In a report today the Public Accounts Committee says the “UK
government was underprepared for a pandemic like COVID-19” which
has “exposed limitations in how the government manages risks” and
also a “failure to learn”, from both simulation exercises and
actual incidents.
To learn from COVID-19 and be better prepared for the next major
crisis, government must “introduce robust central leadership,
accountability and oversight for cross-cutting risks”. It must
also “reduce variability in departments’ risk management
capabilities, their understanding of government’s risk tolerance,
and their interpretation and application of government’s risk
management guidance”.
In evidence to the inquiry government officials recognised its
“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 would “help avoid complacency, focus the
minds of the officials 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.”
, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee,
said: “The PAC is very concerned about the Government’s
approach to risk management, which seems to betray a resistance
to constructive challenge and unwillingness to learn from, for
example, areas of the private sector that have a mature risk
culture.
“On its current path, the Government will be similarly unprepared
for the ‘next major crisis’ and is also failing to take on the
important lessons in crisis and risk communication with the
public - and internationally, with other countries - which will
be crucial in dealing with it.
“Too much is left to individual departments. When faced with
funding pressures the long-term concerns are too often sacrificed
for short-term priorities. We need Whitehall to hold the ring on
risk management and coordinate departments.”
PAC report conclusions and
recommendations
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We are concerned that, if the government does not learn
lessons on leadership and oversight for whole system risks,
this may come at a high cost to individuals, the economy and
society in the future. Many of the major risks that
the country faces would cut across institutional boundaries and
affect multiple areas of government and society, if they
materialised. Yet, no-one in government is tasked with forming
an overarching view of whole system risks, ensuring that all
departments are adequately prepared for them, and prompting
departments to enhance their preparedness in the areas where
they fall short. While government officials have expressed
opposition to the introduction of a chief risk officer for
government, opting instead for an entirely different role of
Head of Risk Management profession, in our view they have
demonstrated a lack of understanding of what this role would
entail and the valuable insight that such a role would bring.
We are concerned that their opposition may betray a resistance
to constructive challenge and unwillingness to learn from the
areas of the private sector which have a mature risk culture.
If government does not introduce robust central oversight for
risk management, it will be similarly unprepared for the next
major crisis.
Recommendation: The Cabinet Office and HM Treasury should
set out how they intend to introduce robust cross-government
leadership and oversight for whole-system risks. In particular,
government should establish a Chief Risk Officer to consider
cross-cutting risks in government and proactively manage the
identification and resolution of system-wide concerns. This role
should:
- be independent and have sufficient seniority to not only
provide professional leadership and expert advice across the risk
profession but also advise and constructively challenge senior
leaders in government;
- have the authority to establish strategic direction and
coordination and integration of resources to ensure government
has the necessary risk management expertise, skills and
capabilities to respond to system-wide risks;
- work cohesively with functions and departments to ensure risk
management is joined-up across the functional agenda and aligns
with national priorities;
- engage with senior leaders in the public, private sector and
international community to continually improve government’s
approach to enterprise and system-wide risk management;
- be equipped with a fit-for-purpose supporting infrastructure
to execute this role effectively; and
- operate in cross cutting Government roles akin to the model
of the Chief medical and scientific officers.
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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 extent to which senior
leaders promote and support risk management, departments’
capabilities, and their degree of alignment to the Orange Book,
the government’s guidance on risk management. We are surprised
that there are no uniformity in government's high-level
alignment with the Orange Book and a seeming lack of
appreciation for the principles of the three lines of defence
model. 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. It is only after departments started
responding to the crisis that they reached a shared
understanding of the objectives and priorities they should
focus on.
Recommendation: The Cabinet Office and HM Treasury should
set out what they intend to do to ensure that there is sufficient
uniformity in department's high-level interpretation of and
alignment to the principles of the Orange Book. As part of this,
the Cabinet Office should set out how it will ensure that
departments have a shared understanding of the government’s
tolerance for the impacts of major risks, including what levels
of impact are acceptable and what levels of impact require
mitigation.
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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 on National resilience; and
- what lessons Government had learnt about how to effectively
communicate during the pandemic.
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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 materialise, will require a
coordinated international response. To detect them and respond
to them effectively, government needs to strengthen the
exchange of information with other countries, cooperate on
horizon scanning and the early detection of threats, and learn
from the experiences of other countries. It will also need to
foster international debate on medium and long-term existential
risks to humanity, which can only be addressed through
concerted global action. Promoting greater international
collaboration will require the UK to play a more prominent role
in international forums, such as the World Health Organisation.
Recommendation: Government should set out how it intends
to drive greater international collaboration on risks, including
exchanging information on threats, promoting and integrating
mutual learning and coordinating responses across borders.
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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 partly caused
by the fact that it was an asymptomatic condition that could
take months before being diagnosed. While government took
action following major simulation exercises such as Cygnus and
Winter Willow, it did not act upon exercises Valverde, relating
to novel coronavirus, and Alice, relating to Middle East
respiratory syndrome (MERS). This resulted in a lot of PPE in
the Governments strategic stocks which was not suitable for
Covid, although the department said it was still able to use “a
huge amount of it”. We are not convinced that
government has learnt lessons from its lack of planning. For
instance, it is unclear whether government would be able to
reinstate the Coronavirus Jobs Retention Scheme at short notice
without the implementation issues incurred when the scheme was
first introduced.
Recommendation: The Cabinet Office should set up a
cross-government process to capture learning for emergency
preparedness and resilience from exercises and actual incidents,
including COVID-19, and to allocate clear accountabilities for
applying learning. It should report annually on the
implementation of each learning point.
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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 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 service culture that does not support
sharing data across departmental boundaries. For instance, the
contact centre that government set up a part of its programme
to support those most vulnerable during the first lockdown
could not get in touch with around 800,000 individuals due to
missing or inaccurate NHS records. The lack of progress on data
issues over the years is likely to hinder government’s
initiatives to improve preparedness. While government has set
up a National Situation Centre which will provide real-time
access to the data government needs to respond to emergencies,
this will bring limited benefits if the quality of the data
collected remains low. If government access to key data – such
as social care data – is scaled down following the pandemic,
this will further hinder preparedness for future emergencies.
Recommendation: The Cabinet Office should 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. As part of
this response, government should set out how it plans to retain
access to the social care data required to respond to future
pandemics.
