What has been the impact?

Be heard: a call for businesses to reflect on the impact of the pandemic

It has now been more than four years since the Covid-19 pandemic began, a disease and a social response that affected every person in the country. And it has been two years since the UK and Scottish Covid-19 inquiries were established.

Work progresses with the Scottish inquiry, with hearings on the impact of the pandemic in Scotland on health and social care concluding at the end of June. There has been powerful testimony about the impact of the virus from many of the people affected, from those who lost loved ones during the pandemic to professionals working in a health and social care context in Scotland.

Hearings on the impact of the pandemic on education and young people in Scotland will start later this year, followed by evidence on the impact of the pandemic on business, welfare and finance.

Business owners, directors, partners, managers, entrepreneurs, the self-employed, freelancers and others in the business community are being asked to complete a survey to help inform the inquiry’s investigations and recommendations. The survey is being run by the inquiry’s listening project, Let’s Be Heard.

More than 5,000 people have already shared their experiences of the pandemic with Let’s Be Heard, views which have been invaluable in helping the inquiry to understand the huge number of ways that the pandemic impacted people’s lives in Scotland.

As part of its investigations, the inquiry is inviting businesses to share their experiences of the pandemic and any lessons they believe should be learned so that Scotland is better prepared in future.

Members across the legal profession will have their own experience of the pandemic, and we are keen that you have the opportunity to provide these views to the inquiry through its Let’s Be Heard business survey. The survey is intended for businesses, but also more widely, including organisations across the third sector.

The survey can be accessed here, and its questions explore topics such as access to financial support; information provided to businesses relating to the pandemic; and key worker status.

Let’s Be Heard is also keen to hear about changing ways of working; any impact on turnover or profitability; issues related to staff recruitment, retention and training; how business owners were personally impacted and what, if anything, should have been done differently.

The survey is open until 31st August 2024, and anyone with a query can email letsbeheard@covid19inquiry.scot.

For members of the profession wanting to share their personal experience, this is also possible by completing an online form on the Let’s Be Heard website. More information is also available on the website about other ways in which people can share their experiences.

At the Law Society of Scotland, we have been assisting the Scottish Covid-19 inquiry with details of the work that we undertook during the pandemic.

In a period of huge uncertainty, we looked to support the profession with a £2.2m package of measures. We sought to secure additional funding for the legal aid sector, with £20m additional funding secured through uplifts to fees, a targeted resilience fund and a traineeship fund. We worked to make sure that the digital processes that sprung up during the pandemic, whether for conveyancing or for court appearances, were fit for purpose. And we looked to promote wellbeing and sustainable work practices – important during normal times and critical during a pandemic.

The pandemic also highlighted a number of other concerns: how law is made and how it is scrutinised; how guidance can complement – and ideally not contradict – the law in effect; and how human rights are considered and maintained in decision-making. The pandemic exacerbated structural challenges from before, too, such as the continuing lack of a fee review mechanism for legal aid, made even more stark in the hugely inflationary period following the pandemic. The pandemic also gave us new challenges to work through in its wake, attempting to resolve the huge backlog in court cases at a stage, particularly for criminal work, when there are fewer and fewer solicitors working in this field.

Thinking more broadly, some fundamental questions arise around the role of justice in a digital or hybrid world. Does justice need to be seen, in person, to be done? Are there differences in outcome between people who appear in person in their case, or appear online? What will the court estate look like as hybrid working continues? What will solicitors’ firms or in-house legal departments look like in this environment?

Undoubtedly there will be the opportunity to reflect on these and other issues as the inquiry progresses. At this stage, there is an important opportunity for members to reflect on the impact of Covid-19 as business owners, or to provide views on the more personal impacts.

Written by Andrew Alexander, Law Society of Scotland