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)

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Government Response (AI assessment · 21 of 22 classified)

Accepted 13

Acknowledged 7

Not Addressed 1

Government response

Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Forty Sixth report from Session 2021-22 · published 27 May 2022

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Recommendations & Conclusions

13 results

2 Recommendation 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.

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3 Recommendation 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.

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4 Recommendation 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).

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5 Recommendation 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.

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6 Recommendation 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.

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8 Conclusion Accepted

The NAO found that, before the pandemic, departments lacked an agreed understanding of risk tolerance,...

Conclusion

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 … Read more

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.

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9 Conclusion Accepted

The National Security Risk Assessment, which sets out government’s assessment of the main risks facing...

Conclusion

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 … Read more

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.

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13 Recommendation 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.

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17 Conclusion Accepted

While government took action following major pandemic simulation exercises such as Cygnus and Winter Willow,...

Conclusion

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 … Read more

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.

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19 Conclusion Accepted

We have repeatedly highlighted longstanding issues with the quality of data held by government and...

Conclusion

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 … Read more

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.

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20 Conclusion Accepted

Insufficient progress made on data issues over the years has hindered government’s initial pandemic response.

Conclusion

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 … Read more

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21 Conclusion Accepted

The Cabinet Office noted that, in 2021, government set up a National Situation Centre which...

Conclusion

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 … Read more

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22 Conclusion Accepted

The Department stated that, while government’s access to data from the social care system has...

Conclusion

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 … Read more

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