Inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson asks John Swinney whether it was difficult for him to devote the requisite energy required to the various roles he held during the pandemic.

He was deputy first minister from 2014-18, acting finance secretary from 2022-23, covid recovery secretary from 2021-23 and education secretary from 2016-21.

"I wouldn't say so," Swinney tells the inquiry.

"I worked all the hours that God sent - seven days a week - from early in the morning to very late at night and I gave it my all."

Swinney says it was "challenging" and there were "multiple demands on my time ... from a variety of different directions but I gave it my level best".

John Swinney, early on in his evidence, is addressing the issue of school closures in 2020,

He says the government's actions in that respect "were addressing other harms beyond the immediate health harm of Covid".

These were decisions taken in the summer of 2020, Scotland's former deputy FM goes on, when the four harms framework began to have its effect.

As a reminder, the four harms were defined as:

1. Direct Covid health harms
2. Broader health harms, primarily the impact on the NHS and social care services
3. Social harms to the wider society, like harms to the educational attainment
4. Economic and business harms

John Swinney tells the inquiry he was appointed as minister for Covid recovery after the May 2021 election, because there needed to be a whole government response to the pandemic.

The pandemic wasn't over at the time - but the government had to be mindful of the recovery from Covid, he adds.

Inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson, asking Swinney questions, turns to the four harms strategy and says before the election the focus was on fighting the virus (harm one), whereas afterwards the focus turned to the other three harms.

Swinney says the four harms framework "began to have its effect in 2020, before the election" but he became its driving force when life after the pandemic started to be considered.

Sam Hancock
Live reporter

Phew, that was a lot of information to get through - thanks for sticking with us as we heard from Scotland's former Finance Secretary Kate Forbes.

We're now listening in to ex-Deputy First Minister John Swinney, who's been sworn in and is being taken through his ministerial career.

He'll likely be asked a few questions before the inquiry breaks for lunch. We'll then hear more from Swinney for the remainder of the afternoon.

Remember, you can watch him give evidence in exactly the same way as Forbes - just hit the 'play' button at the top of the page.

Forbes not being invited to gold command meetings will raise eyebrowspublished at 12:31 Greenwich Mean Time 30 January

12:31 GMT 30 January

David Wallace Lockhart
Political correspondent

The Scottish government held what became known as "gold command" meetings during the pandemic. These were meetings with a smaller cast list than a cabinet meeting.

Given that she was in charge of the country’s finances at the time, Kate Forbes is quizzed on why she didn’t attend any in 2020.

Her reply that she wasn’t invited and was “not even sure I was aware that they existed” will raise a lot of eyebrows.

It wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that the finance secretary would be integral to any sort of meeting where the impact of the pandemic was being discussed.

This will only fuel the suspicions of some that Nicola Sturgeon sometimes made decisions with too small a group of advisors and ministers.

Kate Forbes's evidence-giving draws to a close with inquiry chair Baroness Heather Hallett asking why she didn't attend special gold meetings.

Forbes replies that she wasn't invited: "I wasn’t sure I was aware they existed."

But she says she "would have expected to be invited to any meeting where there was any significant financial implications".

There's one last question about her engagement with businesses and organisations during the pandemic, which Forbes says was "extensive and constant" in explaining why the Scottish government was implementing certain policies and how this would impact them.

The inquiry thank Forbes for her time and attention now turns to John Swinney, the former deputy first minister of Scotland.

Today's evidence session has focused, at various times, on the four harms strategy, external the Scottish government adopted during the pandemic.

It sets out the four harms process for assessment used to establish when Covid restrictions could be safely lifted after lockdown and the scientific evidence underpinning the decisions.

Here's a reminder of what they are:

1. Direct Covid health harms
2. Broader health harms, primarily the impact on the NHS and social care services
3. Social harms to the wider society, like harms to the educational attainment
4. Economic and business harms

Inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson pushes Kate Forbes on whether Nicola Sturgeon's spending strategy was beneficial to Scotland's businesses and economy.

Forbes replies that while the Scottish government couldn't "compensate for harm to businesses", it could mitigate the health risks.

"Going forward having suffered catastrophic losses in the first lockdown, businesses just did not have the resilience," she explains.

The former finance secretary says she tried to weigh up all of the harms: "There was no harm free option ever on the table."

Kate Forbes now says former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was "absolutely focused" on the health impacts and reducing the impact of Covid health harms.

She says Sturgeon was often "braver" in doing what needed to be done, irrespective of other challenges facing businesses.

A frank picture of Scottish government during pandemicpublished at 12:21 Greenwich Mean Time 30 January

12:21 GMT 30 January

Kirsten Campbell
BBC Scotland political correspondent

Kate Forbes seems to be reflecting that in an ideal world the Scottish government should have followed a spend to save strategy in the early days of the pandemic.

She suggests that investing in new systems and structures may have lessened the impact of Covid on other harms, societal and economic

The examples she gives are funding digital devices for school pupils and investing in technology for the test and protect system.

