Transcript of Module 2A Public Hearing on 23 January 2024

(10.00 am)

Lady Hallett: Good morning, Mr Dawson.

Mr Dawson: Good morning, my Lady. The next witness is

Professor Jason Leitch CBE.

1. Professor Jason Leitch

PROFESSOR JASON LEITCH (sworn).

Questions From Lead Counsel to the Inquiry for Module 2A

Mr Dawson: Good morning. You are Professor Jason Leitch?

Professor Jason Leitch: I am.

Lead 2A: You have helpfully provided witness statements to the Inquiry.

Could we have up, please, INQ000329366.

Is this a witness statement dated 2 November 2023; is that your statement?

Professor Jason Leitch: Yes.

Lead 2A: You have signed the statement?

Professor Jason Leitch: Yes.

Lead 2A: Does the content of the statement remain true and accurate as far as you’re concerned?

Professor Jason Leitch: It does.

Lead 2A: You also provided a further witness statement under reference INQ000273981; this is also your witness statement?

Professor Jason Leitch: It is.

Lead 2A: It’s dated 15 November 2023?

Professor Jason Leitch: Yes.

Lead 2A: And you have signed this statement?

Professor Jason Leitch: Yes.

Lead 2A: Do the contents of this statement remain true and accurate –

Professor Jason Leitch: They do.

Lead 2A: – as far as you’re concerned?

If I could just mention for the record as well a couple of other statements which are not produced by you but they’re for the record, these were statements produced by the director-general for health and social care, INQ000215470, and a further addendum to the director-general for health and social care’s statements which has the reference INQ000349900. I mention those simply because they include some description of the roles of the various medical advisers about which we heard a little yesterday from Professor Smith, but also covering the role that you heard, so we may come to these during the course of this questioning.

Professor Jason Leitch: Okay.

Lead 2A: I understand, Professor Leitch, that you are the National Clinical Director within the Scottish Government; is that correct?

Professor Jason Leitch: That’s correct.

Lead 2A: And that you are the co-director of the directorate for healthcare quality and improvement?

Professor Jason Leitch: That’s correct.

Lead 2A: And that you held the post of National Clinical

Director, you have held that post of National Clinical

Director since January 2015?

Professor Jason Leitch: Yes.

Lead 2A: I’d like to explore with you a little bit about your background, but also about the role of National Clinical Director, so as we understand it in a bit more detail. I understand that you originally qualified in dentistry with a degree from the University of Glasgow?

Professor Jason Leitch: Yes.

Lead 2A: And that you became a fellow of the Faculty of Dental Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons in England in 1996?

Professor Jason Leitch: That’s correct.

Lead 2A: You hold a directorate from the University of Glasgow, as I understand it?

Professor Jason Leitch: I do.

Lead 2A: What is the subject matter of that directorate?

Professor Jason Leitch: It was drug trials, it was anaesthetic drugs.

Lead 2A: Thank you. You also hold a master’s in public health from Harvard University, as I understand it?

Professor Jason Leitch: I do.

Lead 2A: That was a qualification which you attained in 2006?

Professor Jason Leitch: Correct.

Lead 2A: And you are a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow since 2004?

Professor Jason Leitch: Yep.

Lead 2A: And you are a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh also since 2004?

Professor Jason Leitch: Correct.

Lead 2A: Thank you.

I’d like to ask you a few questions. We heard a little bit about this yesterday from Professor Smith from his perspective in the various roles that he held during the pandemic, but I’d like to ask you a little bit about the role of National Clinical Director. You help us about this in your statement.

Professor Smith’s impression was that certainly at the start of the pandemic the role was focused more on dealing with health boards than dealing with public health. Would that be a fair characterisation, and if not how would you characterise the role?

Professor Jason Leitch: I think that’s fair, in the round. The job is principally about the quality and safety of what I would call the delivery system, not just hospitals but also primary care, community care, and everywhere else. So when the job was created, it was to create a third clinical adviser to the Scottish Government, with a particular focus on the quality and safety of the health and care system, and that’s what I’ve tried to do.

Lead 2A: And that, as I understand it, is a unique role when looking at the way in which medical and scientific advisory systems are set up in the other parts of the United Kingdom; is that right?

Professor Jason Leitch: I think the title is unique but the role isn’t quite so unique. The role is covered by a number of other individuals. The closest English comparison is probably the medical director of NHS England, but it is not a direct comparison because I work for the government, we don’t have a separate NHS structure like they would have in England. And in Northern Ireland and Wales there are people who cover the quality and safety of the delivery system but they don’t call themselves national clinical directors.

Lead 2A: Did the nature of your role change when the Covid pandemic hit?

Professor Jason Leitch: It did, it changed fairly dramatically.

Lead 2A: Could you broadly tell us, although I’m sure many people already know, how that role changed.

Professor Jason Leitch: I think in two principal ways. One was in providing, as part of that broad clinical team and then subsequently, as you’ve heard many times now, a broader civil service and further public sector team, advice to ministers on a more regular basis, sometimes multiple times a day, sometimes daily. But my principal role was in communicating with three groups of people: the public of Scotland, the parliamentarians of Scotland, and the stakeholders for whom the pandemic was having an impact on their business or their life in some way.

So I became evolved over those first few weeks and months into the person who did most of that clinical communication.

Lead 2A: You describe yourself in your statement as the “principal clinical communicator for the Scottish Government”.

Professor Jason Leitch: That may be a slight exaggeration, but it was to illustrate the point I’ve just made around being the person who did most of that clinical communication.

It’s important, though, that that was very much shared, because one person couldn’t possibly do it all. I did a lot of it, but there were a number of others: one of whom you heard from yesterday, there was also the Chief Nurse, there were deputies, there were others outside government who did quite a lot of that for us.

Lead 2A: Thank you.

I’d like to ask you about an event which occurred shortly into the first lockdown, namely the resignation of Dr Calderwood, which again we heard a significant amount about yesterday. What impact would you say the resignation of Dr Calderwood, the former Chief Medical Officer, have on the Scottish Government’s response to the pandemic at an important time, as I say, early into the first national lockdown?

Professor Jason Leitch: I think it of course had an influence, we lost our senior clinical adviser to government, and I’m not sure there’s a good time for you to lose a Chief Medical Officer in an unplanned way. We also lost a friend and colleague, from those of us who have known her for some time.

I agree, though, with Professor Smith’s evidence yesterday that the reinstatement of a new CMO and the subsequent work that went on was fairly seamless. We didn’t notice a big gap in that period. For me on a personal level, it meant that quite a lot more of the clinical communication fell to me. Up to that point, Catherine had been doing the press conferences. There hadn’t been that many, but there had been some leading up to that point, I hadn’t done any. My first was the following Tuesday after that Sunday where the CMO resigned. So my job changed that weekend.

Lead 2A: Could I please take you to a document, please, INQ000339605. This is a WhatsApp exchange between Professor Smith and Malcolm Wright. It’s not one, I don’t think, in which you are involved, but one which refers to you.

Could you just remind us, we touched on this gentleman yesterday, who Malcolm Wright was?

Professor Jason Leitch: He at this point in time was the director-general and chief executive of the National Health Service, the same job Caroline Lamb now holds.

Lead 2A: Thank you very much. We also heard from her yesterday, as you will know.

Could we go, please, to the entry at 18.06.43. Thank you very much.

This is on 5 April 2020, the day when Dr Calderwood resigned, although at a time before she had actually intimated her resignation, which I think happened much later in the evening; is that correct?

Professor Jason Leitch: That’s –

Lead 2A: – resignation –

Professor Jason Leitch: Yeah.

Lead 2A: In this exchange, Professor Smith says:

“Jason, Fiona and I have chatted this through.”

Just to be clear, Jason in this will be you; is that right?

Professor Jason Leitch: Correct.

Lead 2A: And Fiona, I think the Chief Nursing Officer?

Professor Jason Leitch: She was the Chief Nursing Officer.

Lead 2A: Thank you.

“All of us feel let down and struggle with the credibility issue but feel it’s not for us to recommend a decision on what happens next for Catherine. We’ll continue to be there to offer pastoral support if this is sought or accepted. Going forward, we agree the importance of clinical advice to ministers and especially to FM coming from more than one source and value in different clinicians at media briefings too. This ensures a blend of experience and insights without putting too much on one person. I’ve suggested this to Liz Lloyd in contact she has now made about future briefings.”

There’s two aspects of this that I’d like to follow up with you to get your views on it, as this is representing you as being someone who subscribes to these views.

The first I’d like to address with you is what is meant by the “credibility issue”, in particular whether what’s been referred to here is a concern about the effect that the resignation of Dr Calderwood would have with the public and with compliance with the then existent lockdown rules.

Professor Jason Leitch: It’s a question probably best directed to Gregor, since he wrote it, and I don’t remember the particular chat he’s referring to in any detail. There was of course concern, particularly for those of us who were in the public eye, that rule breaks, in whatever form they took, would have an influence on public compliance and the dialogue we were then able to have because it became the subject of the interview rather than talking about the guidance. So I think that in broad terms is probably what Gregor means by the “credibility issue”, but you’d have to ask him.

Lead 2A: Was that a concern which you had at that time personally?

Professor Jason Leitch: It was a concern that I shared across any of the high-profile rule breaks across the whole of the pandemic, including this one, yes.

Lead 2A: This was a particularly pivotal period, when an awful lot was going on, wouldn’t that be fair to say?

Professor Jason Leitch: I think that’s true of the whole pandemic, frankly, but yes, this was a very important period: lockdown had happened 10 days previously, and losing a CMO was of course going to be something that we both talked about, and had to recover from.

