Nicola Sturgeon did not tell Kate Forbes about a group that made key decisions during Covid

Kate Forbes, Former Scottish finance secretary, said she would have expected to have known about any meetings with financial implications – UNPIXS

Nicola Sturgeon did not tell her finance secretary about a special group she used to make key decisions about the pandemic, it emerged, before the former first minister appeared at the Covid Inquiry on Wednesday.

Kate Forbes told the inquiry that she did not even know the “Gold Command” meetings existed until she was invited to one in mid-2021, more than a year after the pandemic started.

She said she would have expected to be invited to “any meeting where there were significant financial implications”. However, the inquiry has previously heard evidence that Gold Command discussed a “circuit breaker” lockdown in September 2020.

Ms Forbes said she was surprised that no minutes had been kept of the Gold Command talks. Ms Sturgeon and a smaller circle of ministers and advisers used the meetings to make key decisions without waiting for the weekly meeting of the Scottish Cabinet.

It also emerged there were no records of discussions of the Scottish Government Resilience Room (Sgorr) meetings, Holyrood’s version of Westminster’s Cobra emergency committee.

Jamie Dawson KC, counsel to the inquiry, said: “It becomes difficult to understand what the ultimate decision-making process was when there is no record of how those decisions were taken.”

Ms Forbes responded: “I can understand that frustration.”

Nicola Sturgeon with Kate Forbes who said she was surprised that no minutes were taken of Gold Command talks – Allan Milligan

The inquiry also heard evidence from John Swinney, the former deputy first minister, who admitted manually deleting all his text messages with Ms Sturgeon from the pandemic.

Mr Swinney said he had also deleted messages with Humza Yousaf, the former health secretary and now First Minister, “on an ongoing basis”.

He said he had acted in line with the Scottish Government’s records management policy by transferring “relevant” points to the official record then deleting the messages.

Lady Hallett, head of the inquiry, pressed him on whether he had questioned “the policy of deletion” after it became apparent early in the pandemic that there would be a future public inquiry.

Mr Swinney said he carried on with the deletion policy as this was what he had been advised to do by his private office since the SNP took power in 2007. He apologised if he had misunderstood the records management policy.

But Mr Dawson challenged him that the policy “doesn’t require people to retain enough information” for a future public inquiry “even if you adhere to it to the letter”.

Locked out of inner circle

The disclosures were made ahead of Ms Sturgeon’s appearance before the inquiry, which is sitting in Edinburgh. She was scheduled to give evidence all day on Wednesday and was expected to be challenged about deleting all her WhatAapps.

Craig Hoy MSP, Scottish Conservative chairman, said: “Kate Forbes’ evidence made it obvious that, even as a senior cabinet secretary, she was initially locked out of Nicola Sturgeon’s shady inner circle which was calling the shots at the beginning of the pandemic.

“It was absolutely extraordinary – and damning evidence of the secretive way in which the former first minister operated – to hear Ms Forbes testify that she was not even aware of the group’s existence until much later.”

He added: “This secretive culture undoubtedly made it more difficult to ensure lessons were being learnt and applied during the pandemic.”

Last week the inquiry was shown an extract from a personal notebook belonging to Liz Lloyd, then Ms Sturgeon’s chief of staff, showing a circuit breaker lockdown was discussed at a Gold Command meeting on Sept 28, 2020, including the economic impact.

Mr Dawson said the inquiry did not know how many Gold Command meetings took place in 2020 but had managed to learn of six between September 2020 and January 2021 through references in other documents.

Ms Forbes told the inquiry she did not know the group existed until “later on in the pandemic” and attended 11 of the later meetings in 2021 and early 2022.

Significant financial implications

Lady Hallett asked Ms Forbes: “Given your seniority in the Scottish Government, why weren’t you at the command meetings in 2020?”

Ms Forbes said: “I wasn’t aware. I am not even sure I was aware they existed.”

Lady Hallett said: “You would have expected to be invited, wouldn’t you?” Ms Forbes said: “I would have expected to be invited to any meeting where there were significant financial implications.”

Ms Forbes said a summary email was circulated to participants afterwards but added: “I think that every meeting of that nature in the Scottish Government should be minuted and I’m surprised to hear that they weren’t.”

Mr Swinney disclosed Gold Command meetings were held online using Microsoft Teams and featured a slide presentation about the state of the pandemic.

He said participants would “discuss and debate the different issues in front of us” and “summary note” would be sent later to them, which Mr Swinney insisted was a “minute”.

Challenged why there was no full record of the discussions, he argued the Gold Command meetings “were preparing material that would go to cabinet and the inquiry will see those cabinet papers and the cabinet notes that arise out of them.”

He added that operational decisions would be made at Sgorr meetings with a “list of actions identified”.

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