Perthshire North MSP John Swinney will undertake a new role charged with the responsibility of co-ordinating Scotland’s recovery from COVID-19.
Mr Swinney has been removed from his job as education secretary but will remain deputy first minister to Nicola Sturgeon, who has begun a cabinet reshuffle.
The local SNP politician will chair a cross-party steering group on the way forward, which is expected to meet for the first time next week, and will work to tie together the efforts of the government, the private sector and the wider public.
Mr Swinney was appointed education secretary in 2016 but the education sector endured a torrid time during the pandemic as lockdown upended the regular school timetable and led to the scrapping of the exams diet for the first time in history.
Following criticism, the replacement system for awarding grades to senior high school pupils was eventually dropped in favour of teacher assessments.
Now upon being appointed the minister for Scotland’s COVID recovery, Mr Swinney said: “Recovery in our schools, our health service, our economy and across our wider society is this government’s immediate priority and I am honoured to have been asked to lead that mission.
“I am determined that government will bring the same urgency that we applied to the actions we took to protect public health, to the actions we need to take to secure a fair and just recovery.
“I will be bringing opposition parties together next week to hear their contributions and to set out how I believe we can all work together to secure a strong recovery.”
The first minister paid tribute to her close colleague and friend.
“Our first priority as a government is to lead the country through the pandemic and into a recovery that supports our NHS, protects and creates jobs, backs our young people and contributes to our ambition to be a net zero nation,” she said.
“Appointing John Swinney to drive cross- government work on COVID recovery is a key step in getting Scotland’s recovery off to the right start.
“How we begin our recovery is crucial to the kind of country we can become, and that means ensuring everyone, whether in government, the public sector, the business community or wider society, is pulling in the same direction.”