Lead 2A: I should have reminded of you this at the beginning, Professor Leitch, because I am of course familiar with your speech, but if you would possibly try to slow down a little – it’s a matter on which I’m often admonished myself – just so that the stenographer –

Professor Jason Leitch: I already thought I was doing so. I’ll have to …

Lead 2A: Thank you very much. If you could do so a little more, it will be greatly appreciated, thank you very much.

You mentioned a moment ago that you took over principal or a principal responsibility for communication with the public after this. In light of this credibility issue, and the potential that it had for impacting upon public faith in the strategy and compliance with it, what was done to try to introduce that element or address that element in the public communications?

Professor Jason Leitch: I answered every question I was asked in a truthful and open way at that time. And during this period, including that week, of course, I did a number of media interviews. I had done a number of media interviews up to this point. The new thing for me the following week was to do the actual press conferences at the podium in Scotland, and I then became a regular face at those podia, with Professor Smith and others.

We answered those questions. My answer to the credibility question was always the same: whether it was this rule break or subsequent ones in other parts of the country, the rules apply to everybody and we’re asking you to comply and please do.

That was my consistent answer and I didn’t change it this day.

Lead 2A: The message also expresses a concern that the source of clinical advice to ministers and especially to the First Minister had up to this point come from Dr Calderwood alone, and hence there was a group effort, it appears, on behalf of the three of you to try to diversify the sources of advice that were going to senior ministers. Was it a concern which you shared at the time that Dr Calderwood had monopolised the advice being given to senior ministers including the First Minister?

Professor Jason Leitch: It wasn’t. That’s not how I would reflect on that period. I think Catherine was the principal person who took that advice to the First Minister, or had the relationship and the conversation with the First Minister, based on advice that was obtained more broadly from other clinical advisers. I wasn’t involved very much at that period, so I can’t speak to how that was done. My understanding of that period is she sought advice from a number of sources inside and outside government, but she was the one who had the relationship with the First Minister. That – that bit is true.

Lead 2A: Did that close relationship also exist with the then Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport, Ms Freeman?

Professor Jason Leitch: It did, between Catherine –

Lead 2A: Yes –

Professor Jason Leitch: – my understanding of that relationship is it was good. I also had a good relationship with both of these politicians, to be clear. I had independent and long-standing relationships with the First Minister, because she was the health secretary when I first came to government, and Ms Freeman had been the health secretary for some time in my period as National Clinical Director.

Lead 2A: But you said a moment ago, I think, that you hadn’t really been involved very much up till this point?

Professor Jason Leitch: I hadn’t been involved in giving direct advice to the First Minister. I had been involved in the pandemic response.

Lead 2A: Yes.

Professor Jason Leitch: Principally with clinical communication, because the interviews had begun in Scotland’s national media, and in the work of the Scottish Government directors, who were by this time meeting every day to try to ramp up the response within the health service.

Lead 2A: Ultimately the decisions about the pandemic were made by the First Minister, were they not?

Professor Jason Leitch: And her Cabinet.

Lead 2A: Your position is that they were made by the First Minister and her Cabinet?

Professor Jason Leitch: That’s correct.

Lead 2A: It was important that the First Minister had around her trusted advisers, not just in a general sense, but trusted advisers whom she trusted in their ability to deal with the specific subject of the pandemic; is that correct?

Professor Jason Leitch: I agree, or an ability to get that advice from others more specific. I’m hesitating slightly because there were some elements of the pandemic that were so specialised that you couldn’t possibly have a senior adviser in government for each of the elements. Vaccination is the one that comes to mind. So the joint committee on vaccination contains all of the UK’s best experts on vaccination. Our role, Catherine’s role, my role was to try and translate that very expert evidence into a form that could then be given to the decision-makers in each of the countries.

Lead 2A: That translation role was a key part of decision-making in Scotland, was it not?

Professor Jason Leitch: I agree.

Lead 2A: Did it take time for you, Professor Smith and of course the Chief Nursing Officer to develop a relationship with the principal decision-makers around Covid such as might replicate the obviously very close relationship which Dr Calderwood enjoyed with them?

Professor Jason Leitch: I can only speak for myself, I think you’d have to ask the other two how they felt. My relationship with the First Minister was long established and strong and I found it that week to be easy to slip into that role that she asked me to fulfil, without any difficulty at all.

Lead 2A: My question was directed at the need to develop strong relationships not in a general sense, which you’ve told us about, but specifically in relation to the extent to which you could provide this important translation role in connection with the pandemic, with which you said you had not previously been involved?

Professor Jason Leitch: I think I was able to fulfil that role and had the relationships with both the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister and the health secretary to do so.

Lead 2A: Thank you.

As I’ve said already, you describe yourself as the principal clinical communicator to the Scottish Government, and you have helpfully expanded on what that means.

Could I turn to paragraph 14 of your statement, please, at page 4.

In this passage, you say:

“Decisions relating to the response to Covid-19 were made by Scottish Ministers. My role was not as a decision-maker but as one of many advisers who attended meetings and formal groups where advice was formed and then submitted to Scottish Ministers. I would often attend meetings where I was not an active participant but to listen and learn. My job was to communicate the advice, following decisions by Ministers, to the three groups already mentioned.”

I think you mentioned them again this morning. And above in your statement you had told us that these groups were the Scottish public, the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government stakeholders.

“To do that effectively I needed to understand the advice that was being given. Throughout the questions there is frequent reference to what medical/scientific advice was given, why that advice was given and how it was communicated. It is important at the outset to underline that my role focussed on communication. I was not principally involved in giving scientific/medical advice, although I was often present when such discussions were occurring.”

Is that your position?

Professor Jason Leitch: It is. Nuanced by the fact that, as you heard yesterday, the principal clinical adviser to the Scottish Government is the Chief Medical Officer, and I therefore stood ready to help her, and then him, in any way I could with expertise I had or knowledge that I had from others inside the broader system. So I was part of the advisory structures, I wasn’t the principal clinical adviser.

Lead 2A: Did you provide medical and scientific advice to the government about the pandemic response?

Professor Jason Leitch: So I’m not a doctor so I would just change “medical” to “clinical”. I provided clinical advice to the best of my knowledge at times in the advisory structures that the Scottish Government had.

Lead 2A: Because in the statement provided by the director-general for health and social care, she describes the National Clinical Director as a clinician who will provide independent advice to Scottish ministers where required?

Professor Jason Leitch: That’s correct.

Lead 2A: So you did provide advice on these matters?

Professor Jason Leitch: I did, broadly.

Lead 2A: What do you mean by the word “broadly”?

Professor Jason Leitch: I mean broadly as part of a group of clinical advisers, as part of the four harms group subsequently, as part of a network of advisers, including the Covid-19 Advisory Group. So – so I don’t want to give the impression that I was giving independent solo advice without that broad set of advisers coming together and providing consensus advice.

Lead 2A: If I may say so, Professor, it seems like you’re trying to distance yourself from responsibility in giving advice; would that be fair?

Professor Jason Leitch: No, that would be not fair at all.

Lead 2A: Could I take you to a particular example, one that we looked at yesterday with Professor Smith in which you appear to have been involved in giving advice.

Could we look, please, at INQ000 – sorry, we’ll just look at the statement first, INQ000329366 at paragraph 190. This was, this is a – to put this in context, this is where you’re talking about some of the difficult decisions that Scottish Government had to make around about the sort of early autumn period of 2020, September/October. You’ll remember that at that time there was consideration of imposing further restrictions, as on 7 September the First Minister had had to announce a slowing down of the easing of the lockdown because cases had started to rise in the late summer. Do you recall that period?

Professor Jason Leitch: I do.

Lead 2A: Would that be a fair broad characterisation of where we were at the time?

Professor Jason Leitch: I think it would.

Lead 2A: You mention in the statement there that:

“The ‘circuit breaker’ and a further lockdown [were] covered in … [a particular] Technical Report …”

And you:

“… gave no separate advice on these topics but [were] present at discussions, and in meetings, as it was important that I understood the position so I could then communicate Ministers’ decisions.”

Could I look, please, at INQ000241645.

Could I just go to the first page, please. This is an advice provided jointly by you, the Chief Medical Officer, and the Chief Nursing Officer, in connection with what restrictions you are proposing ought to be imposed at that time?

Professor Jason Leitch: It is.

Lead 2A: So this is an advice in which you were involved in a group of three on a very important matter at a very sensitive time during the course of the pandemic?

Professor Jason Leitch: Correct.

Lead 2A: Was this advice, this particular one – and if we need to scroll through it to remind yourself of anything about it – was this communicated to ministers?

Professor Jason Leitch: It was sent, I believe – I only saw this last night, and I saw the email trail this morning. I think from the email trail it went to the private office of the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport. I can’t be completely certain that it then went to the Cabinet Secretary but that would be what would be expected.

Lead 2A: Was the intention, when this had been completed, that it would go to ministers for them to consider your advice?

Professor Jason Leitch: Yes, we – we sent it. A senior civil servant, not one of the three of us, our director of Covid on our behalf drafted this for us and then sent it into the Cabinet Secretary for Health’s private office, which would be the way advice would be given.

Lead 2A: Right.

Could we look, please, at INQ000241644.

This is a second shorter advice from later the same day that we looked at with Professor Smith. We looked at some passages of these documents yesterday and in the first document it suggests that, from a public health perspective, there was a requirement at that time for decisive action, and a recommendation appears to be made for a firebreak lockdown. In this document, on page 1 at paragraph 6, it says:

“We remain of the view that a ‘fire break’ amounting to a general stay at home order may be required to be implemented quickly if our recommended measures do not have the desired effect. We do not propose at this stage a planned ‘fire break’ during the October school holidays but such a step may be required. With or without a ‘fire break’, we may have to consider tightening travel restrictions further during that period to reduce circulation of virus.”

Just to be clear, is your understanding that both of these documents were sent to the private office of Ms Freeman during the course of that day?

