Recommendations & Conclusions
30 items
2
Recommendation
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Accepted
Government does not know whether it achieved value for money from the £486 million that it spent implementing measures. Government did not track spending on implementing health measures, but the National Audit Office estimated that, across the five Departments involved, government spent £486 million in 2021–22. We are concerned that …
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Government does not know whether it achieved value for money from the £486 million that it spent implementing measures. Government did not track spending on implementing health measures, but the National Audit Office estimated that, across the five Departments involved, government spent £486 million in 2021–22. We are concerned that government did not attempt to measure whether its health measures were successful, particularly as research commissioned by the airport industry suggested health measures only delayed the peak in the number of cases from new variants by seven days. People travelling from red-list countries had to stay in hotels provided by the MQS, and the rate at which people in quarantine hotels were testing positive was higher than the general population. However, only 2% of quarantined guests tested positive. While the Department of Health & Social Care asserts that the service was value for money as part of the totality of health interventions against COVID-19, it could not tell us what the overall impact of quarantine hotels themselves had been, other than preventing around 12,000 cases entering the country. In total, the quarantine service cost £757 million. While it was meant to be self-funding, the taxpayer has ended up subsidising £329 million, almost half the bill, with the rest passed to people travelling. This was despite increasing the cost to individuals to more than £2,200 for a single adult over 10 days in August 2021. The number of people quarantining started to fall once countries were removed from the red list, and ministers decided that continuing to recover the full cost from people quarantining would have required raising the cost per person to unreasonably high levels. 6 Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic Recommendation: Cabinet Office, working with HM Treasury, should set out and publish, within six months, how cross-government portfolios should report and track their overall cost, including: • Setting out
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Government response AI summary
HM Treasury will consider what additional guidance should be issued to departments on how cross-government portfolios should report and track their overall cost on an ongoing basis, as part of ongoing work looking at improving joint working across government. HM Treasury will write to the …
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HM Treasury
3
Recommendation
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Accepted
Government’s failure to communicate the reasons for frequent changes to health measures made it hard for the public to understand and adhere to them. Ministers changed the rules that people had to follow under the traffic light system at least 10 times between February 2021 and January 2022. It is, …
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Government’s failure to communicate the reasons for frequent changes to health measures made it hard for the public to understand and adhere to them. Ministers changed the rules that people had to follow under the traffic light system at least 10 times between February 2021 and January 2022. It is, therefore, unsurprising that some 40% of people did not understand the self-isolation requirements after travel. Government did not publish information about how it had assessed the risk of travelling to different countries, making it difficult for people to plan or to pre-empt what changes might be made. While some complexity was inevitable, we consider that frequent changes to the rules every three weeks threatened to undermine compliance. Government allowed an estimated 2.5 million people exemptions from parts of the health measures, but the Department for Transport has no data on how many people with exemptions tested positive for COVID-19. Nor did it set out the reasons for exemptions for those attending Euro 2020 and London Fashion Week. There is a risk that people’s willingness to comply with rules is undermined if different rules appear to apply to different groups. Despite the Home Office and DHSC spending over £100 million on contracts for home visits to check compliance, approximately one-third of people may not have complied with requirements to isolate at home, and only 0.32% of all home visits were referred to the police. Recommendation: The Cabinet Office should set out, as part of its report capturing lessons learned, what it has learned about communicating with the public effectively and what it will do differently in the future.
