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.