Professor Jason Leitch: That’s correct.

Lead 2A: Can you explain, please, what happened in between these two advices to change the nature of the advice which was being tendered?

Professor Jason Leitch: I can’t remember the specifics. I would take you to the first paragraph of the second document which provides precisely that, it says: “We provided you with our initial advice earlier today. We have taken the opportunity to consider the emerging data and the modelling and on that basis we’re of the view that we need to strengthen our position.”

So we’ve clearly between 11 in the morning and 6 at night received more data and modelling and adapted our advice. This is only a section of the first document. The context, the data still stands from the first document in the morning. This is then a new set of interventions which we are recommending. The bullet point list is tighter and more severe than the bullet point list contained in the 11 am advice.

Lead 2A: You don’t list here, though, do you, the new modelling and data that you took into account?

Professor Jason Leitch: We do not.

Lead 2A: Okay.

Could I ask you, please, to go to INQ000332382. I’m looking at the 2/2/21, 9.07.

Again, this comes from a group which I don’t think you were part of, as far as we can work out, but it includes a number of WhatsApp messages. It’s called “Team CMO”. Gregor Smith and his staff appear to have been part of it. And in the message of 2 February 2021, at 9.07 – the “NR” simply means that there’s a name there that for some reason has been redacted, Professor, just so you understand.

It says:

“Morning [somebody] emailed on Friday in relation to border health measures to seek clinical views on his recommendations on the review of exemptions from isolation in travel regulations. He is hoping to get this to ministers today. Jason has provided his views on this. Are you happy for this to go to ministers with just Jason’s views, or would you like to go back to Craig today?”

This appears to be an email referring to you having provided advice in connection with what should be done about travel restrictions in the early part of 2021; is that correct?

Professor Jason Leitch: It does appear to be, yes.

Lead 2A: And did you provide that advice?

Professor Jason Leitch: I can only – I can only accept it and say yes.

Lead 2A: Was that the kind of thing on which you were providing advice to ministers?

Professor Jason Leitch: I did on occasion, yes. The process here would be that the senior civil servant in charge of border health measures would have a briefing that would be written, and then send that out to those of us who were trying to provide clinical advice, seeking that clinical advice. That might go to a number of us – these days were very busy, and I clearly was able to respond with – with my view. Gregor hasn’t been able to by this time in the morning, and his team are saying: do you want to give your views too? That would then form a consensus view to that civil servant and that would then be sent to ministers.

Lead 2A: Could we go to INQ000268027, please.

Again, this is a WhatsApp exchange from a group which was called “Star Chamber”, from October – the group has messages in it that we’ve seen from October 2020 to in fact early in 2023. I’m looking at the message at 10.09. This is one in which you are involved.

Again, the context of this is perhaps important. This is the October 2020 when, if I recall correctly, this was the point at which the pandemic was largely being managed by putting different areas into different levels of restrictions, and so there were frequent changes of which levels the different areas, the different local authority areas of Scotland needed to be in, in order to manage the extent of the threat in those areas; is that broadly where we were at this stage?

Professor Jason Leitch: Correct.

Lead 2A: And at 10.09 you point out that:

“Here my ‘provisional’ allocations having seen the tiers:

“4 - Lanarkshires

“3 - central belt plus Dundee, minus East Lothian and Edin city

“2 - everyone else except;

“1 - islands …”

You then say to others in the group:

“Thoughts?”

And then you get a response from Jim McMenamin, from whom we’ve heard already, with his views, and again you say:

“OK. Yep, these are today. On the day we do it we can reconsider.”

And you say:

“Thanks.”

So again, this is you coming up with an analysis, I think, of what the various local authority areas should be in, you are checking it with a senior colleague, Dr McMenamin, but you are reaching an independent clinical view about what levels these areas should be put into, aren’t you?

Professor Jason Leitch: I am. The context here is that this group contains three individuals, Jim McMenamin, Gregor Smith and me. Jim McMenamin chaired the National Incident Management Team. The National Incident Management Team was the place where the final advice about tiers was given and then submitted to us in government. So Jim would often use this WhatsApp group to get the clinical consensus from the three of us so that he could then chair the National Incident Management Team with our views in mind. We had data that, for instance, said “If you are this, this is the level you will be”, which is how I end up with a 4 for Lanarkshire, a 3 for Dundee, because we had criteria by which the local authorities would know roughly where they were going, based on data that we were seeing.

Lead 2A: We’ve heard evidence, as you will probably know, from Dr McMenamin already, including on the NIMT and its role.

These messages show, do they not, that, far from being simply the principal clinical communicator for the Scottish Government, you were a key adviser on important matters relating to key decisions taken at key times in the management of the pandemic, do they not?

Professor Jason Leitch: They do. I don’t think I was solely the principal clinical communicator.

Lead 2A: Could I just take you to another passage, please, the INQ000335127.

Now, I won’t take you through all of this, but I think this has been provided to you in advance. This is an exchange on 6 August 2020 which involves you, Nicola Sturgeon and Joe Fitzpatrick MSP, relating to breaches of lockdown rules by players of Aberdeen Football Club; is that correct?

Professor Jason Leitch: It is, but I’ve only just learned from you that it’s Joe Fitzpatrick. I only saw this last night, I didn’t know who the other individual was.

Lead 2A: Okay. Do you recall these discussions broadly around this time?

Professor Jason Leitch: I don’t. I recall the incident and I recall the general response to the incident, but I don’t recall these specific messages.

Lead 2A: So there are some exchanges and there’s a message on if we could go on to the next page of this.

(Pause)

Lead 2A: Sorry, could we go to INQ000335139.

This is in the same context, these are documents that are split up for administrative purposes but effectively, as I understand it, come from the same chain.

You say that:

“I realise it’s late but…I think postponing rewards bad behaviour, cancelling and forfeiting the points seems much more appropriate.”

There is then a discussion about what should happen with regard to the football club and the breaches of the rules.

Does this exchange not show, in relation to an important matter, that you had direct access to key decision-makers, including the First Minister, including via these messages, and that you were offering direct advice in connection with the way that this important matter should be handled during the pandemic?

Professor Jason Leitch: Yes, it does, but I don’t think this is the same chain. I don’t think Ms Sturgeon is on this chain. I didn’t know it was Joe Fitzpatrick, because I only saw this last night. So I think this is a set of messages August from you – a little bit further down, I think, between Joe Fitzpatrick, who was the minister for public health and sport at the time, and me. I don’t think

Ms Sturgeon has anything to do with this –

Lead 2A: Okay, but you’re offering advice to that minister in any event?

Professor Jason Leitch: I’m having a discussion about what we could do about this particular football game with the minister for public health and sport, correct.

Lead 2A: That’s not advice?

Professor Jason Leitch: No, that’s advice.

Lead 2A: Okay.

Professor Jason Leitch: But it wouldn’t be the only place that advice would happen. That would then be put into the system with the head of sport at Scottish Government.

Lead 2A: Thank you.

I’d like to ask you some questions, please, about your – the general subject of your use and retention of messages during the course of the pandemic.

We’ll talk about your general communications role later, but what was your understanding of the Scottish Government’s policy on the use and retention of informal messaging such as WhatsApp or text messages or other such things during the course of the pandemic?

Professor Jason Leitch: As you’ve heard, the record retention policy was that you could use informal messaging systems for Scottish Government business. If you did, you should ensure that any advice or any decisions or anything that should be in the corporate record was then placed in that corporate record by email, briefing, et cetera, and then you should then delete the informal messaging. And that’s the guidance I followed.

Lead 2A: Right, so you mentioned there that advice or decisions should be transferred by those mechanisms. What about discussions relating to the management of the pandemic?

Professor Jason Leitch: I think that’s subjective, but I think the core advice and the – so, for instance, the conversation with Jim McMenamin around the National IMT and the – what levels each place should be at, would then be taken by Jim to the National IMT and that would form the corporate record for that decision-making, and that WhatsApp message could then be deleted. And should be deleted, according to the guidance.

Lead 2A: Just to be clear, my question was directed less at the subjective interpretation, which you helped us with, but more whether your understanding was that there was a requirement to retain messages which related to discussions salient to your business in the Scottish Government?

Professor Jason Leitch: I think there was a requirement to keep salient information and put it in the corporate record. I don’t think there was a requirement to take word for word what was in the informal messaging and place it into the corporate record. But once decisions, advice had been constructed, I think you were then required, according to the guidance, to place that in an email or a briefing or in a meeting with a minister or whatever the next step might have been.

Lead 2A: So your position was that you required to retain the decisions, or evidence of the decisions which had been taken in the corporate record, but – and also you had to retain advice which had been given for the corporate record, but beyond that any discussions salient to the business of the Scottish Government which you had been involved in did not require to be retained; is that correct?

Professor Jason Leitch: Correct.

Lead 2A: Could I just refer to your statement, which is INQ000273981, this is the one from 15 November, and in response to question 23 at page 10, you say:

“Except for direct messages from my Twitter account, I have not retained any one-to-one informal communications in relation to the management of the pandemic in Scotland. This is because I followed the policy described in more detail above in answer to question 14.”

So you used text messages, WhatsApp messages; is that right?

Professor Jason Leitch: That’s correct.

Lead 2A: But you did not retain them above and beyond the interpretation of the policy that you’ve just set out for us?

Professor Jason Leitch: Correct.

Lead 2A: I should make clear, perhaps, that some of the messages we’ve already gone to are not messages that were produced by you, isn’t that correct?

Professor Jason Leitch: Correct.

Lead 2A: Because you had deleted those messages?

Professor Jason Leitch: Correct.

Lead 2A: And those messages, for the sake of clarity, for your benefit, were provided to us by other people who had retained certain messages which contained some discussions about or involving you?

