Forty-Sixth Report Government preparedness for the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons for government on risk

Select Committee

Public Accounts Committee HC 952 23 March 2022

Report Status Government responded

Conclusions & Recommendations 22 items (7 recs)

Source View on Parliament website

Government Response (AI assessment · 21 of 22 classified)

Accepted 13

Not Addressed 1

Recommendations

7 results

2 Accepted

The pandemic has demonstrated variability in departments’ risk management.

Recommendation

The pandemic has demonstrated variability in departments’ risk management. A recent cross-government review of risk management by the Government Internal Audit Agency highlighted significant variability across departments, including the 6 Government preparedness for the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons for government on … Read more

Government Response Summary

The government is developing a training programme for risk professionals and non-experts to improve understanding of the Orange Book, and the NSRA and NRPAs are shared to ensure understanding of risks, while risk management remains the responsibility of departments.

HM Treasury

3 Accepted

There would be significant benefits in improving the public’s awareness of the main risks facing...

Recommendation

There would be significant benefits in improving the public’s awareness of the main risks facing the country and what government is doing about them. The public and Parliament have limited awareness of the main risks facing the country and of … Read more There would be significant benefits in improving the public’s awareness of the main risks facing the country and what government is doing about them. The public and Parliament have limited awareness of the main risks facing the country and of what government is doing to address them. Although government has published a public-facing national risk register since 2008, this document is not widely known. Our witnesses recognised that government has a chequered history in communicating risks to the public and acknowledged that the government’s messaging on risks should be more balanced, accessible to non-experts and lend itself to practical actions. Greater public awareness of government’s planning for major risks, including the work it will carry out as part of the nascent catastrophic emergencies programme, would help avoid complacency, focus the minds of the officials who are tasked with risk planning, help to ensure the public is more aware of what is being done to protect them from harm and highlight opportunities for public engagement, awareness raising and behavioural change. The Government carried out a consultation last summer on a national resilience strategy and had over a million different interactions with it. This demonstrates a high level of public interest in these matters. Equally MPs collectively received hundreds of thousands of emails at the start of the lockdown, largely because the Gov.uk website did not provide clear and intelligible advice, or provide effective mechanisms for MPs to raise constituents problems. Recommendation: The Cabinet Office should set out how it plans to increase public awareness of the main risks facing the UK. It should also report annually to Parliament: • on what actions government has undertaken during the year to mitigate the risks covered by the catastrophic emergencies programme and provide an assessment of government’s preparedness for each risk; • what changes Government in making as a result of its consultations o Show less

Government Response Summary

The government will increase public awareness of the main risks facing the UK and report annually to Parliament on actions taken to mitigate risks, and changes made as a result of consultations, through the forthcoming Resilience Strategy and building on the National Risk Register.

HM Treasury

4 Accepted

The pandemic has highlighted the critical role of international collaboration for managing the risks that...

Recommendation

The pandemic has highlighted the critical role of international collaboration for managing the risks that the UK faces. Given the increasingly interconnected nature of our world, several of the main risks facing the UK may originate abroad and, if they … Read more

Government Response Summary

The government agrees with the Committee's recommendation and is working to build on the UK’s existing international collaborations, securing commitments on critical global health risks and supporting the Global Health Security Initiative (GHSI).

HM Treasury

5 Accepted

Government would have been better prepared for COVID-19 if it had applied learning from previous...

Recommendation

Government would have been better prepared for COVID-19 if it had applied learning from previous incidents and exercises. Government was unprepared for a pandemic with widespread asymptomatic transmission, but this was not unprecedented. The early spread of HIV, too, was … Read more

Government Response Summary

The government has done extensive work to model a range of scenarios to better understand the levels of ‘bounce-back’ demand.

HM Treasury

6 Accepted

Government’s slow progress in improving data quality and completeness has hampered its preparedness for this...