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Government response AI summary
The government agrees and notes key lessons learned on communicating with the public through cross-channel campaigns, including the need for agile approaches, research and feedback sessions, simple language, mutually supported communications, strategic communications, volume, clarity, timeliness, paid-for media, and communication through local, regional and national …
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HM Treasury
4
Recommendation
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Accepted
Government did not strike the right balance between its reliance on the travel industry to implement travel controls and the support it provided. Carriers were legally responsible for checking that everyone travelling to the UK had submitted a Passenger Locator Form recording their contact information and recent travel history. This …
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Government did not strike the right balance between its reliance on the travel industry to implement travel controls and the support it provided. Carriers were legally responsible for checking that everyone travelling to the UK had submitted a Passenger Locator Form recording their contact information and recent travel history. This imposed extra costs on carriers in a period where their revenue had fallen dramatically. Although government provided access to up to £8 billion of financial support during the pandemic, this was mostly general support from the furlough scheme. It did not provide any additional financial support to carriers to implement the travel controls it introduced. Despite government’s reliance on carriers, it gave them given short notice of changes to the rules and requirements to adapt their operations. Government sometimes did not provide carriers with sufficient notice ahead of public statements that the travel rules were changing because they were concerned about leaks, but details appeared in the media anyway. Recommendation: The Cabinet Office should set out, as part of its report capturing lessons learned, how it would support industry partners if health measures were reintroduced or required as part of other programmes in future. Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic 7
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Government response AI summary
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation, recognising the important role that transport operators played in enabling the UK’s COVID-19 border response and the speed they had to adapt their operations to the changing situation. As part of contingency planning for future COVID-19 variants and …
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HM Treasury
5
Recommendation
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Not Addressed
The Department for Health & Social Care’s failure to properly set up the market for travel tests put the public at risk of fraud and poor quality of service. DHSC required companies looking to conduct tests to be accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service. The first stage of this …
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The Department for Health & Social Care’s failure to properly set up the market for travel tests put the public at risk of fraud and poor quality of service. DHSC required companies looking to conduct tests to be accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service. The first stage of this process only requires a self-declaration that companies meet DHSC’s minimum standards, but DHSC allowed companies making that declaration to be listed on gov.uk as providers of tests to the public. But 95% of companies failed the second stage of accreditation, which required providers to submit evidence to the accreditor, at their first attempt. By 28 January 2022, DHSC had removed 264 providers from gov.uk, 111 of which were removed because they had failed their second or third stage accreditation. We are deeply concerned that so many companies were listed on gov.uk, giving the impression that they had been approved by government when in reality they may not have met the required standards. Despite the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) warning of a “race to the bottom”, where the market competed on price alone, DHSC did not include any information about service quality on the gov.uk site. It similarly failed to respond formally to the CMA’s suggestions for improvement in April, May and September 2021. Recommendation: DHSC should set out, as part of its Treasury Minute response, why it did not take on board the CMA’s recommendations on the testing market, and which recommendations it would implement if health measures were re- introduced.
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Government response AI summary
The government did not address the recommendation regarding the CMA recommendations on the testing market.
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HM Treasury
6
Conclusion
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Accepted
DHSC failed to adequately protect the taxpayer from fraud in the Managed Quarantine Service (MQS), and is not pursuing the fraud that it has identified vigorously enough. There was substantial fraud against the MQS programme. At 1 March 2022, DHSC was owed £74 million in unpaid bills. This includes £21 …
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DHSC failed to adequately protect the taxpayer from fraud in the Managed Quarantine Service (MQS), and is not pursuing the fraud that it has identified vigorously enough. There was substantial fraud against the MQS programme. At 1 March 2022, DHSC was owed £74 million in unpaid bills. This includes £21 million of refunds issued but DHSC does not know how much of these were fraudulent and how much was from people who were not satisfied with the service they had paid for. DHSC has only investigated two cases of fraud and has shown limited interest in pursuing more, citing the small amount of money involved in individual cases. Between February 2021 and September 2021 people could self-certify that they were suffering financial hardship to avoid paying upfront. But DHSC also does not know to what extent its system for claiming financial hardship was abused. By May 2022, DHSC has recovered, or has plans to recover, £20 million of £54 million of debt from people using the hardship scheme. Recommendation: DHSC should write to the Committee as part of its Treasury Minute response setting out: • how much of the fraud and unpaid MQS bills it has recovered, how much it has written off, and how it plans to recover the outstanding amount; • how much of the outstanding amount is due to fraud, unpaid hardship plans and other reasons; • how much of the debts arising from the hardship plan are owed by people who self-certified hardship; • how much it has spent collecting unpaid MQS bills; and 8 Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic • how many fraud cases it has identified, investigated and successfully prosecuted.
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Government response AI summary
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation and the UK Health Security Agency has already provided the Committee with a quarterly update on chargeback and hardship recoveries and the next letter will be sent by the end of September with responses to the recommendations.
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HM Treasury
7
Recommendation
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Accepted
The Cabinet Office failed to bring together how risks were identified and managed across the portfolio of programmes for implementing health measures at the border. We have repeatedly found that the pandemic has exposed limitations in how government manages risks, especially those that cut across institutional boundaries. Government organised its …
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The Cabinet Office failed to bring together how risks were identified and managed across the portfolio of programmes for implementing health measures at the border. We have repeatedly found that the pandemic has exposed limitations in how government manages risks, especially those that cut across institutional boundaries. Government organised its cross-border travel measures as a portfolio of seven separate programmes across separate departments with central coordination, rather than as one cross-government programme. There was no central governance or oversight of the portfolio, and we are not convinced that the Cabinet Office adequately ensured that the portfolio and its constituent programmes balanced the competing objectives of protecting health and protecting the economy. And we are not convinced that the Cabinet Office applied the principles of risk management, that are set out in the government’s Orange Book, to the traffic light system. In accordance with good practice, we would expect to see data dashboards and risk registers that bring together the risks from the various departmental programmes in one place to inform ministerial decision-making. Recommendation: The Cabinet Office should produce, within six months, guidance to accompany the Orange Book setting out how cross-government portfolios of programmes should aggregate and manage risks at a portfolio-level so that effective whole-system governance processes are in place. To the same timescale, it should review whether other cross-government portfolios have effective whole-system governance and risk management processes in place. Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic 9 1 Implementing cross-border travel measures
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Government response AI summary
HM Treasury will work with the Cabinet Office to develop guidance on aggregating and managing risks at a portfolio level, and undertake a review of approaches taken on some other cross-government portfolios. HM Treasury will write to the Committee with an update by January 2023.