Professor Jason Leitch: That’s correct, and who potentially worked for other organisations with different guidance.

Lead 2A: Are you seeking to make something of the fact that some of these people worked for different organisations?

Professor Jason Leitch: No, I’m just –

Lead 2A: Do you know what the PHS guidance was?

Professor Jason Leitch: I do not.

Lead 2A: Well, if you’re trying to suggest that there was different guidance within PHS, I would just like to explore that with you.

Professor Jason Leitch: I’m trying to suggest that my guidance was as we’ve described, that’s what I followed. Others would presumably have to follow the guidance in their institutions.

Lead 2A: You say in your statement that you’ve always operated a “today’s work, today” approach in your professional life, what do you mean by that?

Professor Jason Leitch: I mean that the volume of information in this job, both pre-pandemic but particularly during the pandemic, can be completely overwhelming. Hundreds of emails a day, multiple sources of information. And the only way I have found to manage that, and it’s personal, other people do it differently, is to try to manage today’s messages, emails today. So I have a system of a private office and me who file emails very strictly. I try and work an “inbox zero” way of working, so my inbox is empty each evening, and that is the only way I’ve found to manage the level of information that I do. So that means that I would try and manage the messages that I had to manage that day and deal with them that day.

Lead 2A: And that’s always been your approach to work and it would apply all the more so during the course of the pandemic I would imagine?

Professor Jason Leitch: Correct, and remains my way of working today.

I think in this kind of job, with the broad information sources that I receive and the volume I receive, it’s the only way I have found of managing my day-to-day work or it becomes completely overwhelming.

Lead 2A: Thank you.

Were you aware of any guidance that was issued by the Scottish Government during the course of the pandemic expanding upon its broad policy of document and information retention and trying to make the policy more specific to the fact that people were working in remote locations, using a wider variety of forms of communication, or is the general policy which you’ve outlined the only policy of which you were aware?

Professor Jason Leitch: I have an understanding that it was updated. The principle updating over time was to add in specific reference to the new forms of communication that we were then using. Teams, Zoom, as we all got used to those digital messaging systems inside the Scottish Government.

At the beginning of the pandemic the Scottish Government didn’t have Teams and then it subsequently got Teams so they added Teams into the message guidance.

But the core message guidance and information guidance remained the same.

Lead 2A: We’re aware of a policy that was given to us by one of the directorates that we went through last week that was issued in November 2021. Is that the update that you’re referring to, or is there something else that –

Professor Jason Leitch: I think there are a number. That’s the one that for the first time, I think, although we’d have to bring it up, I think that’s the one that specifically mentions WhatsApp for the first time. But my understanding of the general information guidance was that what happened then was they added a specific example, which was WhatsApp. There had already been an added example of Teams. But the pre-pandemic guidance included all messaging for government business.

Lead 2A: Yes. So in many ways the basic obligations remained the same, as far as you were concerned?

Professor Jason Leitch: Correct.

Lead 2A: Even although these new media started to be used more frequently, for obvious reasons?

Professor Jason Leitch: Correct.

Lead 2A: It is of course – did you agree with me that it is important, for the purpose of accountability and transparency, that senior figures such as the National Clinical Director, yourself, retain a record of their discussions around important decisions relating to the pandemic and other such matters? Is that an important thing?

Professor Jason Leitch: Yes.

Lead 2A: Is it important so that those in whose name decisions are taken are able to understand how and why those decisions were taken?

Professor Jason Leitch: Yes.

Lead 2A: And it’s important, I think, would you agree with me, that the roles of particular senior officials in providing advice which may support ultimate decisions or may support an ultimate decision not to act in some way, is it important that the role played by each of these senior officials in those decisions or advice provided should be recorded for those interested in the process?

Professor Jason Leitch: Yes.

Lead 2A: Could I take you, please – could I just remind you, first of all, that on 27 May, in response to a question about whether Nicola Sturgeon would order a public inquiry into the Covid-19 outbreak in care homes, she replied in the Scottish Parliament as follows:

“Of course there will be a public inquiry into this whole crisis and every aspect of this crisis, and that will undoubtedly include what happened in care homes.”

Do you remember that? That was quite a significant moment in the early part of the pandemic. Do you remember the general theme and her saying that at the time?

Professor Jason Leitch: I remember the general theme, I don’t remember the specifics of the moment. But yes, in general terms I remember that.

Lead 2A: Was it your understanding that from at least that point onwards, if not throughout the pandemic, it was reasonably anticipated that there would be some form of inquiry into how the pandemic had been managed?

Professor Jason Leitch: Yes, I presumed it from the outbreak of the pandemic.

Lead 2A: Thank you.

Could I have a look, please, at a chat group which is under INQ000268025. Page 6, please.

This is a WhatsApp chat group which we looked at with another witness last week. It is at this time, I think, we worked out with Mr Thomson, it has a rather unusual name, it’s a combination of letters and numbers, and I think it was subsequently transferred into a name?

Professor Jason Leitch: It’s a viral version.

Lead 2A: Yes.

Professor Jason Leitch: Before it got a Greek name – they give them numbers before they give them Greek names.

Lead 2A: Which is why it’s B.1.617.2?

Professor Jason Leitch: Correct, which subsequently became Omicron.

Lead 2A: Subsequently became Delta, possibly?

Professor Jason Leitch: Okay.

Lead 2A: We discussed this with Mr Thomson, because he explained that context to us.

Professor Jason Leitch: Correct.

Lead 2A: And you’re absolutely right, I think it explains the change in name, but the subject matter I think was perhaps to discuss the Delta – it’s in the context of the Delta outbreak having an effect on Scotland?

Professor Jason Leitch: You’re correct.

Lead 2A: Which I think happened – started to happen in, really, the immediate aftermath, coincidentally, of the Scottish election, the Scottish Parliament election in May of that year; is that correct, broadly?

Professor Jason Leitch: That’s correct.

Lead 2A: In this message – I should make clear again that this was not a message or a messaging group that was provided by you. This again was provided by Dr McMenamin, just for your information.

Professor Jason Leitch: Okay.

Lead 2A: Could I have a look, please, at this, in this there is a discussion in which Ken Thomson, from whom we’ve heard, says:

“I feel moved at this point to remind you that this channel is FOI-recoverable.”

Then there is a picture of what looks like a face with a mouth zipped over.

And then someone called Penelope, who I think is Penelope Cooper, who is identified just above that says:

“Clear the chat!”

Jim McMenamin says:

“Happy to do so – Lan reduced from 51 to 39 but fair comment.”

To which you say:

“WhatsApp deletion is a pre-bed ritual.”

Why did you think that daily deletion of messages was appropriate?

Professor Jason Leitch: It’s a slightly flippant – and it’s an exaggeration. I didn’t daily delete my WhatsApp. My position is, as I’ve just described to you, that I tried to do today’s work today, and if I could assure myself that that work had been managed and dealt with, then I deleted the informal messaging that had led to that moment.

But this was a flippant exaggeration in an informal messaging group, and it wasn’t done every day before I went to bed.

Lead 2A: It would tend to suggest, would it not, this exchange, that all of you are keen to try to delete messages which may subsequently be recoverable in a Freedom of Information request?

Professor Jason Leitch: That isn’t my position.

Lead 2A: If you did delete your messages on a regular basis, in order to accord even with your interpretation of the policy, you would have required, on a daily or regular basis, to have taken information from that and loaded it onto the corporate record; is that correct?

Professor Jason Leitch: In some form. I would have had to have taken the core of that decision or advice – not the informal chitchat, but the advice and decision-making – into some form of briefing or email, correct.

Lead 2A: And that would have been a task that would have been difficult to have achieved, that translation exercise, given the volume of discussion that you have been talking about?

Professor Jason Leitch: Well, it depends where that volume comes from. Much of government business was done in meetings, on Teams, in briefings, in conversations that we had –

Lead 2A: I’m obviously talking about any informal(?) messaging here?

Professor Jason Leitch: So I don’t think it was as onerous as perhaps you’re suggesting to take the advice from this group, for example, about what we thought about Lanarkshire or Dundee and assure ourselves that Jim would then take that advice and use it in the National Incident Management Team, and therefore this group could then be deleted.

Lead 2A: Could I take you to another document, please.

INQ000268017, page 4.

This is a – again, this comes from another WhatsApp chat called “Covid outbreak group”, and there is a discussion here between a number of people, which I don’t want to go through in great detail, but there’s a discussion here about the position in Aberdeen at that stage, and the extent to which I think – well, you were discussing a number of things. You’re involved in the discussion. Paul Cackette, Gregor Smith, these are people who are discussing the position in Aberdeen and what might be done, broadly speaking; is that right?

Professor Jason Leitch: Indeed and the Covid outbreak group was designed for us to have those conversations about outbreaks.

Lead 2A: The entry at 21.44, please.

This is on 30 September 2020 at 21.44. It’s on page 24.

(Pause)

Lead 2A: At 21.44 on 30 September 2020 in this group you say:

“Thanks all….and just my usual gentle reminder to delete your chat….particularly after we reach a conclusion. Thanks all…..”

Could you explain what you’re suggesting to the other members of this important group then?

Professor Jason Leitch: I’m suggesting that we follow the guidance I’ve just described to you in precisely the way I’ve just described.

Lead 2A: Could you explain that in a bit more detail in this context?

Professor Jason Leitch: So this is me suggesting that we should follow the Scottish Government guidance that once we’ve reached a conclusion, and that conclusion has been fed into whichever mechanism was appropriate for that conclusion, that the chat should be deleted.

Lead 2A: Is it correct to say that some of the groups in which you were involved had an auto-delete function applied to it, applied to them?

Professor Jason Leitch: It is.

Lead 2A: Did you apply that auto-delete function?

