Seòmar agus comataidhean

If another variant or—perish the thought—another pandemic occurred in the coming financial year so there was a need to step in with new interventions such as bringing back the track and trace service, would there be anything in the budget to fund that or would you be reliant on Barnett consequentials from what happened elsewhere in the UK?

That money has been set aside in the overall health budget. Should it not be required, could it be redeployed elsewhere?

Thank you. I think that Professor Peacock indicated that she wants to come in.

Good morning. I want to follow up on the convener’s last question. It sounds as though you have successfully and quickly been able to scale up your work to address issues and to provide the capacity that is required. You have identified the risk to that work continuing. How essential is it that we maintain that level of work? What are the risks to it, in terms of future funding?

Perhaps Mr Gray can go first, as he addressed that point previously.

I welcome Siobhian Brown to the meeting.

Good morning, and welcome to the 28th meeting in 2022 of the COVID-19 Recovery Committee. We have received apologies from Brian Whittle MSP, and from our convener, Siobhan Brown, who has been unexpectedly detained but might be able to join us in the course of the meeting.

The first agenda item is to decide whether to take in private item 4, which is consideration of our approach to our inquiry into long Covid. Do members agree to take item 4 in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Would the number be in the hundreds or fewer than that?

Thank you—that is really interesting.

I move on to you, Rachel Helliwell. As I did with the others, I ask you to reflect on your experience of the process.

We move on to item 2. The committee will hear from two panels of witnesses on Covid-19 surveillance.

The first panel will give evidence on waste water surveillance. I welcome to the meeting: Dr Rachel Helliwell, the director of the Centre of Expertise for Waters—CREW—and the Hydro Nation International Centre; George Ponton, head of research and innovation at Scottish Water; and Peter Singleton, research, innovation and evidence manager at the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. They all join us remotely.

I thank the witnesses for giving us their time and for their written submissions. We will allow an hour or so for the evidence session. I will start with some questions, then ask my colleagues to come in. If any of the witnesses would like to respond to a question that is not directed specifically to them, they should put an R in the chat box, then we will be able to bring them in. I am keen that everybody gets as much of an opportunity to speak as possible.

I ask each of the witnesses in turn, starting with Mr Ponton from Scottish Water, to tell us a little bit about their experience with waste water testing, how it worked in practice, what the challenges were and what they have learned from it for the future.

Thank you for that. Do you have any reflections on the value that your work has had in driving Government policy?