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HM Treasury
1
Conclusion
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Acknowledged
On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence from the Cabinet Office, the Home Office, the Department for Transport (DfT), and the Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC), about the latest phase of government’s cross-border travel measures.1
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On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence from the Cabinet Office, the Home Office, the Department for Transport (DfT), and the Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC), about the latest phase of government’s cross-border travel measures.1
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Government response AI summary
The government acknowledges the report and provides administrative details about the evidence taken and publication date.
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HM Treasury
8
Conclusion
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
The NAO found that government had limited data on the impact of the exemptions and as a result it did not know how frequently exemptions were used, how many people with exemptions tested positive, or whether the number of exemptions was proportionate to the risk presented. We asked whether government …
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The NAO found that government had limited data on the impact of the exemptions and as a result it did not know how frequently exemptions were used, how many people with exemptions tested positive, or whether the number of exemptions was proportionate to the risk presented. We asked whether government had assessed the risks or impact of these exemptions. DfT stated that it had a ‘risk framework’ in place requiring government departments to present the economic case for the exemption and show that they had consulted with public health officials. DfT acknowledged, however, that it did not collect any data on individuals with exemptions.14
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HM Treasury
9
Conclusion
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
We asked DfT why government granted exemptions for one-off events such as Euro 2020, London Fashion Week and the COP 26 summit. It said that government had put in place bespoke measures to reduce the risk of transmission at these events. For example, it explained that COP 26 attendees had …
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We asked DfT why government granted exemptions for one-off events such as Euro 2020, London Fashion Week and the COP 26 summit. It said that government had put in place bespoke measures to reduce the risk of transmission at these events. For example, it explained that COP 26 attendees had to take tests every day, wear face coverings when required and follow social distancing requirements. We asked whether there was a risk that people seeing groups such as footballers, fashionistas and the COP 26 attendees getting special treatment might undermine public confidence, and therefore compliance. DfT told us that Ministers had to take difficult decisions to get the right balance between protecting public health and maintaining the economy. It stated that most exemptions were made to ensure critical products such as food, medical products and vaccines could be imported.15 Supporting the travel industry
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HM Treasury
10
Conclusion
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Accepted
From February 2021, until all travel measures were withdrawn in March 2022, private sector carriers were legally responsible for some additional document checks required as part of the travel measures. Border Force told us that the administration of some measures, notably the checking of Passenger Locator Forms, fell on the …
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From February 2021, until all travel measures were withdrawn in March 2022, private sector carriers were legally responsible for some additional document checks required as part of the travel measures. Border Force told us that the administration of some measures, notably the checking of Passenger Locator Forms, fell on the travel industry as government relied upon carriers to perform checks. It told us that it was much easier for the carriers 11 Qq 104–5, C&AG’s report paras 2.22, 2.24 12 Qq 104, 107, 109 13 Q 141; C&AG’s report paras 17, 3.11–3.14 14 Q 143; C&AG’s Report para 17 15 Qq 142–144 12 Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic to perform these checks as passenger numbers increased.16 Carriers told the NAO that these measures created significant costs for their sector at a time when their revenue had already reduced due to depressed travel volumes and that checks added significant time to boarding passengers. Air passenger numbers fell to 1% of 2019 levels in April 2020 and Home Office figures published in February 2022 showed that passenger numbers had still not returned to pre-pandemic levels by December 2021.17
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Government response AI summary
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation to set out how it would support industry partners if health measures were reintroduced and will capture lessons learned through engagement with transport operators. They note the importance of regular engagement, updated guidance, and the intent to use …
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HM Treasury
11
Conclusion
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Accepted
We received written evidence from Manchester Airports Group, which told us that, if passenger numbers remained as they were when testing requirements were in place, it would cost the UK economy £16 billion per year. It also estimated that travellers had spent £365–730 million on PCR tests between 20 May …
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We received written evidence from Manchester Airports Group, which told us that, if passenger numbers remained as they were when testing requirements were in place, it would cost the UK economy £16 billion per year. It also estimated that travellers had spent £365–730 million on PCR tests between 20 May 2021 and 13 October 2021.18 We asked the Cabinet Office to what extent it had considered costs to businesses and individuals when changing the rules. The Cabinet Office told us that it did consider the costs to carriers and individuals but that it was not the biggest factor in its decision making.19
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Government response AI summary
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation to set out how it would support industry partners if health measures were reintroduced and will capture lessons learned through engagement with transport operators. They note the importance of regular engagement, updated guidance, and the intent to use …
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HM Treasury
12
Conclusion
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Accepted
The NAO found that making changes at short notice in the fast-moving environment of the pandemic was inevitable, but the processes for communicating these changes to those responsible for implementing them, in advance of a public announcement, were not timely. Border Force officials, bodies representing carriers and regulators told the …
