HM Treasury has not set out what lessons it has learnt from the government’s response to COVID-19 and how it will apply these in future. The pandemic required government to respond rapidly to emerging issues across all areas of society. It is essential that government learns from its response to the pandemic and identifies what it should do to ensure that those lessons are applied, both to improve its ability to respond to emergencies, and to improve its business-as-usual service delivery. Departments cannot wait until the public inquiry, which may take some years to complete, to learn the lessons from government’s handling of the pandemic. HM Treasury agreed that it is now an appropriate time to undertake a lessons learned exercise covering the whole of government’s initial response to the pandemic. The sooner this exercise takes place, the quicker departments can embed the lessons they have learned in their practices and guidance. Recommendation: HM Treasury should write to the committee by the end of the financial year setting out: • what it has learned from the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic; and • what action it is taking to identify and collate learning from across government departments. COVID-19 cost tracker update 7 1 The cost of the pandemic to the taxpayer