Professor Jason Leitch: In my memory only once.

Lead 2A: And what was the group in which you applied that?

Professor Jason Leitch: It was the group we’ve already discussed with Mr McMenamin and Professor Smith.

Lead 2A: What is the consequence of applying an auto-delete function?

Professor Jason Leitch: It auto-deletes after a period that you set.

Lead 2A: And that deletes – whose messages does that delete?

Professor Jason Leitch: I … that’s a good question, I think it deletes everybody’s.

Lead 2A: So you set a function which would automatic – in a group which would automatically delete everyone’s messages without knowing whether or not the people had had the opportunity to upload any important information on to the corporate record; is that correct?

Professor Jason Leitch: I was comfortable in that group that the decisions we were coming to were being dealt with very, very quickly, because it’s the group I’ve just described to you. That group was principally used on my behalf. I set it up, for me, in order for me to get data prior to media appearances. That’s what that group was principally used for. And if you look through it, that’s what most of the chat is about, it’s me asking Jim for what the rate is in Borders tomorrow, because I’m going on TV in the morning. There was no requirement to retain that data. Jim then subsequently used it in order to get clinical consensus for the National IMT prior to going to the National IMT, and then it could auto-delete.

Lead 2A: If your interpretation of the policy is incorrect, and if there was a requirement to retain messages beyond those that you say you have retained on the corporate record, such that messages require to be retained showing discussions salient to the business of the Scottish Government, you have deleted such messages, have you not?

Professor Jason Leitch: In line with the Scottish Government guidance.

Lead 2A: Well, I’m putting to you a proposition that your interpretation of the guidance is wrong, and I’m putting to you that in fact what one needs to do is retain discussions salient to the business of Scottish Government, which is a wider category than I think you have accepted you have retained. Is that right?

Professor Jason Leitch: I disagree with your interpretation of the guidance.

Lead 2A: Well, if you just answer my question, please, on that hypothesis. Have you deleted messages, if my interpretation is correct –

Professor Jason Leitch: But it’s a hypothetical question with which I disagree. I think I have followed the Scottish Government guidance and my interpretation of it is correct.

Lead 2A: If, on my hypothesis, Professor, have you deleted messages that fall within the category as I’ve defined it?

Professor Jason Leitch: I think I have followed the Scottish Government guidance and deleted messages in line with the Scottish Government guidance.

Lead 2A: Have you applied auto-deletes which will result in messages falling within the category as I’ve defined it being deleted from the corporate record?

Professor Jason Leitch: On one occasion I set an auto-delete in the group we’ve just described, and I am comfortable that that falls within the Scottish Government guidance.

Lead 2A: Thank you.

Could I move on to a separate matter, please, INQ000334792.

We spoke already, Professor, in the context of efforts made by you and others in the aftermath of the resignation of Dr Calderwood of the importance of senior officials, and of course ministers by extension, complying with the rules in order to maintain public confidence and compliance with the regulations. I think that was your position?

Professor Jason Leitch: It is my position.

Lead 2A: And indeed you, I think, told us that in the period when you took over principal communication responsibilities with the various groups that you described, it was important for you, as part of your message at that time, to try to deal with difficulties that had arisen in that regard as a result of Dr Calderwood’s resignation?

Professor Jason Leitch: Correct.

Lead 2A: And generally it was, of course, important going forward, in particular in the light of that having happened, that ministers complied with the rules and that there was clarity as to what the rules were so as to maximise public confidence and compliance?

Professor Jason Leitch: Yes.

Lead 2A: Page 42, please, 19 November.

There is an exchange here, I think, between yourself and the now First Minister, is that correct, on this page? There are a number of exchanges.

Professor Jason Leitch: Correct.

Lead 2A: This again, I should say, this was not provided by you, this exchange, was it?

Professor Jason Leitch: It was not.

Lead 2A: It was in fact provided by the now First Minister in response to requests made of him.

In this exchange, which took place in November 2021, on 19 November – again, if we can try to contextualise that for people. I’ll try but if I get it wrong, Professor, please correct me. This is a period when cases have started to rise very significantly in Scotland, initially as a result of the Delta wave, but we’re now coming close to if not quite into the period when Omicron started to become the dominant strain, pushing cases up even further, isn’t that right?

Professor Jason Leitch: Correct.

Lead 2A: What we’re about to see at this stage, we’ve seen from some statistical evidence, was a peak which represented a peak of infection eight times greater than had been the peak in the first wave in Scotland, in terms of the numbers that were infected, on a broad assessment. Was that roughly your understanding?

Professor Jason Leitch: Indeed, but extra context perhaps is vaccination and therapeutics were – were able to help us and, in some way, deal with that eight times increase, but yes, you’re correct.

Lead 2A: Yes, we heard quite a bit about vaccination and its impacts on the strategy from Professor Smith yesterday, but I’m just trying to get the context here, because, of course, the cases were already high from Delta and they were about to go through the roof with Omicron, although this was not known at that time, I think. Is that broadly where we were at this point? Have I got that right?

Professor Jason Leitch: I think so.

Lead 2A: Therefore it was important at this stage that the government be doing everything it can to try to make sure there was maximum compliance, because Omicron, although thought to be milder, was way more infective and ultimately caused a significant number – thousands of deaths in Scotland?

Professor Jason Leitch: Correct.

Lead 2A: In this exchange the now First Minister says – he refers in the I&S section, which has been taken away, to an event that he is attending and he says:

“I know sitting at the table I don’t need my mask. If I’m standing talking to folk need my mask on?

You say:

“Officially yes. But literally no one does. Have a drink in your hands at ALL times. Then you’re exempt. So if someone comes over and you stand, lift your drink.”

Then you say:

“That’s fun. You’ll go down a treat. Where is it???”

Then he goes on and gives you some information about what it is that he’s going to be attending.

Why did Mr Yousaf, then the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, do you understand, feel the need to clarify the rules with you about face masks? Did he not know what they were already?

Professor Jason Leitch: There was an ambiguity here that I faced as well, as we re-opened in this period, of the country, and that ambiguity was that we were allowing social occasions. I remember being at this – that same evening I was giving an after dinner speech at the Royal College. And there was an ambiguity around mask wearing when you were seated, eating, drinking, because these events are – often involve a dinner. And there was some difficulty with the interpretation of mask wearing inside those rooms when you were eating, drinking or moving around. And the reality of life is that they happened to me and it became quite an incident on social media that I was approached at a dinner and somebody came over, asked for a picture, I stood up, took the picture, I didn’t have a mask on. So, strictly speaking, that was breaking the rules, but it was during a dinner and during an occasion with a social occasion and therefore I thought it was legitimate. And he is asking precisely that scenario.

Lead 2A: You used the phrase there “strictly speaking”. In light of the background that we’ve just gone through, was it not important to speak and act strictly at this time?

Professor Jason Leitch: Yes, it was, and I endeavoured to do that throughout, but there were occasions, particularly when the country was opening up again, where there was of course nuance around the guidance and the rules, and this I think was one of those occasions: when you were at a dinner, eating and drinking, and somebody approached you.

Lead 2A: If the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care didn’t understand the rules, what chance did anybody else have?

Professor Jason Leitch: As I’ve said, I think this was a tricky area that I found tricky as well. I understood the rules and I understood what we were trying to do, but the reality of life and the environment in which we were trying to do these things perhaps suggests this guidance was nuanced rather than entirely right.

Lead 2A: You say that officially he does, if standing talking to folk, need to have his mask on, but respond that “literally no one does”. Was that your impression of the state of compliance with that rule at this time?

Professor Jason Leitch: That was my impression at the few social events I had been to during this period. Because, as I said, the official rule was during your dinner and drinking at your dinner and the drinks reception you didn’t have to wear a mask. When you were having your dinner, if, for instance, you went to the bathroom, you had to put a mask on. That didn’t cover specifically what’s happening here and what happened to me, is somebody comes over, interacts with you during the dinner, you stand to talk to them politely, do you have to put a mask on?

Lead 2A: “… literally no one does.”

Was that a state of affairs that you thought was acceptable, given your prominent role in the management of the pandemic at this important time?

Professor Jason Leitch: If this were a broader and very important piece of guidance, I would not be comfortable with that at all. This was a tiny nuance inside broad guidance about dinners and drinking.

Lead 2A: Do you then go on to give the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care a work-around to try to enable him to attend the function, not wear a mask and get out of complying with the rules?

Professor Jason Leitch: No, that follows the rules. So if he has a drink and it’s a drinks reception type environment, that follows the rules. I gave him advice to show him how to comply with the rules.

Lead 2A: You told him to have a drink in his hands at all times whether he was drinking it or not.

Professor Jason Leitch: I told him to have a drink in his hands. He wouldn’t be drinking it the whole time, but having a drink in your hands meant you didn’t have to wear a mask.

Lead 2A: This is a work-around so that he didn’t have to wear his mask at the dinner, which is what he was trying to achieve?

Professor Jason Leitch: You were allowed not to wear your mask at the dinner because you were eating and drinking. The nuance here is somebody approaches you because you’re the Cabinet Secretary for Health, or the National Clinical Director, talks to you at the table, and you stand to speak to them.

Lead 2A: Could I ask you some questions – you can take that down, thank you very much – about the main role in which you were involved, the public health communications strategy, just to help the Inquiry understand it more.

You’ve already given us some useful explanation as to the strategies in your statement. In your earlier statement of 2 November, INQ000329366, it’s page 10, paragraph 46, you say – this is in the context of explaining the strategy. You say:

“We communicated as clearly as possible in all the advice and communication. Technical terms were used where necessary, and language was then adapted for each audience. I did many media briefings and many Scottish Parliamentary committee appearances. We held daily press conferences for 18 months. I always tried to be completely open and honest, including when I did not something. While I accept there are undoubtedly learning points for how we communicated advice to people, at all times we were as transparent as we could be.”