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The NAO found that making changes at short notice in the fast-moving environment of the pandemic was inevitable, but the processes for communicating these changes to those responsible for implementing them, in advance of a public announcement, were not timely. Border Force officials, bodies representing carriers and regulators told the NAO that government often announced its decisions about changing travel measures late on a Friday for implementation by Monday, giving them little time to prepare or brief front- line staff responsible for implementing those measures. In some instances, they said they received no official notice ahead of public statements, despite details sometimes appearing in the media or on Twitter.20 We asked DfT whether it had given carriers enough notice of controls being introduced. DfT said that it recognised the operational challenges of giving carriers limited notice but said it had made announcements of changes to the traffic light system more regularly than changes to the previous travel corridor system, and typically sought to provide information about changes to the traffic light system six days in advance based on a regular three-week cycle of announcements.21 Departments told the NAO that they tried to provide more notice wherever possible while avoiding information leaking, which they considered would have had a negative public health impact. DfT acknowledged that it did not provide long-term transparency over why countries moved between the red, amber and green lists, which carriers needed to run their operations.22
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Government response AI summary
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation and explains what it has learned about communicating with the public effectively and what it will do differently in the future, including key lessons learned for future cross-channel campaigns.
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HM Treasury
13
Conclusion
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Acknowledged
We asked the Department about the support it had provided the aviation industry during the pandemic. DfT told us that government had provided up to £8 billion of support to the aviation industry during the pandemic, but recognised that this was mostly the take-up of general support, from the furlough …
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We asked the Department about the support it had provided the aviation industry during the pandemic. DfT told us that government had provided up to £8 billion of support to the aviation industry during the pandemic, but recognised that this was mostly the take-up of general support, from the furlough scheme, which was available to all industries. We also asked about the Department’s expectations for future demand for aviation, and of recent reports of long queues at airports. DfT told us that the industry had been surprised at the speed of recovery, and that on some estimates demand is 25% higher than what was expected, returning to 80% of 2019 levels. It explained that a large 16 Q 136; C&AG’s Report para 2.9 17 C&AG’s Report, para 2, Figure 1, para 2.9 18 MCP0001, Manchester-Airports-Group, 2022 19 Qq 139–140 20 C&AG’s Report para 3.16–3.18 21 Q 76 22 Q 115; C&AG’s report para 3.18 Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic 13 number of staff had been put on furlough and it had taken time for airports and airlines to rehire when demand returned, which had contributed to the disruption seen over the Easter 2022 period.23 23 Qq 117–123; C&AG’s report para 3.21 14 Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic 2 Protecting taxpayers’ money Managing the portfolio of programmes for implementing the measures
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Government response AI summary
The government references its response to the Transport Select Committee, stating that the default approach will be to use the least stringent measures to minimize the impact on travel as far as possible when responding to COVID-19 variants.
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HM Treasury
14
Recommendation
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Accepted
In our report Government preparedness for the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons for government on risk management, we concluded that the pandemic has exposed limitations in how government manages risks, especially those that cut across institutional boundaries. We said government needs to learn lessons on leadership and oversight for whole- system risks, …
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In our report Government preparedness for the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons for government on risk management, we concluded that the pandemic has exposed limitations in how government manages risks, especially those that cut across institutional boundaries. We said government needs to learn lessons on leadership and oversight for whole- system risks, in line with the principles of the Orange Book, which sets out mandatory requirements and guidance on risk management.24 The Cabinet Office told us that health measures were not implemented as a single cross-government programme but as seven different programmes: providing public health advice, checks by Border Force officers at the border, testing, working with the travel industry, the exemptions policy, FCDO travel advice, and the DHSC’s MQS, rather than a single cross-government programme.25
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Government response AI summary
HM Treasury will work with the Cabinet Office to develop guidance, consistent with the principles-based approach in the Orange Book, on aggregating and managing risks at a portfolio level. They will also review approaches taken on some other cross-government portfolios to understand where the new …
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HM Treasury
15
Conclusion
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Accepted
The NAO found that while government implemented controls through both its committee structures and individual departmental programmes, it had not set out risks for the overall system of border measures in one place. It found that government had not adopted system-level good practice such as risk registers, regular data dashboards …
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The NAO found that while government implemented controls through both its committee structures and individual departmental programmes, it had not set out risks for the overall system of border measures in one place. It found that government had not adopted system-level good practice such as risk registers, regular data dashboards or metrics to measure and assess success so as to bring together information about cross- border travel in one place.26 We wanted to understand how the Cabinet Office had ensured the traffic light system had put good risk management or central oversight in place that would allow it to adequately balance the competing objectives of protecting the health and the economy, so we asked why the measures were not managed as a single programme with a single risk register. The Cabinet Office said that there was central government co- ordination from the COVID-19 taskforce which monitored the programmes alongside 40 other programmes that tackled COVID-19 and which needed to ‘interlink’ with each other.27
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Government response AI summary
HM Treasury will work with the Cabinet Office to develop guidance on aggregating and managing risks at a portfolio level, and undertake a review of approaches taken on some other cross-government portfolios. HM Treasury will write to the Committee with an update by January 2023.
