‘The Covid Inquiry has 66 staff apparently. Doing what?’
Families’ despair at lack of leadership
Families who lost loved ones in the pandemic have questioned the competence and direction of Scotland’s public inquiry after being told it now has 66 staff but no leadership after the judge in charge resigned.
Dr Alan Wightman, chair of Covid19 Bereaved Families For Justice, spoke out after a delegation of relatives met Deputy First Minister John Swinney last week after Lady Poole, who was to lead the public inquiry examining how the authorities handled the pandemic, resigned.
The judge told ministers she could not continue for “personal reasons” but resigned the day after four senior inquiry lawyers stood down with sources blaming the departures on strained working relationships.
Families had already been left frustrated by the slow progress in setting up the inquiry first voted for by MSPs in November 2020 and Wightman said the meeting with Swinney offered little reassurance.
The deputy first minister told them 66 people were currently working on the inquiry and an announcement on a new judge might be expected before the end of the month although legal sources suggest there is a reluctance among judges to take on the role while senior lawyers are also unenthusiastic about joining the inquiry team.
Wightman is sceptical that key appointments will be made as quickly as the minister suggested, adding: “There wasn’t any firm indication. It wasn’t a firm commitment. It was more of ‘I’d like to do it by then’.
“There’s also no indication of when the new lawyers will be appointed. I think they want to get the chair first and then sort it out. I haven’t gotten the impression there’s much work going on. There’s 66 people involved so what are they doing? I’ve no idea what they’re doing.”
Groups representing those affected by Covid have yet to be given core participant status, meaning they must make contact with the inquiry in the same way as the public.
Wightman, who lost his mother, Helen, to the virus when she was in a Fife care home, said he was surprised and disappointed when he got a response to an email which was intended for someone else. He said: “I’ve been reduced to writing in as a member of the public to get answers to my questions. I’ve been getting partial answers and I’ve been going back to ask for more information.
“The last correspondence I had, they sent me an answer to somebody else’s question. Presumably they sent my answer to someone else. I told them about it and I haven’t heard anything since.”
Wightman was among a group of bereaved relatives who met Swinney last week. Aamer Anwar, the lawyer for Covid-19 Bereaved Families For Justice, said the most senior judge in Scotland, Lord Carloway, the Lord Justice General, should now offer families an explanation for the delays and departures apparently blighting the inquiry.
He said: “The families have no idea of progress to date. Whilst they fully understand that the judiciary must protect, firstly, their independence, they feel they have a right to answers from those who know and that would include the Lord President.
“The families cannot and will not countenance any further delays, excuses or mistakes.”
Ten days ago, the Covid inquiry in England had its first public hearings when chair Lady Hallett said the bereaved will be “at the heart” of it while insisting the sprawling investigation had to be conducted with urgency. She said if families were consulted at every stage it “would go on forever” and the priority was to identify lessons “before another disaster strikes the four nations of the UK.” She would not, she said, allow the inquiry to “drag on for decades”.
The inquiry said work was continuing during Lady Poole’s three-month notice period and she would work alongside the new chair during a handover.
It said: “The independent inquiry’s focus remains on gathering evidence before holding oral hearings. The inquiry team also intends to pilot listening project activities later this year…the inquiry’s legal team is assessing core participant applications and will contact applicants in due course.”
The deputy first minister, who did not tell MSPs about the lawyers’ resignations when informing them that Lady Poole was standing down, said work to appoint a new chair was being progressed at pace and parliament would be updated as soon as possible.