We’re particularly interested in this Inquiry about the possibility that we may make recommendations as to how things might be done better, including in connection with public communication, which is a part of the subject of the module. What, given your extensive experience and leading role in the communications strategy, do you think the learning points are that the Inquiry ought to consider?

Professor Jason Leitch: I think there are a number, from a personal perspective. You will have to judge whether they’re important enough for the Inquiry. I think I learned as time passed three things. I learned about behavioural science and the nature of its involvement in communication. I would summarise that by – and I think you’re hearing from Mr Reicher tomorrow, who was our principal adviser on behavioural science – tell the public why before you tell them what. And I think at the beginning of my experience of communication I probably didn’t do that as much as I should have. So it was about the emotion of why you were asking the public to do something that was really quite difficult, rather than what. I think we got better at that.

I think there is something about groups which were seldom heard, harder to reach, translation – the – I spent as much time as I possibly could in places that I didn’t know existed, like the African radio station for Scotland and the Polish radio stations for Scotland, but I think I learned that we could have been better at that, over time.

I think the other error I made, frankly, was sometimes I overspoke. Sometimes I got ahead of myself. Because I was on – as you will know, because you live in Scotland, probably, I was on a lot of shows, a lot of the time, and people would ask me questions three, four months ahead, what would happen here, what would happen then, and I did my best to answer all of those questions as wisely as I could, with the knowledge I had at the time, and at times I overspoke.

Lead 2A: That’s a very useful reflection, I think, Professor. I was going to ask you a question, which I might address now, about – there are a number of occasions I think when one looks at things that you said which I would characterise them as tending to try to suggest to people, “Well, if you stick with it for now you might get to do something fantastic in a month”, and the general tenor of the question I was going to ask you about that was whether sometimes you overpromised things, because sometimes you then, responsibly one might say, then reflected on that and had to say, “Well, I’ve perhaps given the impression you were allowed to do something that maybe you” – because of the circumstances –“you actually can’t do”.

So what would your reflection be on that particular aspect of things, because it does seem in this regard that you have reflected upon that particular aspect of your communication style?

Professor Jason Leitch: I think that’s fair. In my defence, when you’re on a phone-in show or you’re on the chart show and you’re being asked questions on relatively informal media about what you perhaps think is going to happen at Christmas, or is the football season coming back, or – and you say, in April, “Yes, I think the football season will be back in August, and I’ll look forward to it”, I would always of course caveat that in my response. The caveat is usually lost in the translation of what is – then subsequently finds its way into the public domain.

And then on occasion a new variant would arrive and I would often say in these informal press environments that, “We don’t know if a new variant will come, we don’t know how good vaccination will be, but all things being equal, with a fair wind, yes, I think the football season will return”.

I think there’s an argument that you should do that. I tried to do that with the public in an open and honest way. I think much of the public appreciated that openness, but sometimes I got that wrong.

Lead 2A: I think it fair to say, having looked at a number of articles and pronouncements and communications, the football and it’s availability featured highly in your predictions. That was obviously to try to do – as you’re saying, I think, promise people things they really wanted. But, as you say, you had to reflect on that sometimes as circumstances changed; would that be fair?

Professor Jason Leitch: That would be fair. There was also strategy. And the reason football is so prominent is the most listened to radio show in Scotland is a football show, and I appeared on it every week for 18 months. And the reason I appeared on it every week for 18 months was to get the message out to a very, very broad demographic. Over half a million people, I think, who listened – a tenth of the country – who listened to that single radio show. And that allowed us to get messaging out to people who weren’t listening necessarily to the regular news bulletins, watching our press conferences and other places. So that more informal communication, which I did extensively, was – and inevitably often led to conversations about football, it being a football programme.

Lead 2A: I suppose you had better tell her Ladyship what the show is, although I know what it is because I do live in Scotland.

Professor Jason Leitch: And you probably listen to the show. It’s called Off the Ball. It’s a two-hour Saturday lunchtime football show. But there was no football, so they had to have something else to talk about, so they talked about Covid.

Lead 2A: You say in the statement, in the passage which I read out, that the general theory or one of the main components of the strategy was to be as transparent as you could be –

Professor Jason Leitch: Yes.

Lead 2A: – is that correct?

There are a number of things about the pandemic response where subsequent scrutiny and media attention have suggested that the Scottish Government’s response throughout was not as transparent as it might have been, including, for example, revealing information in real time about the Nike conference, information about the identity of the first person to die from Covid in Scotland, and of course, perhaps most significantly, the details of the number of people infected and dying in care homes.

Two of those things at least resulted in subsequent Public Health Scotland reports, which occurred after the event, but which did not quell public concern about the precise circumstances of these events.

Would it be fair to say that the Scottish Government was not always as transparent as it could be in its communication about the pandemic?

Professor Jason Leitch: I think I can probably only answer for myself. I wasn’t involved in two of them, but I have been asked questions, of course, subsequent – I was asked questions about the Nike conference for many months afterwards, having not been involved at all in the Nike conference. I think there is a balance, and you’ve heard that balance come through from a number of other witnesses I think, about these small incidents. I remember an outbreak in Gretna, an outbreak in Perth, where you do have to be careful not to identify individuals.

I, in my communication, tried to give the public, the parliamentarians and the stakeholders all of the information I had when I had it. And I tried to interpret that in a way that the public would understand so they would know what it was we were asking them to do in order to stay safe.

Lead 2A: You may not have been involved in those incidents themselves, but you must have been involved in the aftermath, to the extent that there was public concern about these matters, and concern in particular that matters had been concealed from the Scottish public about them, such that these are things, as I think you accepted, you would have had to have addressed in your subsequent communications strategy?

Professor Jason Leitch: I did, and I answered questions about the Nike conference many, many times for many months afterwards, and I tried to tell the truth as I knew it in those moments. So I think there is transparency but I think there is a balance sometimes, particularly when patients and families’ health is involved, about what you can say and when you say it. The generality of the position is that I, as an individual, tried to be as open and as honest as I could.

Lead 2A: The matters I’ve mentioned, along with the resignation of Dr Calderwood, one might say caused a significant confidence deficit in the Scottish public as regards the way that the early stages of the pandemic had been handled, the aftermath of which you of course had to deal with, as you’ve explained. Would it be fair to say in hindsight that you think the Scottish Government should have handled the way in which it communicated with the public about those matters better and, if so, in what way?

Professor Jason Leitch: No, I’m not sure I do accept that. I’ve seen no evidence to suggest that overall trust in message and messengers and compliance was affected by those elements that you describe. I am – please don’t misunderstand me, I’m absolutely certain that communication at all times could be improved and we could get better and I’ve tried to give you some personal reflections of where I think that applies to me as an individual.

Lead 2A: But given that your aspiration was that at all times the Scottish Government would be as transparent as it could be, the Scottish Government was not as transparent as it could have been in relation to these matters?

Professor Jason Leitch: Well, the question is “as it could be”. My understanding of the Nike conference was that the fear was that, in saying more, people would be identified and therefore anxiety would be created and patient confidentiality would be breached. So there is a balance, and a limit, to that level of transparency.

Lead 2A: Would it be fair to say, because I think someone has done a numerical analysis suggesting that you held more than 250 media briefings, the lunchtime briefings, you – from an advisory perspective, as I think you’ve told us already, you did most of those? There were appearances from others in an advisory capacity, the Chief Nursing Officer, the Chief Medical Officer, at times, but you were the prominent face. Was that something upon which one might reflect as being something that could have been done differently, in particular, given the weight associated with the Office of the Chief Medical Officer, that he might have appeared more at these briefings than he did?

Professor Jason Leitch: I actually think those numbers are incorrect. I think the overall briefing number is about 250, you’re correct, and the First Minister did the vast majority of them. I think Professor Smith did slightly more than me of the – but I’m happy to be corrected, I haven’t seen a recent table of that.

I think the balance – to answer the core of your question, I think the balance was about right. Gregor did about two or three a week, I did about two or three a week, and then we would often use either a deputy, one of our deputies, or the Chief Nurse to fill the other days. We were trying to do them at one point seven days a week, so we had to share that load, and I think that worked. I think I did do more media appearances, away from the podia, than others, and that was the nature of the role, because we couldn’t all do everything.

Lead 2A: In the UK Government’s media briefings and public briefings, one often saw Professor Whitty, Sir Patrick Vallance, who were the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Adviser respectively. Would it be fair to say that you decided to adopt a different tone to the way in which the UK media briefings had been presented, and if so why?

Professor Jason Leitch: I’m not sure it was a – I’m hesitating, because I’m not sure it was a decision. I think a different tone developed, but I don’t remember a time when I sat in a room and somebody suggested we adopt a different tone.

I think we were led by the former First Minister in her way of dealing with the media and her way of dealing with public communication, and therefore we fitted into that environment as clinical spokespeople in that environment.

There was a decision, I remember, that was sometimes revisited, about not, for instance, using data. The UK Government often used slides, famously, and we decided not to do that. We thought that wasn’t the way that the Scottish public would want to hear from us, because we often gave data. And then we also took long series of questions. So we took the questions until they were done rather than just a few questions.

So that model was designed by our news and communications teams in light of the First Minister’s preferences and we fitted into that.

So I think the tone was different but I don’t think it was a particular moment where we decided to make the tone different.

Lead 2A: Do you think, particularly by way of contrast with the UK cell, which you accept is different, using the graphs and the individuals involved, that the strategy in Scotland lacked a degree of gravitas in terms of trying to get across to people the severity of the situation? In particular, if one looks at the UK Government approach, as you say, it was very data-driven, slides. One also had the authority of the Chief Medical Officer, who of course was a highly respected figure in the field of public health and infectious diseases. Do you think that the Scottish Government’s tone and approach lacked the gravitas that it required to get the messages across to people?