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HM Treasury
16
Conclusion
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Rejected
The NAO reported that government had no formal, agreed articulation of how competing objectives for implementation of the system as a whole should be balanced and prioritised. We asked how government ensured that the seven separate programmes worked together to protect health without suppressing economic activity. The Cabinet Office stated …
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The NAO reported that government had no formal, agreed articulation of how competing objectives for implementation of the system as a whole should be balanced and prioritised. We asked how government ensured that the seven separate programmes worked together to protect health without suppressing economic activity. The Cabinet Office stated that its number one goal was public health, with a secondary goal of maximising freedom where possible.28 Creating a market for PCR travel tests
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Government response AI summary
The government disagrees with the committee's recommendation regarding the balancing and prioritisation of competing objectives, stating that they did take on board many of the CMA's recommendations and detailing actions taken.
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HM Treasury
17
Recommendation
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Rejected
To preserve NHS testing capacity for domestic health monitoring, DHSC created a private sector market for PCR tests for people travelling. The number of firms offering PCR tests increased from 11 in December 2020 to at least 400 by September 2021. United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) has a three stage …
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To preserve NHS testing capacity for domestic health monitoring, DHSC created a private sector market for PCR tests for people travelling. The number of firms offering PCR tests increased from 11 in December 2020 to at least 400 by September 2021. United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) has a three stage process for accrediting firms 24 Committee of Public Accounts, Government preparedness for the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons for government on risk, Forty-Sixth Report of Session 2021–22, HC 952, 23 March 2022; HM Government, The Orange Book: Management of Risk – Principles and Concepts, February 2020 25 Q 66 26 C&AG’s Report, para 10 27 Qq 67–68 28 Qq 68, 78; C&AG’s Report para 11 Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic 15 conducting tests.29 The first stage is a self-declaration that the company can provide tests to minimum standards set by DHSC. Despite this, DHSC listed companies as testing providers on gov.uk after passing only stage one. The NAO reported that 95% of companies failed the second stage of accreditation at their first attempt. The second stage required providers to submit evidence to the accreditor.30
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Government response AI summary
The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation, stating that it did take on board many of the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) recommendations.
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HM Treasury
18
Conclusion
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Rejected
DHSC told us that it had tried to ensure that the market could provide valid and accurate tests, and that without its approach it would not have been able to develop the scale of testing market that it needed. We asked whether DHSC had reflected on the value of the …
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DHSC told us that it had tried to ensure that the market could provide valid and accurate tests, and that without its approach it would not have been able to develop the scale of testing market that it needed. We asked whether DHSC had reflected on the value of the gov.uk brand and the fact that companies listed on gov.uk could be seen as having the imprint of government approval. It accepted that stage one of the accreditation did not pose a high barrier to firms entering the market. We challenged DHSC as to whether it had understood the value of the NHS and gov.uk brands and the risk that government would be seen to endorse a company by virtue of it being named on the government website. DHSC recognised this, and confirmed that it had removed companies found not to be providing the claimed service from the gov.uk list. By 28 January 2022, DHSC had removed 264 providers from gov.uk, 111 of which were removed because they had failed their second or third stage accreditation. We queried why, given the amount of time between initial accreditation and later stages, fraudulent or poor performing companies stayed on the list potentially for several weeks before they were removed, and in this time could make money from people travelling. DHSC acknowledged that it could have put in place higher barriers to entry into the market.31
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Government response AI summary
The government disagrees with the Committee's recommendation because it did take on board many of the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) recommendations; lists multiple specific actions it took to address the issues raised, and states that if health measures were re-introduced, the UKHSA would continue …
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HM Treasury
19
Recommendation
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Rejected
The NAO found that the price of PCR tests for prices ranged from £15 to £525. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) reviewed the PCR testing market in August 2021 and found there was a ‘race to the bottom’ where providers were only competing on price so that companies selling …
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The NAO found that the price of PCR tests for prices ranged from £15 to £525. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) reviewed the PCR testing market in August 2021 and found there was a ‘race to the bottom’ where providers were only competing on price so that companies selling cheap but low quality tests might have an advantage. The CMA had previously suggested potential mitigations for this issue in April and May 2021 but DHSC had not taken any action. In September 2021 the CMA reported to government and again recommended it take action to address the market competing only on price.32 We asked DHSC why the gov.uk list did not have information on the time to conduct tests or quality, and it said that it had not intended the list on gov.uk to act as a price comparison site, but accepted that by adding information on prices, it had effectively become one. We also asked the Department why it had not responded to the CMA’s recommendations. The Department recognised that it had not formally responded to the CMA but told us that it had “engaged very deeply” with CMA officials after receiving the report, and that it took recommendations into account when which considering lateral flow tests.33 The Managed Quarantine Service
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Government response AI summary
The government disagrees with the recommendation, stating that it *did* take on board many of the CMA’s recommendations, and describes the actions taken in response to the CMA report.