Recommendation

Government’s slow progress in improving data quality and completeness has hampered its preparedness for this and future pandemics. We have repeatedly highlighted longstanding issues with the quality of data held by government and with its ability to use data effectively … Read more

Government Response Summary

The government states that the National Situation Centre (SitCen) will use the National Strategic Risk Assessment (NSRA) framework for prioritizing data and that access to social care data collected to monitor COVID-19 will continue as long as these data collections remain in place, with SitCen gaining access to relevant monitoring data if needed in the future.

HM Treasury

11 Acknowledged

We raised the question of whether individual members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies...

Recommendation

We raised the question of whether individual members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) should be allowed to make public statements that are inconsistent with the collective messaging of the Group. When asked if refraining from making such … Read more

Government Response Summary

The government will consider whether to include guidance on external communications in the terms of reference for expert advisory groups.

HM Treasury

13 Accepted

The Cabinet Office recognised that the UK needs to further strengthen international cooperation and noted...

Recommendation

The Cabinet Office recognised that the UK needs to further strengthen international cooperation and noted that this will be a central feature of the UK resilience strategy. The Department stated that the UK is seeking a new pandemic treaty through … Read more

Government Response Summary

The government agrees to build on existing international collaborations, plays an active role in multilateral fora and with bilateral partners, and secured commitments on critical global health risks during the UK’s 2021 G7 Presidency.

HM Treasury

Conclusions (15) Observations and findings — click to expand

1 Conclusion Not Addressed

On the basis of a Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence from the Cabinet Office and the Department of Health & Social Care (the Department) on the government’s preparedness for the COVID-19 pandemic.1

Government Response Summary

The government provides an introduction from the Committee on the scale and nature of the COVID-19 pandemic.

7 Conclusion

The three lines of defence model of risk management, widely used in the private sector, sets out what the Orange Book characterises as a “simple and effective way to help delegate and coordinate risk management roles and responsibilities within and across the organisation”.8 Under the first line of defence, management …

8 Conclusion Accepted

The NAO found that, before the pandemic, departments lacked an agreed understanding of risk tolerance, such as which consequences of a pandemic they deemed acceptable and which consequences they needed to mitigate. The Cabinet Office agreed that government reached a shared understanding of the objectives and priorities they 3 Qq …

Government Response Summary

The government states that the National Security Risk Assessment (NSRA) and National Resilience Planning Assumptions (NRPAs) are shared with departments to ensure a shared understanding of risks and response requirements, and that departments are responsible for managing resilience risks.

9 Conclusion Accepted

The National Security Risk Assessment, which sets out government’s assessment of the main risks facing the UK and its interests overseas, is classified. Government has published a summary of this assessment and of the mitigations it has put in place every two or three years since 2008.11 The last edition …

Government Response Summary

The government will build on the National Risk Register to better communicate risk to the public through enhanced Parliamentary reporting/debate and improved public access to risk information, as part of the forthcoming Resilience Strategy.

10 Conclusion Acknowledged

It was reported in September 2021 that the Health and Safety Executive had been notified of 103 instances of serious laboratory leaks, including nine in the most secure level-4 laboratories.15 Lack of transparency to the public about these leaks has hindered public discussion on balancing the benefits of scientific research …

Government Response Summary

The government will address laboratory safety and security as part of the forthcoming Biological Security Strategy.

12 Conclusion Acknowledged

The Cabinet Office acknowledged the need for international co-operation to assess threats, manage risks and share information. As examples of the UK’s engagement, they mentioned work carried out with the World Health Organisation (WHO) in response to Ebola; the Carbis Bay Declaration, issued in July 2021, which commits G7 countries …

Government Response Summary

The government is working to build on the UK’s existing international collaborations, plays an active role in multilateral fora, and continues to promote rapid intelligence sharing.

14 Conclusion Acknowledged

Alongside greater international cooperation, the Cabinet Office noted the need to strengthen domestic collaboration on risks, especially with the private sector. The Cabinet Office stated that government is considering requiring regulated companies and those that have significant dealings with government to comply with resilience standards, and enhancing its communication to …

Government Response Summary

Government will consider strengthening domestic collaboration on risks in the development of the Resilience Strategy.

