The government accepts this recommendation. As set out in the ‘Living with COVID-19’ strategy, the government will build on the legacy of the response to this pandemic to ensure that a resilient and scalable infrastructure is in place to protect the public from new and existing threats to health. It will involve working closely with local authorities to ensure they have the knowledge, experience, and capability to support future contact tracing arrangements and to draw down expert advice to deploy for greatest public health benefit; for example the capacity to respond to future public health emergencies. UKHSA, established during the pandemic, will also maintain the well-established relationships with local tracing arrangements within all local authorities.