Revealed, the £208k pay package of judge who quit SNP’s probe into Covid death toll
(…before a single piece of evidence was heard)
THE judge tasked with heading up Scotland’s Covid-19 inquiry left taxpayers with a bill of more than £200,000 before her sudden resignation this month. In December last year Lady Poole accepted the role of chairing the inquiry into how the country responded to the coronavirus pandemic.
But ten months later, she quit before even a single piece of evidence had been heard.
Now research by The Scottish Mail on Sunday has revealed the extraordinary cost to the public purse of Lady Poole’s brief tenure.
Her basic pay for the period totalled £125,947 – with financial records obtained under freedom of information showing Lady Poole’s starting salary of £12,845 per month increased to £13,230 a month just four months into the job. She also received £64,674 in pension contributions.
The inquiry, as her employer, also paid – at taxpayers’ expense – £17,332 in national insurance contributions plus a mandatory ‘apprenticeship levy’ of £629.
Overall, the law lord’s ten-month stint cost taxpayers £208,582 – equivalent to £737 for every one of the 283 days she was in the role of chairman.
Last night opposition politicians criticised the spiralling costs. Scottish Conservative spokesman for
Covid recovery Murdo Fraser said: ‘The Scottish public will be shocked at this sum, given the lack of progress we’ve seen from the inquiry – but this is just a fraction of its full cost.
‘Lady Poole’s resignation was a bitter blow to bereaved families seeking answers.
‘We cannot afford to let the spiralling costs and neverto ending delays that have plagued other Scottish inquiries be repeated here.
‘It has now been more than two-and-a-half years since many of these tragic care home deaths occurred, yet grieving families still haven’t got the answers they need about this scandal. We need see this inquiry make urgent progress, while keeping families that have lost loved ones at its heart.’
The Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry was set up to examine how the early stage of the pandemic was handled in the country between January 1, 2020, and December 31 of this year.
It will focus on 12 areas of interest, including the supply of PPE equipment and transfers to and from care homes.
Its website states: ‘The inquiry will report on what worked well, areas where things could have been done better, and make recommendations.’
After attending Madras College in St Andrews, Anna Poole graduated with first class honours in law at Oxford University. She trained as a solicitor, then became an advocate and was later appointed as a judge.
In December she took on the
Covid inquiry role but stood down citing ‘personal reasons’.
On October 3 Deputy First Minister John Swinney said the process for appointing a new judicial chair for the inquiry would be restarted. A day later, it was revealed four members of the inquiry’s legal team had stood down, forcing yet another recruitment process.
Last week Mr Swinney announced Lady Poole is to be replaced by Lord Brailsford as chairman of the inquiry.
The inquiry is at an early stage, officially described as the ‘establishment’ phase – which involves recruiting an inquiry team, selecting suitable premises and developing document management systems for what will inevitably run into millions of pieces of evidence.
Lord Brailsford will be expected to take it into the ‘investigation’ phase, when the experience of those who were affected by the pandemic will be heard. This will include written evidence and oral hearings, though officials could give no indication when this might begin.
Yesterday the Scottish Government declined to comment on whether Lady Poole’s appointment had delivered value for money. A spokesman said: ‘As the Deputy First Minister has outlined, he is grateful to Lady Poole for the important work she undertook while chair of the inquiry.
‘Given a public inquiry operates independently of Ministers, the operation of the inquiry is a matter for the chair.’
‘Scottish public will be shocked at this sum’