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HM Treasury
20
Conclusion
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Not Addressed
The largest part of government’s spending on COVID-19 border measures was on the MQS, which cost the taxpayer £329 million. This is after the recovery of £428 million from guests paying for their accommodation and tests. In total, the service cost £757 million.34 DHSC explained that it originally intended to …
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The largest part of government’s spending on COVID-19 border measures was on the MQS, which cost the taxpayer £329 million. This is after the recovery of £428 million from guests paying for their accommodation and tests. In total, the service cost £757 million.34 DHSC explained that it originally intended to recover, where possible, the full cost of 29 Q 128; C&AG’s Report para2 2.14–2.15 30 UKAS, C19-Stage2 UKAS Appraisal, https://www.ukas.com/c19-stage2-ukas-appraisal/; C&AG’s report para 2.15 31 Qq 124–125, 127–128; C&AG’s report para 2.15 32 C&AG’s Report para 13, 2.16–2.17 33 Qq 125, 129, 145–6 34 Qq 87, 89, C&AG’s report Figure 12, para 2.33 16 Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic managed quarantine from the people who had used it. It expected to charge people using the service £1,750, for one person quarantining for 10 days, but decided to raise this to £2,285 in August 2021. DHSC explained that the original cost was set using internal cost analysis as DHSC considered it was not possible to benchmark the cost against quarantine systems in other countries. The percentage of passengers arriving in the UK from red list countries fell from 4% in July 2021 to 1% in August 2021. DHSC said that, once countries were removed from the red list, the number of people required to quarantine in hotels fell, and ministers decided that to continue to recover the costs from people quarantining it would have needed to raise the cost per person to unreasonably high levels.35 DHSC considered that the amount spent on the MQS was value for money, as the percentage of people in the MQS testing positive was higher than the rate in the overall population. DHSC also said that it had designed the system to minimise the number of people choosing to travel from high-risk countries to the UK. But between February and December 2021, only 2% of quarantine guests tested positive, which only rose to 6% during the early stages of the omicron wave.36 Protecting the taxpayer
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Government response AI summary
The government states it agrees with the recommendation and that it is implemented, referring to quarterly updates on chargeback and hardship recoveries already provided by the UK Health Security Agency, with the next letter due in September.
