A THINK tank has welcomed the Scottish Government’s broad strategy for ending the Covid-19 lockdown in Scotland, but also expressed its concern about a lack of urgency surrounding it.

Common Weal said the proposals were similar to a plan it published more than two weeks ago, but said the fact that the proposals remained “a set of high-level objectives rather than a delivery plan” was a cause for concern.

It announced Ending Lockdown: the cost of a comprehensive testing-based strategy for reopening Scotland, on April 8, which proposed recruiting 5000 community officers to carry out a nationwide programme of testing, contact tracing and targeted isolation.

The think tank also set out a detailed budget, with a final bill of around £1 billion, which it said was also at the heart of the Government’s strategy.

However, Common Weal cautioned that the time and logistical management required to recruit people, put the testing in place and finalise the policy should not be underestimated.

It said this should have been started in early March, and the fact that it was still at the concept stage by the end of April was a concern.

Nevertheless, this was a major step forward and must be properly costed and implemented urgently.

There was no case for not doing it immediately at a country-wide level in Scotland, irrespective of whether or not the UK followed the same path.

Common Weal’s head of policy, Craig Dalzell, said: “While it would certainly have been much better to have had this rough plan together at the outset of the lockdown, it’s still good to see that it’s finally been accepted.

“This proposal tacks very closely indeed to the one Common Weal published two weeks ago.

“But at the same time, it is a little concerning that this looks a bit more like a think piece than an action plan.

“It’s all very well telling people you have a plan but it won’t count for much until the contact tracers are recruited and the testing capacity is put in place.

“Scotland’s social and economic wellbeing relies on an ordered end to lockdown and one which can be sustained. We do not believe there is any way to achieve that other than this and no more time must be wasted.”

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Neil Clapperton, chief executive of Grampian Housing Association, said the Common Weal report had started him thinking that associations like his with furloughed staff could quickly become the heart of a Test, Trace, Isolate (TTI) programme.

“I feel we now have a green light from the Covid Strategy to make our third sector-NHS tracing partnership a reality,” he said.

“Association staff have the interpersonal skills to do contact tracing, wide experience, the IT kit and systems, home working, the trust of communities and Government, and most important, can mobilise now.”

Paul Robison, an activist for Dundee Common Weal, said any successful exit from the pandemic would necessitate a “massive” TTI strategy.

He added: “As part of this we have been mapping the potential capacity to implement TTI in Dundee.

“The testing capacity in Scotland is potentially massive, if we involve the laboratories in our universities, public health departments and the pharmaceutical sector, such as in the Dundee Medipark.

“Local groups of volunteers are already making themselves known to us, who are willing to do the ‘tracing’ part of the TTI process.

“Local authorities already have trained tracers in their public health departments and they could supervise and train volunteers as required.”