking to him on the morning of the 4th, and he was, like me – you know, sort of urging me on, saying, “You’ve got to get all the children into school, you’ve got to get them there, you’ve got to get them in a lessons, get the schools open and everything else.” I mean, he was on television that morning saying exactly the same thing.
So – so I believe that he was there, but I believe, you know, emotionally and in his head that’s what he wanted to do, but he was persuaded otherwise by others. And I imagine that would be probably Matt Hancock and Michael Gove and Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance, who will equally have a different set of – a different competing agenda.
And of course, always the easiest thing to do is to shut things, but I felt that the consequences for children wasn’t properly taken into account.
And we’ll probably end up moving back into this, but you can sort of see over all those weeks there was a pretty ferocious debate and discussion through government as – you know, quite simply, I tried to do everything I could do to persuade and keep the position that schools would be opening, even though we had to make compromises in terms of delaying secondary schools, and we were having to put restrictions in London, none of which we ultimately wanted to do but all of which were compromises we were trying to do to keep the principle of the bulk of schools opening.
But, you know, I thought that was a debate we had won, I thought it was an argument we had won, to the point that we were actually – actually opening, and then everything changed.
Lead 8: Well, maybe we can take this in stages.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: Let me just try to understand, or to see if we are starting from the same premise.
Sir Gavin, one of the concerns was, as I understand the documents, that there needed to be a testing regime in schools if they were to stand a chance of reopening, because transmission rates were going up –
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s right.
Lead 8: – in the winter of 2020; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Correct.
Lead 8: And if we pick up, please, the chronology at INQ000546731, this is a document of 4 December.
And if we go, please, to paragraph 9, it explains, doesn’t it, that:
“… serial testing can keep close contacts of cases in school …”
“Can keep close”, so contacts of cases in school:
“… and reduce Covid-related non-attendance.”
It refers to you as proposing:
“… a targeted approach to rollout in schools and colleges next term, including prioritising asymptomatic and serial testing for teachers in secondary schools, and serial testing for pupils in exam years.”
Yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: So I just want to be clear about this. You understood that testing could play an important part in keeping schools open, and were working towards that end. Yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, I mean, we’d been running trials, I think it was a couple of months beforehand, on this. At the time the supply of lateral flow tests were obviously much more limited, but we had started trialing this in schools, partly to drive out Covid from schools but also to try and make sure that children were able to, if they’d been in contact with someone, that they’re able to keep attending schools and being able to test them and make sure that they –
Lead 8: Yes. So we have moved on.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: There have been those pilots?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Indeed.
Lead 8: Paragraph 9 at the end says:
“Your Taskforce [because this is addressed to the Prime Minister] is supportive of this proposal, although the [Department for Education] does not yet have robust delivery plans or clarity on any funding support schools will need.”
And do you accept – I don’t – simply that that was the position at 4 December –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, that was – (overspeaking) –
Lead 8: – that those plans needed to be –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: And if we move on, please, I think it’s right that you made in announcement on 15 December that secondary schools would have access to rapid testing; yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, correct.
Lead 8: And that people (sic) would be eligible for testing if they were a close contact of anyone who had tested positive.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: I think that’s – I said “people”, but pupils. So this was testing for close contacts; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, that’s correct.
Lead 8: And staff also as well, yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s correct, yes.
Lead 8: Can you help me, as of 15 December, who was it envisaged would be carrying out testing in schools?
Sir Gavin Cbe: So the initial discussions were – and this was through conversations I had had with my officials, and as work had been started in probably early December moving through – the initial vision, and our initial understanding, had been that the Test and Trace organisation would be one of the key deliverers of testing in schools. This was obviously the organisation that had been set up with quite a substantial budget in order to do testing on a mass scale.
And then there seemed to be quite a sudden retreat, so that sort of understanding and as we’d been drafting a paper, suddenly seemed to crumble quite rapidly in a short space of time. And the emphasis shifted from Test and Trace delivering testing en masse in schools to schools delivering testing en masse within schools, which was requiring a complete different sort of set of thinking, because we’d almost thought all we had to do to start with was provide the setting and the pupils and then … and then it was … and then we had to, sort of, very rapidly move to a place of actually, what does it look like, effectively an education workforce plus –
Lead 8: Can I – forgive me –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: – I don’t wish to cut across you but I think we can probably demonstrate so that we have clarity about this –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, of course.
Lead 8: – given how important it is.
If we go to INQ000075503, please, and that’s page 1.
And again, just so that we can see, this is a document of 15 December?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: It’s a document from your department?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: It does say “and Department of Health and Social Care”, although don’t think we need to go into the dispute as to whether it’s a joint document, I think it’s suggested that it’s a document from you. I don’t think it matters, it’s really just to establish what it says.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Indeed.
Lead 8: So Sir Gavin, I think at paragraph 3 it was setting out – so we’d heard your base proposal which this document sets out.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yeah.
Lead 8: There was then a further proposal?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: That I think is again, that there would be testing at the start of term, so a, sort of, one-off testing event and then the base proposal would continue testing of close contacts; yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: And if we go, please, to paragraph 21, on page 9, this is where we understand the logistics involved that that required the mobilisation of a workforce of 49,000 people by 4 January. So you had a couple of weeks to come up with a workforce of this size; correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: And it sets out that one of the options was the deployment of military personnel?
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s correct.
Lead 8: And I think if we go over the page, I think it suggests that there were reasons why that might not be practical. And in fact, it ends by saying:
“This would need to be directed by COVID-O and is not a sustainable option.”
Yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Mm.
Lead 8: And then suggestions of other people like firefighters –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: – to come in to schools to do the testing.
So that was the position as it stood on 15 December.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: Someone had to come up with this workforce that was going to do testing.
I think if we go to another document which I think sheds further light on this, INQ000091143, please. I think that this document sets out in further detail the fact that testing would need to be delivered by an external workforce.
Perhaps if I take this in stages, Sir Gavin, so that I don’t mislead you.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lead 8: The second paragraph down suggests that there would be a delay to the start of school; correct, so that the testing could be –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Could be done –
Lead 8: – implemented?
Then if we look at the next paragraph down, I think it refers there to the Secretary of State having strong views on the policy. By “strong views”, was that disagreement?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I think that could be disagreement, yes.
Lead 8: And then I think importantly this:
“From a [Department for Education] perspective testing would need to be delivered by a workforce external to schools and colleges.”
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: For the reason that is set out here: that teachers needed to teach, not be involved in trying to test schools – trying to test children.
And was that because testing children is actually, or running a testing centre, is not a straightforward –
Sir Gavin Cbe: So – so, just a little bit of context around this, because if we’d just gone a few days beforehand, the idea that we would have to deliver testing in order to bring children back in January wasn’t something that we had really been socialised with. It was something that we were hoping to roll out and deliver as an extra protection, and actually the biggest part of it was actually about trying to keep children in school more so they weren’t having to isolate if they’d come into contact with people.
And then, in a very small space of time, and I assume with the rise of the new variant and some of the challenges that that had presented, then it became a demand, as part of a condition of children to be able to come back to school.
And, you know, we’d also – the discussion I had had with my policy officials was – their expectation was that Test and Trace, as I say, the organisation to do testing, would be delivering it on the ground. And I remember coming out of this meeting here with a distinctly different view: that where the challenge was going to actually fall, and the responsibility on the delivery of the whole, sort of, testing regime, wouldn’t end up being something that was quite so shared and more led by Test and Trace. The testing regime would be led – delivered by DfE, with the support of Test and Trace and maybe other people.
Lead 8: So if we look at the paragraph below:
“Continuing, THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EDUCATION said that more work was required to develop proposals around delivering the tests. For context, over ten million tests would need to be delivered within ten working days and DfE did not have the expertise to deliver mass testing on this scale.”
So is this what you were just referring to –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: – that’s why you were expecting to have external assistance?
And if we go over the page, please, I think:
“THE PERMANENT SECRETARY … [then] said …”
This is the second paragraph:
“… that, in the process of agreeing the proposal, it had become clear that the different workforces suggested to deliver testing would fall short of the required amount.”
Correct?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, that’s correct.
Lead 8: And then it sets out various points that had been made in discussion, (a), “deliverability was a major concern”?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: The plan thus far hadn’t involved primary schools?