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HM Treasury
21
Recommendation
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Accepted
As of 1 March 2022, DHSC was owed £74 million from people who had not paid for their stay in the MQS or had not paid for their PCR tests. DHSC told us that it had allowed people using the MQS to pay their bill by credit card to make …
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As of 1 March 2022, DHSC was owed £74 million from people who had not paid for their stay in the MQS or had not paid for their PCR tests. DHSC told us that it had allowed people using the MQS to pay their bill by credit card to make it easy for people to pay, in line with usual practice for hotel accommodation. Some customers have requested refunds from DHSC using the credit card chargeback regime. The NAO found that DHSC had not protected the taxpayer from fraud, including from chargebacks. Its contractor was not contractually obliged to dispute chargebacks (refunds) even when it had ground to do so. By 20 January 2022, DHSC had identified that nearly £18 million of MQS refunds issued were fraudulent.37 DHSC said that at 1 March 2022 it had received £21 million in chargeback requests but was not able to estimate how much of this was fraudulent, or how much was from people who were not satisfied with the service they had paid for. It told us that it had also found fraudulent websites offering people apparent reductions on the MQS. We asked DHSC what steps it was taking to challenge the requests for chargebacks. It told us that since June 2021 it had challenged all requests for chargebacks, and that it tried to prevent fraud by introducing basic checks that the credit card being used was under the same name as the person using the service.38
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Government response AI summary
The government agrees with the recommendation and states that the UK Health Security Agency has already provided the Committee with a quarterly update on chargeback and hardship recoveries, with the next letter to be sent by the end of September including responses to the specific …
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HM Treasury
22
Recommendation
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Accepted
By January 2022, DHSC had only investigated two fraud cases and so far had only recovered £1 million. We asked whether DHSC had published data on amounts recovered and it confirmed it had not, but agreed to provide this information to the Committee on an ongoing basis. We asked why …
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By January 2022, DHSC had only investigated two fraud cases and so far had only recovered £1 million. We asked whether DHSC had published data on amounts recovered and it confirmed it had not, but agreed to provide this information to the Committee on an ongoing basis. We asked why it had not made a more vigorous attempt to challenge those seeking to commit fraud. DHSC told us that it would “continue to go after those cases where we can” but that some cases were difficult to pursue if the culprit was overseas. It also told us that in most cases the individual amounts at stake were small and it needed to keep in mind whether the cost of recovery was greater than the benefit to the taxpayer of doing so.39 35 Q 112; C&AG’s Report Figure 6 36 Qq 87–88 37 Qq 89, 96–97; C&AGs Report paras 2.34–2.35 38 Qq 89, 92–93 39 Qq 90, 94–95; C&AG’s Report para 2.35 Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic 17
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Government response AI summary
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation and UKHSA has already provided the Committee with a quarterly update on chargeback and hardship recoveries, and the next letter will be sent by the end of September with responses to the recommendations.
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HM Treasury
23
Conclusion
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Accepted
DHSC allowed people facing financial hardship to stay in quarantine hotels or buy tests without paying upfront. At 1 March 2022, DHSC was owed around £54 million from people who have not paid their bill. DHSC allowed people to self-certify financial hardship until September 2021, after which it introduced a …
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DHSC allowed people facing financial hardship to stay in quarantine hotels or buy tests without paying upfront. At 1 March 2022, DHSC was owed around £54 million from people who have not paid their bill. DHSC allowed people to self-certify financial hardship until September 2021, after which it introduced a formal process that required people to demonstrate severe financial hardship.40 It claimed that it had not been able to put more stringent requirements in place as the MQS was introduced quickly and its priority had been to ensure that the service was available. It did not know whether claims for hardship decreased after the checks on eligibility were introduced.41 The NAO reported that DHSC let a £2 million contract with Qualco to collect the debt. We asked the Department how much of the £54 million owed had been recovered and how much more it expected to recover. DHSC confirmed that it had not published any data on the amount of debt recovered but agreed to do so on an ongoing basis. It told us that, at the date of our session on 23 May 2022, it had recovered, or had arrangements in place to recover, £20 million from people using the hardship scheme.42
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Government response AI summary
The UK Health Security Agency has already provided the Committee with a quarterly update on chargeback and hardship recoveries.
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HM Treasury
24
Conclusion
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
We asked about the experience of guests in quarantine hotels and what had been done to safeguard people staying in the MQS. DHSC told us that it had put a great deal of effort into making sure that hotels were a safe environment for all those staying in them. It …
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We asked about the experience of guests in quarantine hotels and what had been done to safeguard people staying in the MQS. DHSC told us that it had put a great deal of effort into making sure that hotels were a safe environment for all those staying in them. It said that it had security guards in place, and they all needed to have Security Industry Association licensing. It also explained that it had put in place measures to ensure that there were liaison officers in every hotel and that there was a rolling 24-hour report on all incidents in hotels. When asked about the reporting helpline and why this had only been established after allegations began to be made about security guards, the Department confirmed that this had been introduced as an additional safeguard. DHSC told us that five security guards had been dismissed for gross misconduct, but that this was out of thousands of security guards overall and that fewer than 1.5% of people using MQS had complained.43 40 Qq 89–90; C&AG’s Report, para 16 41 Qq 90–91 42 Qq 89, 95; C&AG’s Report, Figure 12 43 Qq 98–100 18 Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic 3 The impact of the cross-border travel measures Evaluating the impact of the cross-border travel measures
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HM Treasury
25
Conclusion