15 Conclusion Acknowledged

Government lacked detailed plans for several aspects of the response to COVID-19, including financial support to local authorities, identifying a large population advised to shield, and economic support schemes.23 A submission we received from an academic research group studying the issues concerning the early childhood education and care sector arising …

Government Response Summary

The government recognizes that it lacked detailed plans for several aspects of the response to COVID-19 and will draw on the lessons learned to strengthen future planning, including considering how to ensure that government can reinstate economic support schemes at short notice without implementation issues.

16 Conclusion Acknowledged

The Cabinet Office attributed the absence of detailed planning for a pandemic like COVID-19 to the fact that they did not anticipate a disease with asymptomatic transmission which required an extended lockdown.26 Yet, a large-scale infection with widespread asymptomatic transmission was not unprecedented. The early spread of HIV, too, was …

Government Response Summary

The government recognizes that it did not anticipate a disease with asymptomatic transmission which required an extended lockdown and will draw on lessons learned to strengthen future planning.

17 Conclusion Accepted

While government took action following major pandemic simulation exercises such as Cygnus and Winter Willow, it did not act upon some of the warnings about the UK’s lack of preparedness from these simulations. For instance, at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many departmental business continuity plans lacked detailed arrangements …

Government Response Summary

The government states that there are existing structures, platforms, and processes to capture and share lessons identified from exercises and operations, notably, the Joint Organisational Learning (JOL) system.

18 Conclusion Acknowledged

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the potential large-scale economic impact of a public health emergency requiring lockdowns and self-isolation. Yet, a submission that we received from academics working on lessons from loans to support businesses through Coronavirus noted that it is unclear whether government would be able to reinstate the …

Government Response Summary

The government recognises the potential large-scale economic impact of a public health emergency requiring lockdowns and self-isolation and will draw on the lessons learned from the pandemic response to strengthen future planning.

19 Conclusion Accepted

We have repeatedly highlighted longstanding issues with the quality of data held by government and with its ability to use data effectively to support policy interventions. Our 2019 report Challenges in using data across government noted the lack of government-wide data standards, ageing IT systems, fragmented leadership and a civil …

Government Response Summary

The government agreed with the Committee's recommendation and plans to set out its assessment of the areas in which the data collected by the National Situation Centre are in greatest need of improvement and what it plans to do to implement those improvements. The government should set out how it plans to retain access to the social care data required to respond to future pandemics.

20 Conclusion Accepted

Insufficient progress made on data issues over the years has hindered government’s initial pandemic response. For instance, local government initially lacked access to information from NHS Test and Trace that they needed to deliver their local pandemic response.34 A submission from the International Longevity Centre UK noted that, despite successive …

Government Response Summary

The government states that the National Situation Centre (SitCen) will use the National Strategic Risk Assessment (NSRA) framework for prioritizing data and that access to social care data collected to monitor COVID-19 will continue as long as these data collections remain in place, with SitCen gaining access to relevant monitoring data if needed in the future.

21 Conclusion Accepted

The Cabinet Office noted that, in 2021, government set up a National Situation Centre which will provide real-time access to data government needs to respond to the emergencies set out in the National Security Risk Assessment. The Cabinet Office hopes that this will significantly enhance emergency response as it will …

Government Response Summary

The government states that the National Situation Centre (SitCen) will use the National Strategic Risk Assessment (NSRA) framework for prioritizing data and that access to social care data collected to monitor COVID-19 will continue as long as these data collections remain in place, with SitCen gaining access to relevant monitoring data if needed in the future.

22 Conclusion Accepted

The Department stated that, while government’s access to data from the social care system has greatly improved during the pandemic, it is likely that this access will be somewhat scaled down as the emergency subsides. It told us that this is because providing 31 Qq 12–27 32 Q 24; letter …

Government Response Summary

The government states that the National Situation Centre (SitCen) will use the National Strategic Risk Assessment (NSRA) framework for prioritizing data and that access to social care data collected to monitor COVID-19 will continue as long as these data collections remain in place, with SitCen gaining access to relevant monitoring data if needed in the future.