UK COVID-19 Inquiry

The governments of the UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should each simplify and reduce the number of structures with responsibility for preparing for and building resilience to whole-system civil emergencies. The core structures should be: a single Cabinet-level or equivalent ministerial committee (including the senior minister responsible for health and social care) responsible for whole-system civil emergency preparedness and resilience for each government, which meets regularly and is chaired by the leader or deputy leader of the relevant government; and a single cross-departmental group of senior officials in each government (which reports regularly to the Cabinet-level or equivalent ministerial committee) to oversee and implement policy on civil emergency preparedness and resilience. This should be put in place within 12 months of the publication of this Report.

The UK government and devolved administrations should work together on developing a new approach to risk assessment that moves away from a reliance on single reasonable worst-case scenarios towards an approach that: assesses a wider range of scenarios representative of the different risks and the range of each kind of risk; considers the prevention and mitigation of an emergency in addition to dealing with its consequences; provides a full analysis of the ways in which the combined impacts of different risks may complicate or worsen an emergency; assesses long-term risks in addition to short-term risks and considers how they may interact with each other; undertakes an assessment of the impact of each risk on vulnerable people; and takes into account the capacity and capabilities of the UK.

The UK government, working with the devolved administrations, should establish mechanisms for the timely collection, analysis, secure sharing and use of reliable data for informing emergency responses, in advance of future pandemics. Data systems should be tested in pandemic exercises. The UK government should also commission a wider range of research projects ready to commence in the event of a future pandemic, including projects to: understand the prevalence of a new virus; measure the effectiveness of a range of different public health measures; and identify which groups of vulnerable people are hardest hit by the pandemic and why.

The UK government and devolved administrations should together hold a UK-wide pandemic response exercise at least every three years. The exercise should: test the UK-wide, cross-government, national and local response to a pandemic at all stages, from the initial outbreak to multiple waves over a number of years; include a broad range of those involved in pandemic preparedness and response; and consider how a broad range of vulnerable people will be helped in the event of a pandemic.

For all civil emergency exercises, the governments of the UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should each (unless there are reasons of national security for not doing so): publish an exercise report summarising the findings, lessons and recommendations, within three months of the conclusion of the exercise; publish an action plan setting out the specific steps that will be taken in response to the report's findings, and by which entity, within six months of the conclusion of the exercise; and keep exercise reports, action plans, and emergency plans and guidance from across the UK in a single, UK-wide online archive, accessible to all involved in emergency preparedness, resilience and response.

The governments of the UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should each introduce the use of red teams in the Civil Service to scrutinise and challenge the principles, evidence, policies and advice relating to preparedness for and resilience to whole-system civil emergencies. The red teams should be brought in from outside of government and the Civil Service.

The Government Office for Science (GO-Science) should invite the governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to nominate a small number of representatives to attend meetings of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) from the outset of any future emergency. The status of those representatives as either 'participant' or 'observer' should depend upon their expertise and should be a matter for SAGE to determine.

The Government Office for Science (GO-Science) should develop and maintain a register of experts across the four nations of the UK who would be willing to participate in scientific advisory groups, covering a broad range of potential civil emergencies.

During a whole-system civil emergency, the UK government and devolved administrations should each routinely publish technical advice on scientific, economic and social matters at the earliest opportunity, as well as the minutes of expert advisory groups – except where there are good reasons that prevent publication, such as commercial confidentiality, personal safety or national security, or because legal advice privilege applies.

The Government Office for Science (GO-Science), the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Department of Health (Northern Ireland) should each develop standard terms of appointment for all participants in scientific advisory groups. These terms should include: clarity around the nature of an individual's role and the extent of their responsibility, as well as the likely time commitment; payment where their time commitment means that they have to spend time away from their substantive role; access to support services; and access to advice on personal and online security, with procedures for escalating specific concerns.

The UK government should bring into force in England section 1 of the Equality Act 2010, implementing the socio-economic duty. The Northern Ireland Assembly and Northern Ireland Executive should consider an equivalent provision within section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998.

The UK government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive should each agree a framework that identifies people who would be most at risk of becoming infected by and dying from a disease and those who are most likely to be negatively impacted by any steps taken to respond to a future pandemic. The framework should set out the specific steps that could be taken to mitigate the risks to these people. Equality impact assessments should form part of this framework.

The UK government and devolved administrations should set out in future pandemic preparedness strategies how decision-making will work in a future pandemic. This should include provision for COBR to be used as the initial response structure and set out how the UK government and devolved administrations will transition from managing a pandemic through COBR to managing it through separate arrangements in each nation when it becomes clear that the emergency will be longer-term.

The UK government and the devolved administrations should each establish formal arrangements for covering the roles of Prime Minister and First Minister (and in Northern Ireland, deputy First Minister) as applicable during a whole-system civil emergency, should the incumbent be unable to undertake their duties for any reason.

The response to a future whole-system civil emergency should be coordinated via central taskforces in each of the UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with responsibility for the commissioning and synthesis of advice, coordination of a single data picture and facilitation of decision-making processes.

The UK government and the devolved administrations should each develop action plans for how government communications will be made more accessible during a pandemic. As a minimum, these should include making provision for the translation of government press conferences into British Sign Language (and Irish Sign Language in Northern Ireland) and the translation of key announcements into the most frequently spoken languages in the UK.

The UK government should undertake a review of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 to assess its potential role in managing future civil emergencies, including pandemics, and whether it could be employed as an interim emergency framework until more specific legislation with appropriate parliamentary safeguards is passed.

The UK government should invite the devolved administrations, as a matter of standard practice, to nominate relevant ministers and officials to attend COBR meetings in the event of relevant whole-system civil emergencies that have the potential to have UK-wide effects.

While intergovernmental relations should be facilitated through COBR in the initial months of any future pandemic, the UK government and devolved administrations should ensure that a specific four-nations structure, concerning pandemic response, is stood up at the same time as the transition away from COBR to nation-specific decision-making structures. This should meet regularly during a pandemic and be attended by all heads of government.