Sir Gavin Cbe: No, there’s no inclusion of primary schools as part of the testing.
Lead 8: And indeed, the outstanding issue was around who would deliver the testing. And then (e), the potential for military forces; yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: But the point being made that they were already mobilised, I think, delivering vaccine programme and testing in tier 3 areas?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Indeed.
Lead 8: And then over the page, please, and to the bottom of page 3:
“… low level …”
And this is you, forgive me, I’m going to go through this quickly, Sir Gavin:
“… not a proposal which DfE wanted to bring forward and there was a low level of confidence in delivery. Testing on this scale would not be feasible without those with experience of how to do it and the proposal would not be deliverable if reliant on the school workforce.”
And I think the suggestion had been made it was like testing in care homes, but you said that wasn’t the case.
And then over the page, please. We see:
“Responding …”
Thank you.
That:
“An embryonic but feasible proposition could involve a third of the workforce …”
Being provided by the military, yes, or by firefighters, again. Yes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Indeed.
Lead 8: So do we take it from this, Sir Gavin, that on the – where are we now? – 16 December, that insofar as there was a requirement or an expectation that testing would be delivered in schools for them to open, that there remained no clarity as to who was going to provide the workforce so that that could be achieved?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I think this may surprise you, but it occurred a little bit in Covid, where there is the dawning realisation that, you know, if you want to keep – you know, do something, it is going to end up being yourself that has to, sort of, do it.
I think you can probably see from the comments made by the permanent secretary, Susan Acland-Hood, and myself, we – we were still at that stage, even though we were being – it was being indicated to us that the – it was going to be expected to have testing for children to come back, that there would be a lot of support in order to be able to deliver that.
I think after that meeting – not exactly sure of the chronology, but I’m pretty sure after that meeting Susan and I realised that this was going to be something that we were almost going to have to deliver ourselves if we were wanting to open schools.
Lead 8: Can I, just to conclude this bit of the chronology –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, of course.
Lead 8: – go to INQ000091117, please.
This is the … it’s, it is INQ000091117. This is the Covid-O meeting of 29 December.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: Sir Gavin, I won’t go through all of this, but if I could go, please, to page 4. And we can see at the start:
“The Prime Minister said that the meeting was to decide whether to delay the return of schools or universities further given the rapid spread of the new variant …”
So I think by this stage, Sir Gavin, the situation had become even more –
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s right.
Lead 8: – severe and serious.
And at the second paragraph it says:
“The Secretary of State for Education said that he had an exceptionally high level of confidence –
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s right.
Lead 8: – that the government could deliver the necessary testing in all secondary schools.”
Just help us with what had changed from the meeting that we just saw, where you were saying that there was – that there wasn’t confidence that this could be delivered, and why there had been this seemingly quite rapid turnaround so that testing was now something that you had an exceptionally high level of confidence in providing –
Sir Gavin Cbe: The reason for that is because we had had, from that moment when it became clear that the only way that we were going to be able to have schools open was if we were going to be able to stand up that testing regime, we had thrown everything we possibly could do in terms of being able to, sort of, get matters stood up in order to be able to return children, and have them tested.
With secondary schools, we’d also made the decision, which I don’t think we’ve touched on, that instead of between 4 and 11 January, we would be asking schools to do remote – secondary schools to do remote education. We wanted them to have that full week in order to be able to do everything they could do to stand up testing.
We were closely monitoring where the dispatch of tests were going to be, and whether they were hitting the many thousands of education settings that they would be needing to do, and we felt, down to the incredible dedication of teachers, military personnel, support staff, parents, volunteers, we felt in a much, much more confident place that we were going to be able to deliver that testing regime.
And I think the evidence actually sort of, even though we didn’t have the full return of schools as we had hoped on the 11th, still in that week you had tens of thousands of tests being delivered across educational establishments because you still had many hundreds of thousands of children going into school that week because attendance rates were much higher, because of, you know, you know, vulnerable children, critical – children of critical workers and everything else, but also fundamentally, when the scheme, most schools had got it all set up, it was all ready, obviously then they had the delay of schools.
But then, when the scheme had to start working, when we got all children back, we saw some of the highest rates and highest returns of data anywhere in the world, in terms of testing, that hadn’t been done. and this hadn’t been done by a, you know, the £22 billion Test and Trace organisation that was focused on doing testing; it was done by amazing teachers, amazing head teachers, amazing volunteers, amazing civil servants all working to create a mass testing scheme to test millions of people, and we got that set up.
And, you know, I appreciate it – there was a lot of worry about it, but the reality was, it worked. And it was an amazing – we had to ask people to give up their Christmases, and everything else like that, to get it set up but I still think it was – the reason we were doing it, because the price of actually getting children to be able to be in school, you know, to get children back into education after Christmas and have that continuity there and to be with their friends and to be able to continue to learn, especially those ones who were most vulnerable, it was worth it.
Lead 8: Can I – sorry, forgive me if I hadn’t understood – when you refer to having a testing regime, I think I haven’t checked the transcript, so forgive me if I have this wrong, capable of testing millions of children –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Lead 8: – when, obviously millions of children, there were – children didn’t go back to school in January.
Sir Gavin Cbe: No, but when they did go back, the whole testing regime which we’d set up over that sort of Christmas period –
Lead 8: They didn’t go back to school until starting from 8 March, did they?
Sir Gavin Cbe: You’re right, but the testing regime had been set up over that Christmas period and indeed, if you look at the figures, you will see that even though the testing regime – the testing scheme was already being used in all schools, because of course, schools were still open to vulnerable children, children of critical workers. I think if you look at the statistics in terms of school attendance, school attendance in the month of January and February, they were significantly higher, in fact raising to around sort of about 35% percentage wise, actually, in the sort of second educational lockdown, much higher in some areas.
So the system was working all the way through there because children were having to be tested because if they were going into school that testing regime had – was there, they were doing the testing, they’re going through, they’re having the benefit of doing that.
Lead 8: Can I go to INQ000273901, please, page 342. This is a Vallance notebook entry, Sir Gavin. So the same caveats apply. This is on 4 January:
“8 am meeting with subgroup chairs. Lots of gloom about situation. Schools are a mess.
“Covid PM. New restrictions have been cobbled together. Looks like back to March. PM says, ‘It’s going to knock my India trip on the head’.”
I think really just skipping down to this:
“DfE has been proved comprehensively wrong in every judgement over the past week.”
I mean, I think what that’s suggesting and what – and the general point that may be made about all of this, was that the Department for Education had massively underestimated the scale of the threat that existed at the end of December and didn’t have an adequate testing regime in place, and even if there was an adequate testing regime in place it could never have met the threat of – that the virus then posed.
Sir Gavin Cbe: So we did have a testing regime in place, and that’s what we’d worked to do, and you can see the, as I say, the week commencing 11 January, you see tens of thousands of Covid tests being carried out on children that were still going into school. It was there.
As to whether it was there to meet the threat, well, what you’re then asking is, it’s basically an epidemiological question, and my interest was to get children into school and give them the best opportunity, which I felt was for them to be able to have an education in a classroom. And there will be lots of people who disagree with me on that and there will be lots of people who agree with me on that one.
But, you know, we were right to want children to be able to go to school. I think the decision was wrong – and, you know, Patrick Vallance is perfectly welcome to have his view, but I think his judgement was wrong to make sure that children weren’t able to have an education, and I think the Department for Health were looking purely at their own interests and not the wider interests of children, and it’s easier to shut something.
And you saw it in the language. You saw it, you know, the Ming vase, you saw it in the comments of, you know, those who just wanted to minimise contact and schools, in their view, were a tool of being able to do that. And we did everything we could do, and we – it was the right thing to do to try and get children back to school.
Lead 8: Lastly, really, just this, Sir Gavin: if we could go to INQ000624542, page 23, please.
It’s a message that you sent to the Prime Minister in February that perhaps captures your anger:
“[Prime Minister], I always like to be polite in our conversations but I must confess to feeling a little hacked off.
“Not only do I get completely fucked over by decisions on 4 January that I took the shit and abuse for. I then get my legs cut from under me by an appointment that you don’t have the proper courtesy to discuss with me and get screwed over again.”
And the rest of that is about the appointment of Sir Kevan Collins.
