Overview

As one of the steps to harness lessons from the Covid pandemic, the Scottish Government is committed to reviewing the impact of Covid on the Scottish statute book.  The Government wants to remove measures no longer needed in order to respond to the pandemic whilst keeping those where there is demonstrable benefit to the people of Scotland.

The Scottish Government’s consultation paper “Covid Recovery: A consultation on public services, justice system and other reforms” focuses on reviewing the legislative powers that have supported the Government’s response to Covid.  The paper begins with discussion of the Government’s ambitions for Covid recovery and ends with an open question, to invite comments on the action that respondents think is required to support a fair, safe and secure recovery.

The Chapters of this consultation invite views on specific legislative proposals that have the potential to support Covid recovery:

• Proposals for greater public health resilience, to protect Scotland against future public health threats; 
• Proposals for public services and justice system reform, to ensure that the benefits of practical modernisations put in place during the pandemic are maintained; and 
• Proposals to respond to the impact of Covid in the justice system specifically, where backlogs have unavoidably built up.

Covid recovery: public health, services and justice system reforms