Inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson KC suggests there was little consideration given to the overall economic impact of the pandemic.

He asks if modelling of the financial impact had been done in time.

"Yes," Kate Forbes responds, "but I don't think it captured the full extent of the pandemic as it unfolded."

Initially it was thought the health budget would need an additional £800m - "we ended up spending over £5bn," she says.

"The economic modelling did not capture the full extent of a two and a half year impact on the economy."

Inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson now asks Kate Forbes about procuring PPE and ventilators, which the former finance secretary says the Scottish government "kicked into gear" to do so.

But it was "only until the April or the May that we actually received the Barnett consequential to cover the PPE," she explains.

Forbes says she started "engaging intensively" with the UK government when it became clear how much Scotland was going to have to spend on PPE.

Estimated to cost £160m, with the cost potentially rising to £200 million, Forbes says the UK government was responsible for procuring PPE as a UK-wide responsibility, separate to the Barnett framework.

Forbes explains that to address the immediate need for PPE, Ivan McKee MSP began looking into Scottish supply chains and working to start manufacturing PPE.

Forbes describes managing Covid fallout with one hand tied behind backpublished at 11:28 Greenwich Mean Time 30 January

11:28 GMT 30 January

David Wallace Lockhart
Political correspondent

Kate Forbes’ primary role during the pandemic - as finance secretary- was to try and manage the financial fallout of Covid in Scotland.

But she’s making clear in this morning's evidence session that she felt she had to do so with one hand tied behind her back.

Many decisions - such as lockdowns - had huge economic impacts.

But Forbes points out that Scotland (with very limited borrowing powers) was reliant on UK government funding to finance certain decisions.

When the UK government spends in England only, that triggers extra money for Scotland.

But Forbes says that she felt this didn’t always come at the right time. And talks with the Treasury about tweaking this didn’t go anywhere.

A common stress of devolution, but one that was heightened during the pandemic.

Kate Forbes recalls being appointed as Nicola Sturgeon's finance secretary on 17 February 2020, and says on 6 March her first Budget was "nailed down".

The UK government announced the first tranche of Covid funding soon after, she says. "We went straight into budgeting for a pandemic."

But, she says, "over the period of February, in hindsight, there should have been a lot more discussion on how to budget for the pandemic".

She says they only got into that territory when the UK funding was announced in March.

On the topic of the UK Treasury, Forbes tells the inquiry she "often thought" that engagement with the chief secretary to the Treasury and with his officials that were tasked with devolved finance "were always good".

Scotland's former finance secretary suggests one major learning from Covid is that the devolved finance officials were not always sighted on what the UK government might be about to announce or do financially.

They would seek to be helpful when they said no more funding would be provided and then 24 hours later it was, Forbes explains, insisting that was not because they were being in any way deceptive.

There was a breakdown amongst officials in the Treasury, rather than a breakdown between Treasury officials and the Scottish government, she adds.

Conversation moves on to the furlough scheme, external, with inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson KC asking Kate Forbes if, in autumn 2020, she was having discussions with the UK government around funding to support Scotland if another lockdown was needed due to rising cases.

"Yes, I think I made at least one if not a number of public requests for furlough to be extended or at least reintroduced in that period," Forbes says.

"You will see from any table of the consequential funding that was being allocated over that period that ... there was less being spent on business support in England and therefore generating less funding."

Drawing on more messages between Forbes and Allyson Stafford, director general of the Scottish Exchequer, Dawson shows one in which Stafford advises Forbes she will have better luck securing funding for "targeted initiatives".

She warns her that "there is no appetite for, in fact quite an allergic reaction, to furlough" from the UK government.

Forbes is asked to give a bit more detail about that cabinet meeting in which then-Health Secretary Humza Yousaf said he had found £100m in his budget (mentioned in our last post).

"It was often the case that surprises were never welcome at cabinet," the former finance secretary tells inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson, adding that perhaps the now-first minister was trying to be helpful.

"It had been a comment that hadn’t been drafted in the papers... it had perhaps come from left-field."

Forbes says Yousaf's announcement came after she had approached the different government portfolios in order to find additional funding from somewhere, to see "if there was anything they could free up".

"I got a blank response from every part of government, they were extremely stretched," she says, explaining her message to Allyson Stafford (again outlined in our last post).

Inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson, who's questioning Kate Forbes, turns again to WhatsApp messages - this time between Forbes and Allyson Stafford, director general of the Scottish Exchequer.

A message is shown, in which Forbes tells Stafford about an "awkward discussion at cabinet" where then Scottish Health Secretary Humza Yousaf had identified a further £100m for business support - something Forbes didn't know about.

In the message, Forbes goes on to: "I've never seen the FM [Nicola Sturgeon, at the time] this angry in all my cabinets...for good reason."

Forbes tells the inquiry that furlough didn't apply at that time and she had been tasked with trying to find funding that could be used for business support. She explains that she was making the point, in the messages, that there was "very limited funding available".

Forbes tells the inquiry that it wasn't just her or the Scottish government which was dissatisfied with the funding given to devolved nations during the pandemic.

She says that herself and her counterparts in Northern Ireland and Wales "all agreed that [the Barnett formula] couldn't bear the weight of the emergency" at hand - Covid.

They all suggested "a number of flexibilities" to adjust the framework of the formula, she tells inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson.

• Read more about what the Barnett formula is in our earlier post

Kate Forbes is still talking about the Barnett formula, which we explained in our last post.