In terms of taking the abuse, and getting your legs – well, let’s leave getting your legs cut from under you, but what abuse did you take for the decision on the 4 January, and what, again –
Sir Gavin Cbe: So what was clear. And you had it a sort of a number of times, if you take free school meals, where you – we’d given quite clear advice that we should continue to give free school meals through the holidays, you could see how that was the right thing to do by children from disadvantaged backgrounds, and you could also see the obvious political pitfalls that would occur as a result of not taking that advice, but despite all the advice, Number 10 and Treasury felt that they knew better and we ended up in the reverse situation.
On 4 January, I fundamentally so strongly believed it was the wrong decision of the government not to have all children back in schools, and in terms of, and what obviously people do tend to view is they tend to see – I would often get the question as to “Gavin, why did you decide to close schools as you opened them?” And it always sort of made me smile a little bit with the idea that I had the luxury of a person being able to actually take the decision.
And it can sometimes be frustrating that where you think you have a sort of a position that’s landed on, on 4 January, to the point where you’re speaking to the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister is saying it, you’ve got children back, I think at 85% of all eligible primary schools on the first cuts of data had all opened, and we delivered on it, and we thought we’d done the testing regime, for then, suddenly by lunchtime, to get a phone call to say everything has changed. It can sometimes be a little bit frustrating.
Lead 8: Yes. The Inquiry has, as one of its strands of work, Every Story Matters – sorry, thank you, that can come down – and many people have contributed to it, and some of the things that have been contributed might be regarded as universal experiences of parents or families during the lockdown, and one says this:
[As read] “Whereas my elder two had already grasped the basics of reading, writing, cursive and all of that, by the time we were in lockdown, my youngest, who was just starting out, seemed to have missed the most important months of his education because the school was closed just as he’d begun.”
And you’ll, I’m sure, understand, Sir Gavin, that that experience of children missing the most important parts of their childhood lives is applicable to almost all children who weren’t able to go to school, and indeed those children who were able to go to school. I’m sure you accept that?
Sir Gavin Cbe: And when you were listening and when you’ve read some of those stories, when you were seeing it with your own eyes, where you were seeing the impact, especially as people emerged from, after they’d emerged from lockdown to come out again, it made you understand how important it was that if we could have avoided that child or any child having yet more disruption, you know, it was really important to do everything we could do to try and make sure that they didn’t have that again. And that’s why … that’s why – I remember reading Matt Hancock’s texts which ended up being published in a national newspaper, and suchlike, and, you know, I remember when I went into that meeting on the 28th, 29th, having to argue so forcefully to keep schools open, because you could see what they were sort of wanting to do.
But it was right to try and keep them open, because the impact on the children, I didn’t believe that actually – I don’t think – I didn’t think that most of the people around that table were thinking about what children had gone through the previous few months, and it was a procedure, it was a mechanism in order to deliver their other aims. So that’s why, you know, maybe people had been a bit sneering of me about how passionate I was to try to actually make that argument, but I think it was so important to make it, because it – that child’s story was a common story. It was in – the same story in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and every part of England.
And so trying to make sure that schools returned, and if we had to do superhuman efforts, and so many people worked so incredibly hard to do it, let’s do it.
And I must confess, I’d thought I had won the argument at a point where, you know, children were going back, but events overtook.
Ms Dobbin: Thank you.
My Lady, I think that that’s all of the time that’s been allocated to me, and I think there are questions from our Core Participants.
Lady Hallett: There are.
Ms Hannett, I think you’re going first. Ms Hannett is there.
Sir Gavin, I only allow a certain amount of time to the advocates who are about to ask you questions and, to be fair, to Ms Dobbin. If you could keep your answers as short as possible –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Lady Hallett: – and focus on the questions as asked I’d be really grateful, as I’m sure Ms Hannett is.
The Witness: Yes, my Lady.
Questions From Ms Hannett KC
Ms Hannett: Thank you, my Lady.
Sir Gavin, I appear on behalf of Long Covid Kids and Long Covid Kids Scotland. Following a meeting in July 2021 between the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education, DfE officials agreed to start drafting operational guidance on Long Covid with the aim of publishing it to coincide with schools returning in September 2021. By 13 August 2021, the position had changed such that DfE was saying they proposed to issue some information to schools through informal routes rather than publishing operational guidance.
Why did DfE downgrade its position from issuing operational guidance on Long Covid?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I believe that would have been probably been on the advice that we were receiving from maybe Department of Health and Social Care. That was my understanding. We would probably be more guided by others.
Ms Hannett KC: It’s right, isn’t it, that the safety and the attainment of schools in – children in schools was your responsibility and you had advice in May 2021 that significant numbers of children had developed Long Covid, wasn’t it essential to give guidance and support to schools and teachers so they knew how to support pupils who had Long Covid and what to do in terms of supporting their educational attainment?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yeah, and what we wanted to do is – obviously, we are not a Department of Health, we’re a Department for Education, and you’re relying on others to give you the best advice and the best information as much as possible, and we aimed to get further information out in terms of the September which obviously some of that did come out, but obviously not as much detail as others would have liked.
But it was certainly something that we were aiming to address, and I think, if you think back to May 2021, this was a relatively newly emerging sort of issue that we’d become aware of, and, you know, by the actions that we took, we were trying to take that seriously. I obviously ceased to be Education Secretary from the sort of September 2021 period, so I’m not sure as to what the sort of timelines, but I know that it was work that we had commissioned, we were wanting to address, and we were very much wanting to help and look after children and support schools in supporting children, as well.
Ms Hannett KC: Sir Gavin, in fact no guidance on Long Covid for schools was ever issued, informal or otherwise, and do you agree that it was important in summer of 2021, and since, that schools and teachers have proper information on what was a new paediatric disease in order to help children in the appropriate way?
Sir Gavin Cbe: It’s also important for it to be the right information and correct information. I think it would be even more damaging if something was rushed and it was incorrect and it was inaccurate, and it either caused people, you know, to be misled on it. So I think accuracy is probably, in this area, as important, if not more important, than speed.
Ms Hannett KC: Sir Gavin, do you recall being told in May 2021 about the existence of Long Covid, first of all? So you could have told teachers that it existed, couldn’t you, in May 2021?
Sir Gavin Cbe: And to your second point?
Ms Hannett KC: Well, can you answer the first point? I’ll come to the second.
Sir Gavin Cbe: I was just assuming for – (overspeaking) – I was just trying for time.
Ms Hannett KC: – (overspeaking) –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes, we had a meeting to discuss it, yes.
Ms Hannett KC: Right. So you could also have – the fact that they knew it existed, you could have given them some guidance to – as to how to deal with children, in summer of 2021, who presented with Long Covid?
Sir Gavin Cbe: But you’ve got to have the right information. And as you’ll know, in May 2021 we were trying to be quite early leaning into this, in terms of, like, looking at this, but it’s also trying to get the right information so that can be properly shared.
And, you know, I can’t, sort of, speak, obviously, for my successors, but, you know, by the fact that we were, sort of, meeting to discuss this and to raise this shows the seriousness in which we were sort of taking – taking it. But again, trying to have the right information.
Ms Hannett: My Lady, thank you.
Lady Hallett: Thank you, Ms Hannett.
Mr Twomey.
He’s over that way behind the pillar.
The Witness: Oh, thank you, thank you.
Questions From Mr Twomey KC
Mr Twomey: Thank you.
With my Lady’s permission, Sir Gavin, a question on behalf of Article 39, if I may.
There was a cross-government commitment first made in 2010, and reiterated in 2018, to give due consideration to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child when making legislation or policy affecting children.
Now, what systems and processes were in place within the department to implement, firstly, your general statutory duty to promote the wellbeing of children? And secondly, to what extent did consideration of the UNCRC influence those systems and procedures?
Sir Gavin Cbe: It’s very important and a very serious duty that you see at the heart of your job. I mean, in some ways, the discussion that we were having before you asked your question, about why did we go to such extraordinary lengths in order to try to deliver what was required for children to go to school, was because we saw that of critical importance to the wellbeing of children and their ability to get a face-to-face education.
But you would always see it in terms of submissions and what was brought forward to you as Secretary of State about how the child was at the centre of what we were doing and what we wanted to do. And, you know, I had a brilliant Children’s Minister in terms of Vicky Ford, and before that Michelle Donelan and Kemi Badenoch in the department, who were equally passionate in supporting me and the department in what we did.
