Swinney is moved from education to new Covid recovery role

JOHN Swinney has been removed as Education Secretary and appointed to a new role as Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon made the announcement as she confirmed Mr Swinney will stay on as Deputy First Minister.

It marks the start of a wideranging reshuffle of Ms Sturgeon’s Cabinet, with more announcements due today.

Mr Swinney, who has served as Deputy First Minister since 2014, will take responsibility for driving crossgovernment action on Covid recovery.

Scottish Labour previously called for Mr Swinney to be removed from the education brief, accusing him of overseeing “a litany of failures”.

The party’s deputy leader Jackie Baillie said: “It is right that John Swinney has been moved on from his previous role.

“He has left a wake of damaging failures behind him that require urgent action to fix.

“Putting him in charge of our recovery is potentially gambling with the health and wellbeing of the nation.

“While we wish him well, he must demonstrate quickly that he is up to the job.”

The new role will see Mr Swinney “mobilise the

Scottish Government and wider public, private and third sectors to ensure a strong recovery”. He will chair a

cross-party steering group on Covid recovery, which is expected to hold its first meeting next week.

Mr Swinney will also take the lead on inter-governmental relations, public service reform, including within government, and the delivery of a number of “transformational projects” across government and wider society.

He will be supported by the Minister for Parliamentary Business.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie had called for the creation of a senior “minister for recovery” role.

Announcing the move, Ms Sturgeon said: “Our first priority as a government is to lead the country through the pandemic and into a recovery that supports our NHS, protects and creates jobs, backs our young people and contributes to our ambition to be a net zero nation.

“Appointing John Swinney to drive cross-government work on Covid recovery is a key step in getting Scotland’s recovery off to the right start.

“How we begin our recovery is crucial to the kind of country we can become, and that means ensuring everyone, whether in government, the public sector, the business community or wider society is pulling in the same direction.”

Mr Swinney said: “Recovery in our schools, our health service, our economy and across our wider society is this government’s immediate priority and I am honoured to have been asked to lead that mission.

“I am determined that government will bring the same urgency that we applied to the actions we took to protect public health, to the actions we need to take to secure a fair and just recovery. I will be bringing opposition parties together next week to hear their contributions and to set out how I believe we can all work together to secure a strong recovery.

“As we recover we must also remember our commitments to improve the lives of people across our society and it is a privilege to continue to lead the work across government to deliver on the incorporation of UN charters and to deliver The Promise for our care experienced young people.”

Mr Swinney was appointed to the education brief in 2016, but had faced ongoing criticism from opposition parties. Labour accused him of failing to close the attainment gap between rich and poor pupils and failing to manage the impact of the pandemic.

Mr Swinney survived a vote of no confidence last year over the exam results debacle, and later faced a second no-confidence vote over the release of legal advice relating to the Alex Salmond saga.

Ms Sturgeon is expected to announce more changes to her Cabinet today. It comes after experienced ministers including former health secretary Jeane Freeman stepped down at the election.