Both the UK and Scottish Inquiries into the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic had aspirations of substantially beginning work in Spring 2022.
While this is still possible, and work is underway in both jurisdictions, there are still some key areas awaiting clarity.
The Scottish Inquiry has published Terms of Reference, which the Chair, Lady Poole QC may propose adjustments to, and the UK Inquiry Chair, Lady Hallett, has today published her recommendations to adjust the UK draft Terms of Reference.
These recommendations must be approved by the Prime Minister, who can approve the recommendations whole, partially, or indeed not at all.
The public consultation on the UK draft Terms of Reference concluded at the beginning of April, with, perhaps unsurprisingly, an exceptionally high level of engagement and over 20,000 responses received.
Following analysis of these responses, the Chair has considered it appropriate to propose certain changes to the draft terms consulted on.
In particular it has been recommended that the Terms of Reference be reframed to put inequalities at its forefront, so that investigation into the unequal impacts of the pandemic runs through the whole Inquiry.
Specific recommended expansions also include:
- Children and young people, including the impact on health, wellbeing and social care education and early years provision;
- Impacts on mental health and wellbeing of the UK population
- Collaboration between central government, Devolved Administrations, local authorities and the voluntary and community sector.
What does this mean for Scotland?
In Scotland the Terms of Reference may yet be adjusted - but must exclusively consider Scottish matters.
However, the wider the scope of the UK Inquiry the higher the risk for potential overlap, although the Scottish Inquiry must make reasonable efforts to minimise duplication of investigation with the UK Inquiry.
While inequalities are not called out in the Scottish terms, the Inquiry will adopt a “person-centred, human rights-based approach”, which should inform its recommendations. This is likely to run closely to the proposed English reframing of focusing on inequalities.
Equally, the broader the areas to be addressed by the UK Inquiry the greater the divergence will be with the Scottish equivalent, whose terms must naturally be more restricted.
Another interesting recommendation for the Scottish Inquiry is the inclusion of collaboration between central government and Devolved Administrations, including the Scottish Government. If accepted, this is significant development and will be critically important to many bodies in Scotland.
The wide range of issues to be examined by the respective Inquiries means the potential net for participants is cast very widely.
If you or your organisation would like to know more about the forthcoming inquiries, Burness Paull’s specialist Inquiries team is on hand to help with any questions you might have.
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