Mr Twomey KC: Systems and processes?
Sir Gavin Cbe: The systems and processes is, like – you know, you would look at where – you know, when you were having to make a decision, a decision would always be very much focused around the child. You know, putting in terms of, you know, impact assessments and everything else like that. The day-to-day work of the department very much had – or my recollection of it – was very much the child at the heart every single day.
Mr Twomey: Thank you.
Thank you, my Lady.
Lady Hallett: Thank you, Mr Twomey.
Mr Broach, who is right in front of Mr Twomey.
The Witness: Thank you.
Questions From Mr Broach KC
Mr Broach: My Lady, thank you.
Sir Gavin, I have a question for you, please, on behalf on the Children’s Rights Organisations. We heard your stark concerns earlier about the lack of consideration for the impact on children of the decision to close schools in January 2021. In more general terms, with no cabinet minister with overall responsibility for children and with the Department for Education missing from key meetings, to what extent were children and young people’s rights and needs prioritised in decision making at the heart of the government during the pandemic in your view?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I think much of the time it was very much – most of the time it was at the heart – I know I viewed my responsibility to try and battle for those who, you know – those who would not have a voice around the cabinet table in terms of a child.
Obviously not every meeting you were in, and has been – I’ve readily admitted that decisions on 4 January, these weren’t decisions that I was in the meeting to be – you know, that sort of reversed the initial decision to open schools.
So I would say, going forward, for any future pandemic planning, you absolutely do have to have the Education Secretary. If you are going to make the decision to close schools, you need to have the Education Secretary there to be part of that, and do everything they can do to continue to argue for that point.
So I’d say most of the time it was good but there were some times that there were failures.
Mr Broach KC: Thank you.
With regard to, for example, other wider issues such as social distancing measures and their application to children, did you feel that you were able to influence the decisions that were being made at the heart of government in that regard from the perspective of children’s rights and interests?
Sir Gavin Cbe: We certainly pushed but we were always one voice among many voices as well. So you would have different secretaries of state obviously pursuing different agendas. I remember the discussion around play equipment, where there’d been bans on play equipment and trying to advocate and speak on behalf of children on this and many other such issues.
Mr Broach: Thank you.
Thank you, my Lady.
Lady Hallett: Thank you, Mr Broach.
Mr Jacobs.
Mr Jacobs represents the TUC, Sir Gavin, you may want to know.
The Witness: Oh, thank you.
Questions From Mr Jacobs
Mr Jacobs: Sir Gavin, good afternoon.
Sir Gavin Cbe: My favourite organisation.
Mr Jacobs: In your statement, at its conclusion, you turn to lessons learned.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Mr Jacobs: And your reflection at 12.16 is:
“… the government should have a clearly established framework for considering school closures. This framework should set out to the sector the steps that would be taken in the run-up to closures, including thresholds for each step … This would help the education and [Early Years] sector better prepare for such an eventuality. It would also be easier to work in partnership with the sector to operationalise such a shift.”
Do you stand by that reflection?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Mr Jacobs: The reason I ask is because, as we have seen, it is precisely the opposite of what happened in the Covid pandemic, and it’s a position that you defended today because, in August 2020, the decision was that contingency plans would not be shared with schools. Is the reason you offer the lesson learned, that contingency planning does need to be shared with schools, because actually you recognise, on sensible reflection, that the approach in Covid was wrong?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yeah, I think that what we saw during Covid, I think if we had had, in the years before we even thought we had to move to a pandemic, we’d had a whole set of operational manuals that people would – able to understand and have a grasp of, and where some of the movement and tolerances would be. I think that –
Mr Jacobs: Sir Gavin, I’m sorry I’m going to interrupt because I’m not asking you about January, February, March 2020. Your own paper, in August 2020, to the Covid-S meeting, says:
[As read] “We need contingency plans. Here are the contingency plans that we suggest sharing with schools.”
And the decision was: do not share it with schools.
So it’s got nothing to do with whether it’s possible to have contingency plannings, it had everything to do with keeping the sector in the dark. That was wrong, wasn’t it?
Sir Gavin Cbe: It wasn’t, in fact, about keeping the sector in the dark; it was keeping – there were certain trade unions, such as the NEU, that were working very proactively to, sort of, ensure that schools wouldn’t reopen and were acting in a way which I thought was highly detrimental to children. And the way that they acted and the way they operated –
Mr Jacobs: Sir Gavin, let’s be fair to the NEU and talk less in generalities and more about they were actually saying.
Could we have on screen INQ000192233.
So this is an NEU press release of 23 August 2020. So it’s about two weeks after the Covid-S meeting has decided: we need contingency plans but we mustn’t share them with schools. Okay?
At the top of the second page, if we look at two paragraphs:
“The NEU agrees with the Chief Medical Officer about the benefits a return to full time education will have for children and young peoples education and well being.
“We believe that it is vital that the Government must take every step it can both to allow this wider re-opening and to keep the R rate below 1.”
And then if we look at the last two paragraphs on that page, schools and colleges – sorry, the paragraph above:
“Schools and colleges are currently doing all they can to ensure their buildings are as COVID secure as possible, as well as dealing with the fallout from the exams fiasco.
“However school staff, parents and pupils are being sorely let down by Government because of a lack of a Plan B and of ensuring robust track trace and test is in place throughout the country.”
Then if we look over the page, at the top paragraph:
“Schools and colleges need to know what should happen if an outbreak occurs in individual schools or more widely with either national, regional or local spikes. Government advice needs to cover the possible self-isolation of bubbles and, in extremis, moving to rotas, or to more limited opening. It needs to cover advice to heads about the protections needed for staff in high risk categories.”
So Sir Gavin, 23 August, NEU aren’t saying, “Don’t open schools in a couple of weeks’ time”, they are saying, “We need a Plan B”. In private you agreed with them, didn’t you?
Sir Gavin Cbe: What the – it’s not for me to comment, really, actually, what the NEU were thinking. What was provided to schools was information if there were outbreaks, whether there’s local spikes, and suchlike.
Mr Jacobs: Sir Gavin –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Sorry, are you wanting to ask a question –
Mr Jacobs: I’m just wanting my questions answered –
Sir Gavin Cbe: – or – (overspeaking) – will get an answer.
Lady Hallett: Not both at the same time.
The Witness: Oh, sorry.
Lady Hallett: Right. Repeat the question and see if you can answer it –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Very briefly.
Lady Hallett: – the way you want to.
Mr Jacobs: Let me approach it in a slightly different way, my Lady, if I may.
This, Sir Gavin, what I would suggest caricature of the NEU being militant and wanting the teachers to do anything but teach, does it really say nothing about the NEU but lift the lid on the mind set of a government that had lost the wood for the trees and was more interested in fighting with the profession than coming up with sensible plans?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Do you know – I’m not sure if you’ve got another question or if you’d like me to answer.
Do you know, I have immense amount of respect and especially for trade unions. And people who I often disagreed with mightily during the pandemic, such as Patrick Roach, you know, Geoff Barton, Paul Whitehouse, you know, we had many discussions, sometimes disagreements, and I could see how incredibly hard that they were working, and how difficult and frustrating they found the whole situation was.
And I have no doubt that we’d sometimes disagree on areas of policy and sometimes I would let them down in what I could deliver, and they would not go to where I would wish them to deliver. And, you know, that was the type of relationship that we had.
The NEU frankly, I just found was a blocker. I mean, and they just didn’t want to sort of see it. And there was different – different unions have different approaches but that was my experience. And – I appreciate we’re going to probably disagree on this, aren’t we? Maybe if we move on to another question where we can bring more light?
Mr Jacobs: Well, on the subject of trying to bring light, if we stand back and look sensibly at what happened in schools in the pandemic, and consider some of the issues around mass testing being announced on 17 December, to be brought in on 4 January, or local authorities wanting to close schools due to regional issues and being threatened with legal action, or opening schools on 4 January only to close them that day, is the root cause not this fundamental problem of not having an agreed contingency framework, agreed with the sector?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I think that what we worked through all the way through is, you know, I tried to make as much of my time available, and every week met unions and different stakeholders to talk through the issues. I tried, and I think it was the right thing to do, to work with them as closely as possible even if we couldn’t always agree. Some of the very good advice and very excellent guidance came from some of those leaders of unions who were as passionate about education as I was, and for teachers and head teachers and teaching support staff were as well.
