Chamber and committees

Vaccine Certification Monitoring Information

Letter from Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for COVID Recovery, Scottish Government to the Convener on 12 November 2021

Dear Siobhian,

In my letter of 28 October, I provided the Committee with information on the data we currently use to monitor the impact of the scheme across the aims, and during my appearance before the Committee on 4 November I undertook to write with further information. I have set out at Annex A further information relevant to monitoring of the scheme that may be of interest.

With regard to the information I provided previously, when I attended the Committee on 4 November we discussed a point of inaccuracy in my letter of 28 October in which I had said that data on the number of people who have reported inaccuracies with the information contained in their vaccination record was not currently available.

The data released by NHS National Services Scotland under FOI on 1 November stated that since the NSS National Contact Centre (NCC) started assisting with vaccination issues on approximately the 15th July 2021, the NCC had received approximately 42,000 cases where an issue was raised to investigate. Most of the issues relate to vaccination records.

I indicated to the Committee that I was reviewing the point made in my letter in the light of that FOI release.

I have subsequently asked NSS for additional information in order to better understand the position and NSS has confirmed that a case relates to each issue raised, so a person can raise more than one issue and hence have more than one live case created. If an individual raised more than one case for the same issue (e.g. incorrect name) then the cases are consolidated into a single case.

NSS took a sample of 100 cases and found that of the sample:

• 28% related to cases regarding personal data issues such as name or address;
• 41% related to clinical issues;
• 16% related to first or second vaccine outside Scotland
• The remainder related to miscellaneous issues including CHI queries and data flows.

As of 11 November, there were 7,735 cases still being worked through. I hope the Committee will agree that the number of records that need to be updated is extremely small in the context of nearly 10 million vaccinations having been delivered since the programme began. It is to be expected that a programme of this size, delivered at this pace, will generate some issues for a limited number of people.

I can confirm that my letter of 28 October was an accurate reflection of the position in that data is not available on the number of individuals who have raised an issue.

Officials have also considered what further data and evidence is available to support monitoring, beyond that suggested by the Committee.  The material attached to my letter of the 28 October has been updated and is attached at Annex B to reflect this.

Now that domestic Certification has been in operation in Scotland for nearly six weeks, and enforcement of the regulations is in place, officials met again with equality and human rights stakeholders on 11 November to discuss their experience of the scheme so far and initial views on the possibility of extending its scope.  It was a constructive discussion and I will share a note of the meeting with the Committee.

As I said on 4 November, I remain committed to engaging with the Committee on data and evidence moving forward and will provide further updates in due course. I hope this is of assistance to the Committee in providing further clarity.

Yours sincerely,

John Swinney
Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for COVID Recovery,
Scottish Government