Professor Jason Leitch: I think there’s probably a judgement for others. It’s one with which I disagree. I’m not sure gravitas is the principal thing you seek in public communication during a global pandemic. I think what you seek is empathy and an ability to describe to the public of the country for which you’re trying to communicate the nature of the threat we all face and what we are then asking them to do.

I think there were moments of very extreme gravitas. I remember, for example, Gregor and I appeared very – very rarely did we appear together at that, but there were two occasions when there was a decision made that we would appear together, and one of those occasions was the second lockdown. And that felt like one of the more serious days I had ever faced as a professional. And we stood together with the First Minister on a Sunday and told the country that, regrettably, the advice to the First Minister was that we were going to have to take more severe restrictions.

So it wasn’t all football shows and phone-ins. Quite a lot of it was very, very serious question and answer and statements from those podia.

Mr Dawson: Okay, thank you.

If that’s an appropriate moment, my Lady?

Lady Hallett: Certainly.

Just before we break, Professor, could I just go back to the deletion of messages. Some of the tone of some of the messages that I’ve seen suggest a rather enthusiastic adoption of the policy of deleting messages; would that be fair?

Professor Jason Leitch: It’s certainly not – wasn’t my position. You’d have to ask others, clearly, but that wasn’t my position. My position was that I was following the guidance and wasn’t particularly enthusiastic or otherwise about deletion.

Lady Hallett: There also might be a suggestion that some of the message – some of the people wanted to delete messages to avoid the messages being the subject of a Freedom of Information request. That would be wrong, wouldn’t it, if you deleted a message to avoid a Freedom of Information request?

Professor Jason Leitch: Yes, and that wasn’t my position.

Lady Hallett: So you agree it would be wrong if that was what was being –

Professor Jason Leitch: If it were – I think there are specific rules around what FOI can get and can’t get, so – so if you’re doing it in order to specifically avoid, then, yes. And I never suggested or did so.

Lady Hallett: And the last question I have is: when the Scottish Covid Inquiry was announced, did your following of the policy change? Did you seek any advice about deleting messages or did you continue to delete messages in accordance with the policy as you saw it?

Professor Jason Leitch: I continued to follow the guidance as I saw it.

Lady Hallett: You didn’t seek any help as to whether you should, given that there would be a judge who had the right to demand production of documents and information?

Professor Jason Leitch: I received advice from the Scottish Government every time new advice came, which I think the Inquiry has, emails from the director-general for corporate, as time passed, from both this Inquiry and the Scottish Inquiry, and I continued to follow that guidance.

Lady Hallett: Thank you.

I shall return at 11.35.

(11.18 am)

(A short break)

(11.35 am)

Lady Hallett: Mr Dawson.

Mr Dawson: Thank you, my Lady.

Just to return very briefly, as her Ladyship did, to the subject of the WhatsApps, Professor, before we get back to the media strategy.

Could I have INQ000268017, please, at page 10.

This, I think, is one of the groups we were looking at earlier, the Covid outbreak group. There’s a passage I’d just like to take you to at 16.09. It’s a passage we looked at with Mr Thomson the other day. So you see that the names are overwritten where the numbers were. Mr Thomson, this says:

“Just to remind you (seriously), this is discoverable under FOI. Know where the ‘clear chat’ button is…”

To which Nicola Steedman – who I think was DCMO, is that right?

Professor Jason Leitch: She was.

Lead 2A: Yes. Says:

“Yes- absolutely…”

You say:

“DG level input there….”

To which Mr Thomson says:

“Plausible deniability are my middle names. Now clear it again!”

To which you say:

“Done.”

Nicola Steedman says done, and another person called Donna Bell says:

“And me.”

You mentioned earlier that the Scottish Government provided you with guidance during the course of the pandemic as to how the policies might be applied in the particular circumstances. Does this not show a senior civil servant telling you that you should delete messages which are discoverable under FOI?

Professor Jason Leitch: I think that’s a matter for him, and one that you covered with him extensively. I think the FOI rules are not quite as simple as holding on to every record, and my position remains that I followed the guidance at all times, including and bearing in mind what that guidance said about FOI rules.

Lead 2A: He tells you that the chat you’ve had is discoverable under FOI; is that correct?

Professor Jason Leitch: He’s – he says that, yes. I don’t know if that’s true.

Lead 2A: But he says it is, he says it is in the message.

Professor Jason Leitch: He quite clearly says it is.

Lead 2A: He tells you to clear the chat; is that correct?

Professor Jason Leitch: He tells the group to clear the chat, yes.

Lead 2A: And you do so; is that correct?

Professor Jason Leitch: That’s correct.

Lead 2A: Moving back to the media campaign questions, you mentioned earlier – I may have got the numbers wrong, but I think you mentioned earlier as regards the daily media briefings that the First Minister attended very many of those, I don’t think all of them –

Professor Jason Leitch: Almost all of them.

Lead 2A: Yes. Ms Freeman I think on occasion, but – sorry, go ahead.

Professor Jason Leitch: We tended to use the health secretary on a Friday actually, or a Sunday, so once a week it was usually another elected official, and the First Minister did the rest.

Lead 2A: There was criticism during the course of the pandemic that the First Minister used her regular appearances in media briefings for political gain. Was this a matter that was considered in the media strategy that might undermine your important message?

Professor Jason Leitch: It wasn’t considered in my hearing or in my view at any time. There was, of course, cross-government interaction, and conversations about what we should do across the four governments, but there was never a suggestion that this should be done in a political way and the briefings should therefore follow a political course.

Lead 2A: Were you aware of the fact that that was a criticism that was being made of the general –

Professor Jason Leitch: I was aware that in some of the public discourse there was a suggestion that some of the differences were being made for political reasons. It was even suggested that I was giving advice based on political difference, which is categorically untrue.

Lead 2A: You mentioned earlier in one of your reflections on what might be done better. You accepted, I think, that sometimes you had said things and perhaps overspoken, that you required to, perhaps sometimes due to changing circumstances, go back on in order to clarify.

As far as what you would say, in your role, specifically to that, were you effectively able to say whatever you wanted or did anybody advise you on that or assist you with that? Was that something that was entirely within your control?

Professor Jason Leitch: It was entirely within my control. However, I did receive media advice and help from our communications department, in which shows to do, when to do them. So there was – I didn’t choose always which bits to take. I was a Scottish Government communicator, I wasn’t an independent communicator, but I was never restricted in what I could say.

Lead 2A: Could I go to INQ000334574, please.

This is an exchange again from WhatsApp messages that you did not provide, which involve you. It comes from June of 2020 and involves an exchange between you and Kate Forbes, talking about media appearance.

I’m starting at the message at 24/6 at 12.05.57. Just have that up, please, thank you.

You say to her:

“You and me on Friday?????”

She says:

“Is the FM coming?”

You say:

“Always.”

You say:

“Have you met her???”

You say:

“Awwww….you’ll get Gregor!!!!”

Some sort of emoji there.

You say – she says:

“You know more than I do.”

Then she says:

“How do I get this info?”

And says:

“Information is power.”

You say:

“That’s always true surely??”

You then go on to say:

“It’s actually not easy to get. It’s not very well organised. Basically Liz L and FM decide.”

Then you say:

“And it changes at short notice. Clinically we do Gregor Monday/Tuesday, Fiona Thursday and me Friday and Sunday.”

And she thanks you.

Does this – is this giving the impression – it seems that Ms Forbes is going to be involved in one of these. Perhaps she hasn’t been –

Professor Jason Leitch: For the first time.

Lead 2A: Yes, so you’re trying to give her some guidance as to how it works, is that –

Professor Jason Leitch: I probably should add slight context in – Kate Forbes and I know each other a little personally as well as professionally.

Lead 2A: Okay, thank you. What you’re basically saying to her is what’s going to happen at the public presentations is not very well organised and changes at short notice; isn’t that right?

Professor Jason Leitch: I think that’s relatively flippant, so the “not … well organised” is a flippant remark that I – is probably not fair. However, there is some truth in the fact that we didn’t always know which week which clinical advisers were going to do and we sometimes switched them around at short notice. Partly our fault, partly the fault of the communications team who were organising it.

Lead 2A: But you say that not in the context of a question about who will appear but in the context of her trying to get information that she might present. So it tends to suggest that the information to be conveyed is not very well organised and decided at short notice?

Professor Jason Leitch: So I can’t say for sure. My reading of that is because I then go on to say “Basically Liz L and FM decide” is I’m referring specifically to who will appear at the press conferences. Because then I go on to say “And it changes at short notice”. So I think it’s in reference to who will appear.

The data for the press conferences I can put my hand on my heart and say was very well organised. We got it each morning and that was the data we then used at the 12 o’clock press conferences.

Lead 2A: How did the – how did you attempt during the course of your media presentations, predominantly the briefings, but more generally if it’s relevant, to deal with the difficult subject of misinformation which came out through various sources but the Scottish Government’s position was was not accurate?

Professor Jason Leitch: It was hugely difficult and a massive challenge for all of the communicators around the world. I sought advice from those more expert in it then than me, including Stephen Reicher, who you will hear from tomorrow, but others with expertise in misinformation, and the general advice is not to fight it, the general advice is to continue to tell the truth as you know it and that is the way to compete.

It was very tempting, I have to tell you – particularly on social media, where I was attacked regularly, and remain attacked today regularly, by people who put into misinformation into that – for me to respond directly. The advice was never to do that. The advice was to continue to tell the truth and continue to use the science to compete against that in the public mind, and that truth would then win the day, effectively. And that’s what I tried to do.

Lead 2A: What were the sorts of areas in which that became an issue?