But we weren’t always going to be able to agree on everything, and I do accept that.
Mr Jacobs: Sir Gavin, I’m going to try and deal with one other topic in my final minute. Decisions on 4 January. You’ve described your view that the NHS would not be overwhelmed and it was unnecessary. Did you and your department really grapple with the epidemiological advice that SAGE had been giving, and what was it about that advice that you considered to be wrong, such that restricting attendance or closing schools wasn’t necessary?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I think you rather sort of betray your natural interest to see sort of schools not delivering education. My natural interest, my whole focus, was to actually do what I thought was right for children, and my firm belief now, as it was then, is that the best interests of children were to be able to have education in a classroom with their amazing teachers. I know that the outcomes –
Mr Jacobs: Now –
Sir Gavin Cbe: No, I’m just –
Mr Jacobs: I’m just going to pause you there because I’m almost out of time but I’ve asked you a question about epidemiology and you’ve not answered it at all.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Okay, so –
Mr Jacobs: So let me put the question. Is that emblematic of actually exactly what you did in the pandemic?
Sir Gavin Cbe: My job wasn’t to make the epidemiological assessment. My job was to make the argument for what was in the best interests of children. And ultimately, ultimately, I and so many other people also believe that the best interests of children was to be in school.
Mr Jacobs: Thank you, Sir Gavin.
Lady Hallett: Thank you, Mr Jacobs.
Mr Wagner, who is that way.
The Witness: Of course, thank you.
Questions From Mr Wagner KC
Mr Wagner: Good afternoon, Sir Gavin, I act for Clinically Vulnerable Families. I want to start by asking you about two pieces of DfE guidance. First, there was guidance published in May 2020 which said that school attendance is expected unless a child or a household is shielding or is clinically vulnerable, and that was what was said in May 2020. And as you might expect, Clinically Vulnerable Families welcomed that guidance because it gave some flexibility for them.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Mr Wagner KC: And then two months later, in July 2020, the new guidance, which was for school reopening, allowed pupils not to attend school if they were self-isolating following a positive Covid-19 test, or if they had specific clinical advice from their health professional not to attend, but it left out that part that said if they’re shielding or clinically vulnerable, they could not attend. Why was it that that wasn’t reflected – that those two pieces of guidance two months apart allowed for very different approaches to clinically vulnerable people, despite there still being significant health dangers to them at that time in July 2020?
Sir Gavin Cbe: That’s a very interesting question. And I think where we were trying to get the balance was, you know, the overall sense, of, you know, bringing children all back into the schooling system.
And I do appreciate the advice that you highlight, but as you’ll know within the school system, there is always that element of flexibility that is available at a local sort of level. So sometimes where there are very specific circumstances, or suchlike, you know, that is something that can be discussed and relayed with head teachers.
But my recollection at the time was, is the sense of getting all children back into the school system at the earliest possible moment and the sense that there was an element of flex within the system that would able to deal with any specific cases that were particularly difficult.
Mr Wagner KC: But that policy didn’t say there should be an element of local flexibility. Wasn’t it really a one-size-fits-all policy? The purpose of getting everybody back in, but at the expense of clinically vulnerable people?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I don’t think it was, it was making sure that children were prioritised, and the sense was that a key element of the most important thing for them was to be back into school. And that, I feel, was where the thrust of the policy direction was.
Mr Wagner KC: But not all children are the same, are they? And there is this group of clinically vulnerable children and children who live with very clinically vulnerable adults.
Sir Gavin Cbe: You are right, absolutely. No child is the same. No individual is – no person is the same. But what you – what head teachers do is they do have the ability to show an element of discretion where there are specific points. I think what was important in terms of the guidance and what the guidance was put there to do, was to do everything that we could do to enable the reopening of schools, children to be back, but every child to get the best possible experience back into the education setting.
But I think if you do, you know, even today, if you have a specific problem with your child, whether it’s sort of health related or, you know, there’s always that flexibility. It doesn’t initially automatically result in some form of fine or conviction or anything else like that. That would be to misunderstand the system.
Mr Wagner KC: Well, on that, Professor Gillean McCluskey who is the Inquiry’s education expert, gave evidence last week, said in her evidence, that England took a more strict and punitive approach to school absences for clinically vulnerable children and children from clinically vulnerable families compared to other parts of the UK which were more flexible and supportive. And in fact, that reflects the evidence that Clinically Vulnerable Families, the group, has given from its members, many of whom were – kept their children off school and ended up being fined or even prosecuted.
So a couple of questions arising from that. Did you know, were you aware, that such a strict approach was being taken?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I was aware that we had a stricter approach to Scotland and Wales. I’m not familiar with the Northern Ireland land, where their position was. But it felt, when the policy was devised, it seemed to be the right policy. They’re one of the reflections in terms of the Inquiry is, was our approach correct or was the Welsh or Scottish approach correct? And that would certainly be something I’d be very keen to learn from and understand better, if we didn’t get that correct.
Mr Wagner KC: But isn’t this – aren’t you saying two contradictory things here? On the one hand you’re saying we had a strict policy but that we knew there was flex; and on the other you’re saying, “Yes, I was aware we deliberately had a punitive policy against parents.”
Sir Gavin Cbe: I don’t think I said that we had a punitive policy. I think you said we had a punitive policy.
Mr Wagner KC: Well, I’m asking you were you aware that there was a punitive policy and you said “yes”.
Sir Gavin Cbe: I was aware that we had a stricter policy than we had in Scotland and Wales. I had assumed you were almost using journalistic language in terms of how you were sort of approaching it maybe, but what I’m saying is that there was always – there is, within the system, as you will know, a child does not get immediately – a parent does not get immediately fined if a child is away from school. There’s multiple conversations with head teachers, between head teacher and parent. This is a long process even before it gets referred on to the local authority where any such measures are taken into account. But it gives the head teacher the opportunity to make a proper assessment of what the situation is in that family. And –
Mr Wagner KC: Sorry, I’m just going to have to jump in –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Mr Wagner KC: – because I just want to get my final question in, if you don’t mind.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Of course.
Mr Wagner KC: And I would say that wasn’t the experience of clinically vulnerable families, that kind of – those multi-part processes and flexibility.
Just finally on remote learning, remote learning, again it was restricted to children who were infected with Covid-19 or who had clinical advice not to attend. So if the child was clinically vulnerable or the families were, they simply were left, and they decided for health reasons not to attend school, they were left without remote education. Would you – was this another example of a blanket policy which came at the expense of clinically vulnerable people?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Not at all.
Mr Wagner: Thank you.
Lady Hallett: Thank you, Mr Wagner.
Lastly, it’s Ms Beattie, who sits there.
The Witness: Okay, of course.
Questions From Ms Beattie
Ms Beattie: I ask questions on behalf of national Disabled People’s Organisations.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Thank you.
Ms Beattie: In the first lockdown you say that the department chose to let education settings plan their own remote education.
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yeah.
Ms Beattie: The department did not issue clear guidance on the quantity and quality of remote education, but instead, in early May, published descriptive information and case examples of what some schools were doing at that time. This suggested that remote education for children with special educational needs and disabilities would need to be tailored to individual needs, but it did not stipulate equal access to remote education for disabled children as a requirement, and more detailed guidance on accessible remote education was not provided in this crucial period.
In practice, fewer than half of teachers surveyed for Ofsted’s January 2021 report on remote education said that their school offered additional remote learning arrangements for pupils with SEND. 59% of parents of a pupil with SEND said that their child had been disengaged with remote learning, compared with 39% of parents with children without additional needs. And as late as December 2021, Ofsted again reported that, for pupils with SEND, remote learning had resulted in more pronounced gaps in knowledge and skills than for their peers.
Do you agree that the descriptive case examples and other resources provided by the department during the first lockdown were not sufficient to ensure that remote education was accessible to disabled children?
Sir Gavin Cbe: I – I do agree. And what we became aware of, the – the level and consistency of remote education during that first lockdown wasn’t anything at the level that – in the discussions that we’d had with various different organisations, including representative organisations, where, you know, the – the “very good” was excellent, but there could be an awful lot of variability. That’s why you probably, sort of, note, through some of the evidence, sort of, back in the June of 2020, we started to explore the route of direction on home education in terms of expectations. And that was the approach that we adopted later on in the year, when it became apparent that we’d need to use that.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to speak over you.