She says it was the only mechanism considered by the UK government for allocating funding to Scotland during the pandemic.

The Scottish government offered alternatives, Forbes says, but none were given the go ahead.

Forbes says her concern with the method is that it is triggered only when there is spending on England-only areas, so they only get more if England gets more. She also says there was a chance that money borrowed during Covid would have to be given back.

"If the UK government is looking for savings in a particular area, they are going to spend less and there was a risk that we would have to give back money," she explains. "We weren't just in receipt of funding but we were also being told that we might have to give [some] back."

Kirsten Campbell
BBC Scotland political correspondent

The Barnett formula is used to calculate the annual change in the block grant that the UK Treasury gives to Scotland and the other devolved nations.

When the UK government increases or decreases funding for departments such as health and education in England, the Barnett formula is used to decide how much devolved governments will receive.

The calculation looks at the population share, and the extent to which the UK department's services are devolved, and then the sum is added to the block grant.

The formula is named after its inventor, the former Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury Joel Barnett, who devised it in the late 1970s.

There's a focus on spending and borrowing during Covid this morning, which is no surprise considering Kate Forbes is Scotland's former finance secretary.

Inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson now asks if the Scottish government has powers to borrow money, to which Forbes responds that these powers are "very limited and not resource borrowing, which is obviously what largely funded the Covid pandemic".

There's limited capital borrowing, which was not useful in the pandemic and also for cash management, which again was not useful, she says.

Dawson asks if it's true that the UK government was able to borrow money to fund the emergency elements of its Covid response that were necessary. Forbes points out in her response that "the Barnett formula was the only mechanism by which money was provided to the Scottish government during the pandemic".

Asked by the Covid inquiry how Scotland divides its finances, Kate Forbes explains how the country receives a block grant from the Treasury which then has to be allocated to various public services.

Inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson suggests Scotland's health services require more budget per capita than the rest of the UK.

He then asks whether Scotland should receive more funding in times of emergency, to which Forbes agrees, saying simply "yes".

Inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson KC is asking Kate Forbes about her former boss Nicola Sturgeon saying in September 2020 that there needed to be a "slowing down" of the easing of lockdown restrictions, due to an increase in cases.

Dawson puts to Forbes that measures such as circuit breakers are matters that had "significant economic impact" on Scotland, and that input from Forbes on them would have been "significant" and the absence of input might have "significant consequences".

"I assume that might lead from the fact there wasn't a finance minister present," Forbes responds. "What I can't answer for is whether Ms Hyslop, the economy's minister, was present at those meetings."

Kate Forbes tells the Covid inquiry it "surprises" her that gold command meetings were not minuted in the same way Scottish cabinet meetings were during the pandemic.

These meetings involved former FM Nicola Sturgeon, a small group of advisers and a revolving group of ministers, she says.

Inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson suggests this means it becomes "difficult" to understand what the ultimate decision making process was during the pandemic.

"I understand that," Forbes replies, adding:

WhatsApp messages continue to be a key part of evidencepublished at 10:37 Greenwich Mean Time 30 January

10:37 GMT 30 January

David Wallace Lockhart
Political correspondent

Just a few minutes into Kate Forbes’ evidence, we heard questions about WhatsApp messages.

With the exception of messages sent to one member of her private office after January 2022, it sounds like Kate Forbes has kept all of her messages.

Scottish government guidance was introduced in November 2021 that advised regular deletion of all messages once significant information had been recorded centrally. But Forbes has indicated she wasn’t aware of this, and certainly didn’t apply it retrospectively.

Where this all gets a bit difficult is that other senior ministers from the time of the pandemic, such as Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney, seem to have taken a different approach.

So who was right? And shouldn’t have all the key players have been on the same page about how information was recorded and retained?

Kate Forbes is telling the Covid inquiry that final agreement or sign off was, as you'd expect, often delegated to former FM Nicola Sturgeon.

If there was a tight decision being made, "often those decisions would be delegated to the first minister," she tells inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson.

"The bulk of decisions would always be made by cabinet, but when there were fine points that cabinet hadn't come to an agreement on that final decision would rest with the first minister," Forbes explains about processes during the pandemic.

But she insists cabinet did have a key role in the making of decisions.

Forbes is asked about her role in the Four Harms strategy, external, which was introduced in April 2020 to understand issues such as how Covid restrictions could affect key areas of the economy.

Scotland's former finance secretary says she held a key role in providing analysis to former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in a series of weekly meetings.

And as part of her role she gave suggestions about funding, she says.

Forbes is asked to give a bit more detail about the WhatsApp messages discussed in our last post.

She says that in around January 2022, she became aware of a policy via a junior member of her private office that a policy existed that required the deletion of messages.

The staff member advised her that it was a new policy that messages with the office were to be deleted going forward, to which she complied.

Asked by inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson if it was her understanding that there was no policy mandating the deletion of messages between Forbes and senior members of the Scottish government, Forbes agrees that was the case.

Kate Forbes, asked about WhatsApp messages, says she has retained some of her communication with Scotland's national clinical director Prof Jason Leitch, former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and former Scottish health secretary Jeane Freeman.

She tells the Covid inquiry that she didn't delete any of her WhatsApps with cabinet members or special advisors until January 2022 - "after all the major Covid decisions were taken".

Forbes tells inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson that she was subsequently told by a junior member of her private office that messages were to be deleted from then on.

She says she shared her messages with the inquiry "in the spirit of being completely open".