Scottish Government feared being unprepared for a pandemic, cabinet papers show

“It cannot be assumed that it will be another 40 years until the next pandemic. Another virus of greater intensity or severity could strike at any time.”  

So said the Scottish Government as it ran down its swine flu response in internal papers that would prove prescient. 

The deadly H1N1 strain hit in 2009, claiming 69 lives by April 2010. The country was the first outwith the Americas to register a death from the illness. 

Just 10 years later, the country and the world would be gripped by coronavirus, sending societies into lockdown as schools, offices and places of worship locked their doors while scientists grappled for a vaccine. 

The crisis would run for years and the virus would be listed as a factor in almost 16,500 deaths in Scotland by January 2023. 

In November the UK Covid-19 Inquiry found that the country had been ill-prepared for the pandemic, with failures in readiness and leadership contributing to public harms. Government response to the health emergency was often “too little, too late”, Baroness Heather Hallett found, with devolved administrations “too reliant” on Westminster to lead. 

Now newly declassified Scottish Government papers show how, exiting the swine flu epidemic, Scotland’s ministers had feared another crisis on the horizon, and vowed to get ahead of it. 

“It is essential that lessons are learned from this pandemic so that Scotland is even better equipped to deal with the next one,” read the records of the Scottish Government Resilience Room (Sgorr), adding: “It would be irresponsible of the Scottish Government not to start planning immediately for the next pandemic, whenever that may happen.” 

A lesson-learning review was initiated. But even then, the cabinet heard that there was a “limit to which we can draw generic lessons” about subsequent threats. 

And, in the event, Scotland’s systems were overwhelmed by what resulted. 

Nicola Sturgeon, who was health secretary during swine flu and first minister during Covid, said as much to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, telling it that coronavirus “did not unfold in the way that the plans and worst case scenarios expected they would”. And no plan, she said, “will ever completely replicate what happens in reality”. 

There were several attempts at planning for a major crisis, both with the UK Government and without. Brexit saw resources redirected towards that change, the inquiry heard, and when Sturgeon was asked whether she was “the right first minister” for the challenge, her emotional response was: “No, that's not how I would have thought of it at all.  

“I was the first minister when the pandemic struck – there’s a large part of me that wishes I hadn’t been, but I was – and I wanted to be the best first minister I could be during that period. It’s for others to judge the extent which I succeeded.” 

And there’s no escaping those judgements, either for Sturgeon or the government she led. 

In November, the UK inquiry acknowledged the difficulty of the situation, with Hallett noting that politicians and officials had faced “unenviable choices” and worked under “extreme pressure”. “Whatever decision they took, there was often no right answer or good outcome,” she said.  

However, records of decision-making were either lost or had never been taken. ‘Gold command’ meetings orchestrated by Sturgeon were not minuted and WhatsApp messages she sent and received were deleted or lost. The same was true for current first minister John Swinney, who was then Sturgeon’s deputy. 

Back when swine flu ended, there was pride in Scotland’s response to the situation. “Scotland was at the forefront of the UK’s response”, cabinet papers state, because “we saw the first cases in the UK; the first hospitalisations; the first ‘cluster’ effects; and unfortunately the first deaths”. “In all these aspects, Scotland led the way in reacting to the spread and infection rate from a previously unknown strain of the influenza virus,” the documents say. “This meant that we were the first nation in the UK to put into practice previous planning models and also the first to move away from these when the reality on the ground demanded it. 

“Throughout the response, Scotland was regarded by the rest of the UK as being at the vanguard of the fight against the virus and this position stood us in good stead when it came to persuading the other three nations to adopt a more pragmatic approach. 

“Whilst we were not successful in achieving this on all occasions, our ability to influence policy across the UK should not be underestimated.” 

When it came to Covid, there was acknowledgement from Hallett of a difference in approach between Edinburgh and London. But ultimately that wasn’t enough for the inquiry. 

Its report criticised the “toxic and chaotic culture” of the then-Conservative government led by Boris Johnson, but said the “lack of trust” between his administration and Sturgeon’s had impacted on the way decisions were made. 

Sturgeon was “serious and diligent” in her role, the inquiry found. But she excluded ministers from decision-making and there was a “constant tension” due to the “personal and political antipathy” between her and Johnson. “It is self-evident that, in any future pandemic, political antipathies or discord need to be set aside to better address the exigencies of the emergency”, the report states. 

In November, Swinney said he was sorry for the suffering experienced throughout the pandemic, and ministers were acting based on “the information at the time”. 

Eight months before that, in March, he led commemorations for the fifth anniversary of the Covid pandemic, laying a wreath at Glasgow Green, where a piper and choir performed and families gathered. “It's hard to comprehend that we are five years on from the pandemic but the fact that we're five years on makes it more important than ever that we remember those who lost their lives at that moment,” he said. 

With the UK and separate Scottish inquiries ongoing, there will be further opportunities in the coming months and indeed years to reflect on the losses, and on the leadership.