Ms Beattie: No, Sir Gavin, you were not. Have you finished your answer?
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yes.
Ms Beattie: You say in your statement that it was your belief that we should be more assertive in our expectations around delivery of remote education. There was nothing stopping the department in being assertive in planning and drafting guidance on expectations for remote education as early as February 2020, when, as you tell us, it was flagged as part of the worst-case scenario planning. And that would apply not only if all schools were being closed but, indeed, if any small group, class, or even individual school or regional local area required restrictions such that students had to learn from home –
Sir Gavin Cbe: Yeah.
Ms Beattie: – wouldn’t it?
Sir Gavin Cbe: So it’s certainly one of those things – options that could have been looked at, yes.
Ms Beattie: Thank you.
Lady Hallett: Thank you, Ms Beattie.
That completes the questions we have for you, Sir Gavin. I appreciate it has been long day and a long several sessions for you.
The Witness: Thank you.
Lady Hallett: Thank you very much for the help that you have given to the Inquiry.
The Witness: Thank you.
Lady Hallett: Very well. I shall break now and return at 3.20.
(3.03 pm)
(A short break)
(3.20 pm)
Lady Hallett: Yes?
Mr Lee: My Lady, may I please call Ms Jean Blair.
Ms Jean Blair
MS JEAN BLAIR (affirmed).
Questions From Counsel to the Inquiry
Mr Lee: Thank you, Ms Blair.
You have provided a witness statement to the Inquiry dated 9 July 2025, and the reference we have for that is INQ000588049.
Can you confirm, please, that the contents of that statement are true to the best of your knowledge and belief?
Ms Jean Blair: I can, yes.
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair, if we can quickly and briefly cover your professional background, it’s right, isn’t it, that you are the current Chief Operations Officer at the Scottish Qualifications Authority, the SQA, and you’ve been in this role since October 2014?
Ms Jean Blair: I am, and yes.
Counsel Inquiry: And in total you’ve worked at the SQA for 34 years in a number of different roles; is that also correct?
Ms Jean Blair: Correct.
Counsel Inquiry: And again, to briefly just quickly cover the roles and responsibilities of the SQA, you explain in your witness statement that the SQA is the national qualifications accreditation and awarding body in Scotland. And Ms Blair, in practice, does that mean that the SQA is responsible for delivering the annual dietary exams in Scotland from year to year?
Ms Jean Blair: It is, yes, thank you.
Counsel Inquiry: And again, briefly, this would cover national qualifications, higher qualifications, and a range of vocational qualifications that are developed of industry partners, so, for example, quite specialist training courses?
Ms Jean Blair: Yes, national qualifications, higher national qualifications, vocational qualifications. And as you say, it involves a range of experts and their development.
Counsel Inquiry: And in terms of national and higher qualifications, would it be right to say that they are similar or broadly equivalent to English GCSEs and A levels?
Ms Jean Blair: The national qualifications are broadly similar to GCSEs and the A levels. Higher national qualifications are qualifications that are delivered mainly by colleges and involve internal assessment. They don’t have exams.
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair, can you help us with how many children and young people were due to sit exams in 2020?
Ms Jean Blair: We certificated 129,000 learners in 2020.
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair, if we can now jump straight to the point in time where the decision to close schools and cancel exams was made. We know that the then Deputy First Minister, Mr John Swinney, informed the Chief Examiner at the SQA, Fiona Robertson, on 18 March 2020 that schools would close imminently and the SQA should work on the assumption that it would not be possible to deliver the 2020 exam diet.
We know that it was later announced in Scotland that schools would close from 23 March. And am I right, at that point schools and colleges were asked by Mr Swinney to start working on providing estimated grades for students?
Ms Jean Blair: We were hopeful that we would be able to use some of our coursework, when they first announced that schools would be closed.
Just to explain, in Scotland, the qualifications are determined both by exams and by an external assessment of coursework, and we had hoped that some of the coursework that learners had been producing throughout the course of the year could be used to help us arrive at a judgement of their grades.
So – and, of course, the circumstances were overtaken by public health advice, and the decision was taken that schools would be closed and coursework would no longer be used as part of the grading in Scotland.
Counsel Inquiry: Now, Ms Blair, am I right that at 18 March, the coursework issue was a live issue, but in the following days, that’s when the decision was made that coursework marking simply cannot go ahead?
Ms Jean Blair: That’s correct, with – it had approval of our board.
Counsel Inquiry: And we know on 18 March that it was Mr Swinney that commissioned the SQA to develop an Alternative Certification Model, an ACM.
In short, Ms Blair, is that a new model to replace exams and for the SQA to come up with a new way to award results in 2020?
Ms Jean Blair: That is correct yes.
Counsel Inquiry: In terms of scale and risk, was this one of the biggest decisions the SQA has had to make?
Ms Jean Blair: It was unprecedented. Exams have run in Scotland since 1888. They ran through the First and Second World Wars. It is the first time the exam diet has been cancelled.
Counsel Inquiry: Just quickly in terms of time pressures, we know from 18 March 2020, we fast forward to results day, which is 4 August 2020, is it right therefore that the SQA had around four and a half months to come up with this new model?
Ms Jean Blair: That’s correct, but obviously we had to make some public statements about the nature of that model, what it would contain, how we would go about delivering results for learners, in a much shorter period of time, and we made our first statement about the model on 2 April. So within a couple of weeks of the announcement, we were making our first statement, and just to put that into context, we were just shy of six weeks away from the diet running in Scotland. It had been due to start on 27 April.
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair, at the point at the latter stages of March, did the SQA feel that it was even possible to develop a solution that could replicate the traditional assessment conditions and the systems that you in Scotland were so used to?
Ms Jean Blair: We had been doing some scenario planning on the back of the Covid Inquiry (sic) but in fact in November 2018 we’d had some systems issues, and had explored the possibility of a minimum viable product involving estimates. That work was revisited as part of our discussions about the scenarios that we might encounter as the Covid pandemic was spreading. And so therefore, given the history of estimates in Scotland, and also the use of alternative evidence in Scotland, we felt that we could build a credible model in the time available to us.
It is the case that we did not have a contingency model in the event of the entire diet being cancelled, but we did have other contingencies in – organisational contingencies, and a national contingency plans in place, but none of them were about the cancellation of the full diet.
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair, if we can move on now to the topic of the development of the 2020 ACM.
If we can have on screen, please, INQ000588049, we can see from your statement, which is on screen, that the SQA’s approach to developing the 2020 ACM was informed by three core principles. Is it right that these were set by Mr Swinney?
Ms Jean Blair: Yes, although we did help to inform those, and of course we also took them to our board. There was broad agreement about these principles when they were published, our stakeholders also related to these core principles.
Counsel Inquiry: And we can see, Ms Blair, to summarise what’s on screen, that the model had to ensure fairness to all learners, it had to be safe and secure, whilst following the latest public health advice and it had to maintain the integrity and credibility of qualifications to ensure that standards are maintained over time in the interests of learners.
At the point the Q&A were setting or contributing to these core principles, did you notice a potential inherent tension between the objectives of fairness to all learners and maintaining standards?
Ms Jean Blair: Qualifications are about standards. They set the skill, the knowledge, and the competence for learners in undertaking those qualifications. Learners need to know what it is that they are working towards. Users of those qualifications need to know what learners have achieved. And there is something here about maintaining standards over time, so that learners in the past, in the present and the future, are all working to a standard that is credible. So it’s balancing fairness with maintaining standards, and if you don’t have qualifications that are credible in the eyes of learners or users, then it undermines their worth.
So there is a need to have a recognition that qualifications that – in themselves are also about fairness to learners.
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair, on that point, we know – and I’m not going to ask you in any detail why maintaining standards in ordinary times is important, but March 2020 was like no other year, in that schools had closed, traditional teaching had stopped, exams were cancelled, and we know that children were facing a variety of other challenges brought on by the pandemic. Was it even possible to uphold each principle in equal measures or did some leniency have to be given between the balance to be struck between maintaining standards and allowing some grade inflation that year?
Ms Jean Blair: We accepted 75% of teacher estimates in Scotland. That was actually the highest in the UK. We know, through our research, that there is variability in estimates and reliability of estimates, so we had allowed for some variability in the estimates that we received from teachers. We knew that some learners would be sitting exams for the first time. We know that there are some low uptake courses in Scotland and there would be some centres who would be brand new to delivering the subjects for the first time.
