Infuriating and heartbreaking
Covid hero’s widow speaks out after officials say no evidence was found on his computer
A SENIOR civil servant’s widow has slammed officials after they claimed to have found no new evidence for the covid Inquiry on his computer.
Louise Slorance handed over her husband Andrew’s laptop three years after he died in the hope it would help uncover how the Scottish Government was working during the pandemic.
Andrew, 49, died at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in 2020 while waiting for a stem cell transplant but had been at the centre of Holyrood’s covid response until then.
Three years after his death the government took his computer and phone to see if any material should be sent to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, which is looking at all four nations’ response to the crisis.
A submission by Lesley Fraser, the Scottish Government’s director general, to the inquiry now shows that officials uncovered “no new material” on the device.
Louise was not told of that claim until alerted by the Sunday Mail.
The report said experts identified hundreds of emails but couldn’t see the contents of them – only who they were sent to and from. Just five of these emails related to covid.
It stated: “There were 767 emails that were partially recovered i.e. we can see who the email was sent to but beyond that very little. A filter by covid identified five of these as being emails sent to various covid teams.
“We are not able to see the content of any of these emails.”
I know the work Andrew did was critical
LOUISE SLORANCE ON EVIDENCE FOR INQUIRY
About 10 per cent of the 7575 documents on the computer related to covid but, according to the government, all of the material had “already been provided to the inquiry”.
Andrew’s work phone – which could have held conversations between him and former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, former national clinical director Jason Leitch and other senior figures – has been lost by the government.
Louise said: “It took three years for the government to realise Andrew’s laptop and phone might be important and they might want to take a look. Now it seems just 10 per cent of his documents were able to be recovered, and just five emails were about covid – and even then they couldn’t read anything on them.
“They have recovered no minutes from the Scottish
Government
Resilience Room meetings which I think are essential if people want to find out more about how the government responded to covid. I know the work Andrew was doing was critical to the government’s covid response so it’s infuriating and heartbreaking that they’ve missed the opportunity to learn from this work.
“Andrew was part of the communications and resilience strategy during covid. I think discussions behind those decisions, whether formal or informal, are very important and for this information on his phone to be lost is complete incompetence. On top of this I’m having to learn from journalists about the government’s submission to the inquiry despite it containing personal information about us.
“This document was published with nobody even caring to tell me about it. I’m appalled.”
The Scottish Government said: “The First Minister’s thoughts remain with Mrs Slorance and all of Andrew’s loved ones.
“We are co-operating fully with the UK Covid-19 Inquiry and the Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry.
“Where information is held and has been requested by either inquiry, we are providing it to them.”