But she is frank in saying the Scottish government simply didn't have the cash to spare.

Still on the topic of furlough, Forbes says it "seemed somewhat remarkable" when funding was eventually extended - but only "on the eve of an announcement of another lockdown in England".

Scotland's former finance secretary says her memory of the summer was "we never actually came out of some form of lockdown" due to localised outbreaks of Covid cases in Aberdeen and Glasgow.

"The proof of the need was there," she says of the extension to furlough funding.

We're back now to talking about the furlough scheme, where the UK government gave grants to employers so they could retain and continue to pay staff a percentage of their salaries during lockdowns.

Kate Forbes refers to October 2020, when ex-First Minister Nicola Sturgeon gave a statement that revealed the UK government wouldn't provide more funding to Scotland's furlough scheme in the event of a second lockdown.

She says "none of us could control an administration of furlough" because it was the responsibility of HMRC.

Inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson KC then asks her to clarify reports that the UK government refused to provide additional furlough funding, to which Forbes says "there was no inch given" to the Scottish government's requests.

There's a push from inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson for Kate Forbes to be transparent about how money was spent during the pandemic - particularly in the case of charities who lobby government for support of certain causes only to "have the lingering suspicion money was not spent as promised".

Forbes says she is "sorry" to hear how much effort groups have gone to in order to get answers to questions like these, but that "it should be clear" where promises were made and how the funding was spent.

Forbes says she can guarantee that "every single penny" of allocated Covid money was spent on tackling Covid.

"Even with £14bn it could not in any way compensate for losses that have been experienced by any part of society," she adds.

Kate Forbes, asked whether the Scottish government should've done more to protect vulnerable groups during the pandemic, acknowledges that this is the case.

She tells the inquiry:

Pushed by inquiry lawyer to give specifics, Forbes says she recalls some additional investment in care homes for digital resources to connect with families.

"But that seems small in comparison with the billions of pounds that were being spent on, for example, businesses and so on," she says.

Inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson now asks Kate Forbes how long the Scottish government had estimated the pandemic to last, as of April 2020.

"I think by April we were looking at starting to emerge from the first lockdown and there was a lot of hope," she replies.

"At the time our eyes were firmly set on getting to the summer and emerging from lockdown."

Forbes says she can remember remarks about a second wave of Covid cases at this time, but "the risk of a second wave was very much on the periphery of our discussions".

Staying on the topic of education, Forbes is asked to elaborate on a previous admission she has made about government failings during Covid.

The former finance secretary says that while she wasn't education secretary, she feels the education sector is an example of where more could've be done.

As an example, she says digital devices (to use when being taught at home) were supplied at times to some students but not others by local authorities.

She admits that the Scottish government had presumed lockdown would be short, and it therefore failed to make the building of educational systems a priority.

Inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson, who's asking Kate Forbes questions today, suggests other projects were shelved during the pandemic.

Forbes agrees and says the expansion of early learning and childcare would be an example of something that was "deprioritised" to free up funding to cover the cost of Covid.

She explains that in this particular case the project, as Dawson put it, was postponed for a year which "makes sense" as it couldn't have been rolled out anyway - because children weren't attending school.

Forbes says the situation grew more challenging in Scotland as health costs continued to grow, during a period when there was no access to emergency funding.

"When we look back retrospectively, it seems remarkable because we know over the course of the pandemic over £14bn in consequentials were received," she says.

"But at this point I think it would have been in the region of £3bn, that is why we were considering where we might find additional funding from within our own portfolios."

Forbes adds there was a risk of "negative consequentials" for Scotland if the UK government looked to make savings - repeating that there were very real concerns in the Scottish government that money borrowed from the UK government may have to be given back.

After a quick break, today's Covid inquiry hearing resumes with former Scottish Finance Secretary Kate Forbes continuing to give evidence.

Inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson, asking questions, refers to a cabinet paper in which Forbes mentions the budget being "the highest ever recorded by the Scottish government" and he asks where we were in budgetary terms.

"We had understood that ... the full quantum of Covid consequentials had been granted," she responds, adding:

A primary focus on the economics of Covidpublished at 11:38 Greenwich Mean Time 30 January

11:38 GMT 30 January

David Wallace Lockhart
Political correspondent

SNP ministers tend to feel the way that the Scottish government is financed isn’t fit for purpose at the best of times.

They’d like to be able to borrow more for starters, and be more reactive to unanticipated cost pressures.

The key point Kate Forbes seems to be making in her evidence to the Covid inquiry is that these issues were heightened during an emergency like the pandemic.

Scottish ministers needed billions extra, but this was all dependant on when UK ministers chose to turn on the spending taps.

She’s also painting a picture of a UK Treasury that wasn’t able to spell out how imminent spending decisions would affect devolved nations.

But - in keeping with the spirit of the inquiry - she’s making suggestions about how she feels the process can work better in the future, such as the Scottish government accessing additional spending and paying it off over longer time periods.