So we took all of that into consideration in the model that we developed, and we also sought the advice of our subject experts in the work of the model and in the – setting the starting point distributions for our grades and also in our awarding meetings. So although the model has been perceived as largely statistical, it was both qualitative and quantitative in its application.
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair, just turning, then, to the 2020 ACM model, and I want to summarise this at a very, very high level, but in essence, to set the context before I move on to ask you about other areas of decision making. Is it correct that the model worked in the following way: that centres, ie schools or colleges, provided teacher-assessed grades to the SQA, that they were received by 29 May 2020, and having identified a need for moderation – that we will return to – the SQA decided to adopt a statistical approach to national moderation, in that the teacher estimates were then compared to the historic results of that particular centre or school from previous years, and then, if it was deemed necessary, moderation took place? So, in other words, teacher-estimated grades were changed if the estimates were outside a tolerance range.
At a high level, is that how the 2020 ACM operated?
Ms Jean Blair: Yes, but there was also supposed to be moderation in centres and at a regional level, so we did give them historic attainment data, we did give them their estimates from previous years. We had always said that there would be some form of moderation, and we were – we provided for some tolerances and variability in the model. But we had been clear that moderation would be needed as part of this process.
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair, when you say you were clear that moderation was needed as part of the process, at what point did you tell teachers, schools, candidates sitting exams, of how the SQA was going to moderate teacher-assessed grades?
Ms Jean Blair: Well, there were two key documents, the … there was a high-level message that we issued on 2 April outlining that we were going to be using teacher estimates, and then on 20 April we issued guidance to centres, schools, colleges, how to use – or how to provide us with estimates. We also introduced an SQA academy course which looked and gave them advice on how to avoid bias, discrimination, to take into account learner personal circumstances. And it was at that point we also provided information on historic attainment data and their estimate pattern from previous – 2017, 2018, and 2019.
And it was also discussed in the qualifications contingency group, which is chaired by the Scottish Government, with a range – a broad range of stakeholders, including the professional associations representing teachers, the Association of Directors of Education Scotland and School Leaders Scotland. We had a conversation about the need for moderation or some form of statistical moderation as part of this process.
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair, I understand the point that, as part of the teacher estimated grades, you provided historic data and you provided training to those teachers to try to eliminate bias, but the question was: when did you tell stakeholders, children, teachers, educational practitioners, that moderation would be based on the historic attainment of that particular centre?
Ms Jean Blair: I think we were – we communicated our information to schools, but I think there is something here about what was communicated to learners and parents. We did issue guidance to learners and parents outlining what we were doing, but it was later in the process, as we worked our way through what the model, how the model was going to operate.
Counsel Inquiry: Ms –
Ms Jean Blair: That’s something –
Counsel Inquiry: Sorry to cut you off. Please continue.
Ms Jean Blair: It’s one of the points of learning.
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair, would you accept that the first time students and teachers were aware of how the SQA were going to moderate teacher-estimated grades was after results day on 4 August 2020?
Ms Jean Blair: No, I don’t accept that. We had – there is certainly something for us to reflect on in terms of the messaging that we had for learners and parents but we were clear with the schools at the end of April what we were going to do with the estimates, that they were going to go through some form of moderation process and in part – and in fact they had a part to play in that as well.
Counsel Inquiry: And we know, if we fast forward to results day, the Inquiry has heard evidence from Mr Swinney, the then Deputy First Minister, I don’t intend to put his statement on screen, but he concluded that on results day, 4 August 2020 some of the real life impacts of the outcomes from moderation implemented as part of the 2020 ACM became clear.
If we can have on screen, please, INQ000530329.
At page 9 of that document, Ms Blair, we can see on screen this is a document from the SQA that was published on results day, and we can see at the very bottom of the document – and this is from the SQA:
“To conclude we have:
“Delivered fairness to learners through a consistent, evidence-based approach to awarding, supported by an Equalities Impact Assessment and a Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment.”
On reflection, do you stand by that comment, that the 2020 ACM model delivered fairness?
Ms Jean Blair: I think the thing that separates SQA from other awarding bodies is that we had an appeals process, so we recognised that the model had some difficulties. We lived in unprecedented times, we made our best effort to come up with a model that would allow learners to be certificated. We recognised that the model had some – that the estimates would have some variability. And so there would be some individual anomalies, and individual disappointments.
And the difference between our model and other models is that at stage 4, which we were not allowed to put in place, following the ministerial direction of 11 August, that fourth stage would have allowed us at a national level to look at the individual evidence of learners, and that’s what made the model more fair, because it had moved from a national exercise, looking at the aggregate level, moving into the micro level, allowing us to look at individual learners that were left feeling that they had not got the grades that they deserved.
So the model needs to be looked at in its entirety. It was not obviously fully implemented and so the last part of it fell away.
That said, I accept that the model could not be used again. It doesn’t have public support, it was not the model that was stood up in 2021, and that has been one of the lessons that we have learnt from this exercise.
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair –
Lady Hallett: Can I just interrupt and speak, Mr Lee?
We’ll come back. For a while, we didn’t – I didn’t have a picture of – I did hear but I didn’t up there, I just want to check whether other people – but she’s back.
Mr Lee: Ms Blair, you said in your answer that you recognise difficulties with the model; can summarise the main difficulties?
Ms Jean Blair: Yes, one of the main difficulties is that we saw in 2020 and 2021 an unprecedented pattern or change in behaviour in the estimates which we hadn’t seen before, and which we hadn’t seen since. And the level of estimates – if I can maybe just very quickly give you some context to this. At the A grade, Scottish results were split into grades A, B, C, grade D, and a no award. But at the A grade which is the top grade in Scotland, in 2020 we saw over 40% more estimated A grades than we had in the previous year. At National 5, it was 10% overall, at Higher, 14% overall, Advanced Higher, 13%.
So we had seen not just an inflation of grades but a variability across subjects and across levels and across centres that we had not seen before. As I said, we accepted 75% of the grades put forward by teachers, but it meant that we had to do much more moderation than had been hoped or planned. And that was one of the difficulties.
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair, in the statement from Ms Nicola Killean, the Children and Young People’s Commissioner for Scotland, I’m going to read this out in the interests of time, she says that in relation to the 2020 ACM and the aftermath of what happened on results day, that:
“This meant that children from historically poorer performing schools (often from the more deprived [areas] of Scotland) were more likely to have their results downgraded than those from the higher performing (often private) schools.”
Do you accept, as a general principle, that that would have brought unfairness to individual learners?
Ms Jean Blair: I think it’s worth highlighting that when we went into this exercise, all data connected with learners and the centres which they attend was taken out of the data that was put through the model. That was to ensure that it was objective and that we could arrive at a position that was without fear of favour.
So the historic pattern of previous centres was not played into the model. And it wasn’t until the – as we do every year now, it wasn’t until we had matched that data, with the help of Scottish Government, to Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation and to other protected characteristics that we could see the impact of that model on learners in different ways.
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair, I’m sorry to cut you off and jump in, but the question was, as a general principle, do you accept that approach would have been unfair to individual learners?
Ms Jean Blair: We accepted that the model was going to identify some individual anomalies. And that would mean that we would have to use our appeals process, which was individualised based on evidence from their centres, which would have been the same evidence that they would have used for their estimates, that we would have then used that in the appeals process. We did not set out to disadvantage learners from deprived backgrounds. We did not set out to do that.
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair, as I understand it, during the process, the design and development phase of the 2020 ACM, the SQA consult with children and young people to try to understand the impact of the model.
And if I can have on screen, please, INQ000612967, Ms Blair, when this appears on screen, we will see at page 1 that this is a Scottish Youth Parliament SQA Equality Impact Assessment, an Alternative Certification Model Project Report from June 2020.
If we can move to page 9 of the document, please, and we can see towards the very bottom of the page, in the section on estimates that the feedback that the SQA was receiving from children in relation to how the model was operating or it was proposed it would operate, we can see that there was a “Major concern as my school’s attainment was so low, which terrifies me if it is going on school averages. School attainment is improving, but we’re worried.”