Professor Jason Leitch: It was principally around vaccination, is probably the best example, but there was also misinformation at the beginning that this virus wasn’t what we said it was, it wasn’t dangerous, it didn’t affect these people in this way, it affected other people in different ways. So there were a series of, let’s call them broadly, “theories” around how we should react, in every country of the world, but it came to a head during the launch and roll-out of the vaccination programme, where misinformation became a global phenomenon.

Lead 2A: One way of conveying to the Scottish public that it was serious might, on reflection, have been to tell them more about the fact that Covid was Scotland, as had been discovered at the time of the Nike conference?

Professor Jason Leitch: Well, they knew Covid was on its way and we announced the first case. We’ve – we’ve discussed why the specifics of the Nike conference and perhaps small outbreaks wouldn’t be discussed. I’m not sure that relates to misinformation. The misinformation is about trying to get as much of the truth about the virus into the public domain.

Lead 2A: Well, you were the one that brought up, in response to my question, there were difficulties about understanding the severity at the beginning, so I was suggesting to you a way that might have been dealt with was to be more candid with the public about the Nike conference and the fact that Covid had arrived in Scotland.

Professor Jason Leitch: I think we were candid about Covid arriving in Scotland and about the first death in Scotland. And as I learned information about the nature of the virus I spoke to the public very frankly about the risk that I and they faced together.

Lead 2A: Are you aware of whether the first person whose death was announced in Scotland had attended the Scotland against France rugby international on 8 March?

Professor Jason Leitch: I’m not.

Lead 2A: Could I just ask you briefly, and you do give us a lot of assistance with this in your statements, about the FACTS campaign.

The broad contention of FACTS was that the acronym which was used was too complex to be able to be comprehended by most people. What is your view on that, even if that view is in retrospect?

Professor Jason Leitch: I’m not sure there is – I’ve not seen evidence that that is, as you described, the broad consensus. I think it is slightly complex. It was developed not – not by me, I was the spokesperson and communicator, it was developed by the communications department of the Scottish Government and an external agency. We had told them what interventions we wanted the public to be reminded of, and there were, as it turned out, five of them. And in order to get that into some form of recognisable form that we could then use on posters and we could then – the idea wasn’t for the public to memorise it. The idea was that it would be used as an aide memoire in documents, posters in the street, I was able to use it, we were able to use it at briefings. I think it was a little complicated but I don’t think it was overall complex.

Lead 2A: In his evidence to the Inquiry, Professor Paul Cairney referred to a study by MacMillan and others which looked into the success of FACTS in terms of the number of people who could recall the five different components of it. That study suggested that 1% of respondents could recall all five elements, 38% recalled none, and 42% recalled only one. Would that be evidence to tend to suggest that it wasn’t a success?

Professor Jason Leitch: It would, but there’s other evidence in that same report to suggest that people did understand the broad intention. And it was a very small sample size, that specific study. 60% of people knew F stood for face coverings. And I think, in the round, having something that reminded people that there things to do, that included face coverings, avoid crowded places – I can do them all if you wish – and use that on posters and communication around the country was, in retrospect, a good thing. Could we adapt that to make it simpler? Probably.

Lead 2A: I’m very glad to hear, Professor, you’re in the 1% who could recall all five elements. I’m sure that’s true.

Professor Jason Leitch: I did say it a lot.

Lead 2A: If the position is that you wish to convey a broad message, could that not have been done far more simply and effectively?

Professor Jason Leitch: I think those two things happened at the same time. People understood there was a FACTS thing. And if you look at the polling, did people know there was a thing called FACTS? The answer was yes, in the main. Could they identify each individual element? Not as well as perhaps we would hope. But remember, the – we had icons and the words. Those icons became very broadly used around the country in posters, in leaflets, in vaccination centres, and I think the general concept of there are things you can do to make yourself safer was a good one to pursue.

Lead 2A: Thank you.

You have in the material that you provided to the Inquiry and also more generally offered a number of general reflections on various aspects of the way that Covid-19 was managed in Scotland. I’d just like to explore a few of those in conclusion with you, Professor.

In one speech you gave about faith during Covid, which I think was recreated to some extent in a Spectator article on 20 March 2023, entitled “Jason Leitch’s lockdown regrets”, you said:

“‘I made some missteps … ‘I don’t know if [I’d] do it the same way again because we have different knowledge now. I wonder if closing schools is something we’d reconsider’. And of lockdown more generally? ‘Lockdown’, Leitch concluded, ‘is an old fashioned approach to managing a disease that is going around the world in an aeroplane.”

Now, there are a number of elements to that, but I wanted to give you the opportunity to expand upon your what appear to be genuine reflections upon the policies around the closure of schools and the appropriateness of lockdown for managing a 21st century pandemic?

Professor Jason Leitch: So I’ll do it in reverse, if you don’t –

Lead 2A: Absolutely.

Professor Jason Leitch: So the lockdown first. The lockdown one in the Spectator and subsequently in the media was slightly misunderstood. This was a broad Q&A for an hour and a half on a Sunday to a large group, and I was genuinely open and reflective, and I’m happy to be so here.

What I said about lockdown being old-fashioned was misunderstood. What I meant was that when you have an infectious disease that you don’t understand, pretty much the only thing you have in the tool box, in the public health tool box, is to take infected individuals and separate them from the rest of society, unfortunately. That’s what happened with smallpox, it’s what happens with unknown and rare infectious diseases. And therefore, in order to stop that spreading, lockdown was therefore required. I don’t – I didn’t suggest for a moment that it wasn’t the right thing to do. What I suggest was unfortunately, because we had no vaccines, no therapeutics, no other way of managing it, it was the only thing left.

The second reflection is perhaps slightly more open. I think in hindsight, and that’s very important, with the knowledge we have now about how this disease affects different age groups, about the missed education opportunities, about other elements that we now understand of this virus that we didn’t and couldn’t understand at the time, I think there might be further reflection in future – if it were exactly the same – about the closure of schools quite as quickly and quite as long, as we did around – around the world. Almost everybody, except Sweden, in Western Europe closed their schools, and it may be that’s something that decision-makers and advisers might think in the future.

Lead 2A: If it were to be concluded by this Inquiry that evidence did exist upon which action should have been taken which showed the demographic information and the likelihood that elderly people would be more likely to be infected than children at an early stage, did that indicate that the schools policy was in fact wrong, if that information should have been acted on?

Professor Jason Leitch: I don’t think it’s as simple as just that infection data. What you have to understand, and I think we understood this relatively quickly, that children in the round and in the main, and this is of course not 100%, were not seriously ill from Covid unless they had underlying conditions. Healthy children did not get very sick from Covid. And we knew that quite early on. What we didn’t know of course was their ability to spread it and give it to others in their communities and their families that were perhaps at higher risk. So school closure was not just about protecting children, it was also about protecting staff, families and the broader community. So it’s a complex decision. What I’m suggesting is that what we know now may change the four harms approach to that decision-making.

Lead 2A: I’ll just ask you one further question, which was a question we were asked to ask you. To what extent in the communication strategy did you factor in disabled people’s accessible communication needs and the fact of there being a certain degree of digital exclusion in –

Professor Jason Leitch: I think –

Lead 2A: – that community?

Professor Jason Leitch: Sorry. I think it’s a huge challenge, and I think it’s also an area that we and others could improve. A lot of our information was online, the nature of the speed of the response meant that it had to be online. 101 million times the guidance, the Scottish Government guidance, was viewed online. So therefore that was one of the principal ways we did that. We did a lot of translation work, we did a lot of engagement with disabled organisations. I did quite a lot of that myself, I spent as much time learning what it was like to try to receive that information. And my communications and marketing colleagues also spoke to those organisations and they were always very helpful in doing that translation work, that engagement work, about how we should approach communication to those groups. But I agree with the premise of the question, that that could of course be better.

Lead 2A: But you were aware of that at the time, you say there was communication, but what, I suppose, that particular group will be interested in is the extent to which any action was actually put in place to try to resolve it over the more than two years of the pandemic?

Professor Jason Leitch: On a personal level I tried to – I tried to engage personally with groups who asked for both guidance and visits, and I spent a lot of time with groups both online and in person trying to engage with what the guidance was. And that also enabled me to take what I heard back into the environment where advice was being constructed.

Lead 2A: Do you feel that that advice was listened to?

Professor Jason Leitch: I do, but it is an inexact science, of course, because we were trying to make decisions for the whole population, and that means that groups within that population would often feel that they weren’t being listened to as much as they could be, whether that’s faith groups, disabled groups, business owners. I had relationships with each of those groups and everybody felt they weren’t being listened to at certain points of the journey.

Lead 2A: One might say that, given the pre-existing knowledge of Scotland’s considerable health inequalities, that groups like disabled groups would be the ones that would be prioritised in order to be able to get information to, because they were the most vulnerable to the threat not only of the virus itself but of other non-Covid harms to which they were being exposed?

Professor Jason Leitch: I think it’s a broad group to say the disabled groups were more vulnerable than others, it’s not quite as simple as that. The principal risk is age, then there are other pre-existing conditions which give you an increased risk, some of which cause disability, you’re correct, and I think we did take into account into our clinical advice as much as could with the pace at which we were working.

Mr Dawson: Thank you very much.

I have no further questions, my Lady. If I could just take one moment, excuse me.

(Pause)

Mr Dawson: There are no core participant questions, as I understand it, my Lady. An application has been made and rejected, as I understand it, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Thank you.

I think the answer is, Ms Mitchell, that the issue that you raised is going to be asked of other people.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Professor. I’m sorry about the cough.

The Witness: It’s okay. I hope you feel better.

Lady Hallett: Thank you.

(The witness withdrew)

Mr Dawson: The next witness, my Lady, is Professor

Devi Sridhar.