If we can turn the page to page 10 – we can see again towards the top of the page where a student says:
“Past estimates shouldn’t be used as it totally undermines what students are doing now. It’s unfair for students in poor attaining schools to be based on previous years’ groups, when attainment has improved dramatically in the past few years.”
And finally we have a commenter, it says:
“For the SQA to look at different schools and adjust grating based on previous estimates. I wouldn’t want my grade to be graded on the average of the whole school.”
Ms Blair, in June 2020 this unfairness was pointed out to you on a number of occasions, including by children. Why at that point didn’t the SQA do anything about it to make sure that unfairness that was built into the model didn’t continue?
Ms Jean Blair: As I said, we accepted 75% of the teacher estimates. We had not anticipated to do the amount of moderation that we had to do. We saw an unusual pattern of estimates coming through. And I know, when we were talking about the model with other stakeholders in the Qualifications Contingency Group on 27 March, there was also a concern about the quality of the estimates and about how we were going to ensure that we arrived at a credible position.
We were going to have an appeals process that was going to address individual concerns and – (overspeaking) –
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair, if we can now move on to the appeals process, isn’t it the case that if the 2020 ACM has an inbuilt unfairness in the way it moderated teacher-assessed grades, based on how well a particular school had been doing in the years before 2020, unless there was a ground of appeal to get rid of the moderation, that that wouldn’t have helped, would it?
Ms Jean Blair: So, the appeal was based on anybody who was sitting with a grade lower than estimated. As I’ve said, we accepted 75% of the teacher estimates as grades. And we were 99% accepting the grades or one grade above or one grade below. The appeals process was going to be based on that individual learner, the evidence that had been used. And by exception, if a head teacher thought there was something anomalous, then they could reach out to us. But that was by exception.
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair, in –
Ms Jean Blair: (Audio unclear) model if it was in unprecedented times. If we hadn’t come up with a model, learners would not have been certificated. But I accept that this model does not have the support of the wider system. This is one of the things that we have learned. And in 2021, a different model was developed in cooperation with our stakeholders.
It’s not a model that we would use again, but it was the best model and we believed it to be the fairest model that we could come up with in the circumstances that we found ourselves in.
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair, I’m running out of time so I want to jump now to focus on the specific impact assessment. And it’s right, isn’t it, that as part of the development and design of the 2020 ACM, the SQA drafted a child rights and wellbeing impact assessment.
If we can please have that on screen, that is INQ000530353. It’s ten pages long and we’ve not got time, Ms Blair, to go into every page, but if we can, please, turn to page 3 of the document, and we can quickly summarise this, we can see that it sets out the background of what the SQA was asked to do.
And bottom of the page it states that the impact assessment:
“… sets out to assess the impact to of the development of the [ACM] on children and young people. It builds on and should be read alongside the 2020 … Equality Impact Assessment.”
If we can then jump forward to page 7 of the document, please.
Again, on this page it reiterates that the SQA are undertaking the impact assessment. And at the bottom, it says:
“A fuller consideration of this activity may be found in the 2020 [ACM] – Equality Impact Assessment on SQA’s website.”
Would you agree, Ms Blair, that in relation to this document, that there’s no meaningful analysis of impact or an explanation as to how the SQA were approaching the issue of impact?
Ms Jean Blair: As I’ve said earlier, we didn’t have a model. We were working at pace to put in place a model, and so when the decision was taken to cancel exams and to stand up a model, there was no model. And we had to embark on an iterative process to – to the impact assessments as we were developing the model. So at each stage of the model, we were populating and thinking about the equalities impact assessment and we were thinking about the children’s wellbeing impact assessment.
I think, as I’ve said at the start of my statement, I wasn’t as close to the work of the impact assessments as other colleagues, but my understanding was we had to do the impact assessments as an iterative process.
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair, you set out in your evidence that during the development you recognised a number of difficulties. You’ve outlined those to the Inquiry. Isn’t the whole point of a child rights wellbeing impact assessment to set out what the impact may be, to allow decision makers to feed that into the decision-making process and plan to potentially mitigate the impact on children?
Ms Jean Blair: I think, as I’ve said, we, throughout the process, tried to put in place mitigations recognising that the model would have some difficulties around low uptake –
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair, I’m sorry to cut you off, but the question is: why hasn’t that analysis found its way into the document we’ve just seen on screen? Because isn’t that the whole purpose of the Q&A drafting the document?
Ms Jean Blair: I don’t know. That’s – I wasn’t as close to the impact assessments as other work that we were doing.
Counsel Inquiry: And, Ms Blair, just to put a criticism to you, if I can have up on screen, please, INQ000649659.
This is an extract from the witness statement from Ms Killean, the Children and Young People’s Commissioner for Scotland. And she explains at paragraph 130 that:
“It was extraordinary that neither the SQA or Scottish government had apparently noticed the problem with the algorithm until it was pointed out …”
Is the real reason that the impact isn’t in the impact assessments that were published on results day because the SQA didn’t actually acknowledge or understand what the issue with the algorithm was until after results day?
Ms Jean Blair: No, I don’t agree with that. I think there is – as I’ve said, it was a – it was a four-stage model, and an important aspect of that, the appeals process, was not given the opportunity to run. We knew that, in taking the approach that we were taking, which was the best model we could come up with in the circumstances, that we would have to allow for individual anomalies, individual disappointments, learner disappointment, on the day, and our appeals process was going to be the opportunity for us to address some of those issues.
So, no, I think we were going into this understanding that there would be some difficulties, and had come up with a methodology to help us address some
of those difficulties.
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair, just so I can understand your evidence, is it
right, therefore, that the SQA, in creating the stage 4
appeals process, fully acknowledged that on the morning
of results day, on 4 August 2020, that some children,
mainly those children for the lower-performing schools,
would be waking up disappointed, would be waking up with
teacher estimates that were moderated down and would
therefore have to appeal?
Ms Jean Blair: There is joy and disappointment on any results day. We
always have an appeals process. But there has now,
since 2021, been a learner direct process. We knew that
there was, just as we have in every year, there will be
some learners that are disappointed. The data was
anonymised. We did not have centre details, we did not
have candidate details. And did not set out to
disadvantage children because of where they lived. That
was not the model that we were working to. It was
important that there was an appeals process put in place
because at the macro level, which was the only model
that we could come up with in the time available, we
knew that there would be some difficulties with
a variety of reasons like centres delivering for the
first time, low uptake, all of those things. We knew
that there was going to some variability in those estimates. We weren’t expecting the variability that we saw but we then had to do some moderation of that to bring that into line, knowing that even without that moderation, there would still be some disappointments.
Counsel Inquiry: Ms Blair, it’s my last question because time is about to defeat me, but you’ve set out in your evidence the impact that the SQA recognised that this model would deliver on results day, and we’ve covered the Child Rights Wellbeing Impact Assessment, which we can see there’s no analysis or evaluation in that document and it doesn’t set out what it was intended to do.
On reflection, and moving forward, in the event of another pandemic or another situation whereby emergency decision making needs to take place, how would you approach completing a Child Rights Wellbeing Impact Assessment?
Ms Jean Blair: We put in place those impact assessments across all our services. It’s an ingrained approach in SQA, and for the ACM of 2021 and subsequent, we have completed impact assessments, quality impact assessments, and child rights welfare impact assessments. And that is what we do.
Mr Lee: My Lady, I notice the time. Those are my questions.
Does my Lady have any questions?
Questions From the Chair
Lady Hallett: Thank you, Mr Lee.
Just one question from me, Ms Blair. Obviously all
four qualifications authorities around the UK were
facing a similar problem to you and an urgent response
required from you. Did the four organisations
authorities discuss the way forward, or did you all work
totally independently?
Ms Jean Blair: I think my understanding is that our chief executive was
involved in four-country conversations. I think
I attended one on our behalf, but yes, there was
four-country engagement.
Lady Hallett: So, trying to share any ideas as to how you
could develop this new scheme?
Ms Jean Blair: We were probably further ahead because of having that
history of estimates being provided to us, an awarding
body, and also working with alternative evidence.
Lady Hallett: Very grateful, Ms Blair. Thank you very much
indeed for joining us this afternoon. Thank you for
your help.
The Witness: Thank you. Thanks very much.
Lady Hallett: Very well, I shall rise now and return at
10.00 tomorrow.
(4.00 pm)
(The hearing adjourned until 10.00 am the following day)