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Accepted
The NAO estimated that government spent at least £486 million on cross-border travel measures in 2021–22 across the five main departments responsible for the system. Government did not track the cost of implementing cross-border travel measures. The Cabinet Office said that it considered that the border measures were not a …
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The NAO estimated that government spent at least £486 million on cross-border travel measures in 2021–22 across the five main departments responsible for the system. Government did not track the cost of implementing cross-border travel measures. The Cabinet Office said that it considered that the border measures were not a single programme, but a portfolio of programmes run by different Departments, and that individual departments had monitored their own spend against the programmes that they were responsible for.44
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Government response AI summary
HM Treasury will consider what additional guidance should be issued to departments on how cross-government portfolios should report and track their overall cost on an ongoing basis, as part of ongoing work looking at improving joint working across government. HM Treasury will write to the …
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HM Treasury
26
Conclusion
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Acknowledged
In addition to not tracking costs, government did not formally set out what it regarded as successful implementation of the cross-border travel measures, nor its measurement of success.45 We therefore asked the Cabinet Office how it knew whether measures were effective and how it would determine whether they had been …
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In addition to not tracking costs, government did not formally set out what it regarded as successful implementation of the cross-border travel measures, nor its measurement of success.45 We therefore asked the Cabinet Office how it knew whether measures were effective and how it would determine whether they had been a success. The Cabinet Office recognised that measuring effectiveness was “one of the challenges of the overall covid response … [as] it is difficult to isolate the effects of one of a number of interventions from the other ones”. It told us that it had attempted to measure the impact of the controls and had identified 12,000 cases of people who tested positive in the MQS who had come from red-listed countries, which it asserted was “a lot of people who would have been going out across the UK, inflecting other people and spreading these variants of concern, which the public was protected from”. When asked if it considered this a success, the Cabinet Office told us that it was not possible to say that whether this was a unique impact of the cross-border travel measures, but that from the point at which restrictions were introduced, the additional impact of people travelling and spreading covid “seems to have been controlled”. It explained that the general view from health authorities was that the measures had been important in trying to slow down the spread of infections.46
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Government response AI summary
The government agrees with the recommendation and states that throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, departments considered the efficacy of policies implemented, and those lessons learned continue to inform contingency planning.
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HM Treasury
27
Conclusion
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
The airport industry commissioned its own research into the costs and benefits of travel restrictions which found that, had there been no travel restrictions in place during November and December 2021, the peak in omicron cases would have occurred only seven days earlier and would have been 8 per cent …
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The airport industry commissioned its own research into the costs and benefits of travel restrictions which found that, had there been no travel restrictions in place during November and December 2021, the peak in omicron cases would have occurred only seven days earlier and would have been 8 per cent higher.47 DfT told us that it had worked closely with the company undertaking the analysis and acknowledged that this research included “very good” modelling of the situation. In its letter to us after our evidence session, DfT further explained that, although the modelling did consider the potential impacts from variants of concern, it was not able to look at the full range of factors posing risks from such variants entering the UK.48 44 Q 66; C&AG’s Report paras 18, 3.22 45 C&AG’s Report para 11 46 Qq 62–65 47 Q69, MCP0001, Manchester-Airports-Group, 2022; MCP003, Heathrow, 2022 48 Q 69; Letter from Gareth Davies CB, Second Permanent Secretary DfT to Meg Hillier MP, Chair, Public Accounts Committee , 6 June 2022 Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic 19 Improving the way government responds to crises
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HM Treasury
28
Conclusion
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Acknowledged
The NAO reported that the circumstances in which government had to implement the traffic light system had often been a crisis response requiring government to move at pace.49 The Cabinet Office explained that the system was a response to the then concern about vaccine-evading variants of COVID-19. We observed that …
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The NAO reported that the circumstances in which government had to implement the traffic light system had often been a crisis response requiring government to move at pace.49 The Cabinet Office explained that the system was a response to the then concern about vaccine-evading variants of COVID-19. We observed that COVID-19 had been in the UK for a year by the time most of the travel measures were introduced from February 2021 onwards. Given this, we asked why the MQS had been set up hurriedly. DHSC recognised that there had been a short amount of time between the decision to set up the system and it being launched. It explained that a range of potential measures and controls at the border had been discussed in advance, and MQS was announced in January 2021 and had to go live by 15 February 2021.50 We asked why there had been a 48-hour delay in re-opening quarantine hotels when government decided that they were needed during the omicron wave in late 2021, during which time potentially infectious people from red-list countries self-isolated at home. DHSC told us that 48 hours was the best it could achieve, as it took longer to set up a quarantine hotel than a standard hotel as the MQS had additional requirements such as security guards. We asked whether DHSC could reopen the quarantine hotels very quickly if needed again. DHSC explained that, unlike during the omicron wave, it no longer had specific hotels available as contingency and quarantine people in hotels was “an extreme measure … something you would do only in real need”. It told us that it was confident, that if it did find itself in similar circumstances, the playbook of options that it had developed would serve it well, but accepted that setting up quarantine hotels would definitely take it longer than 48 hours.51
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Government response AI summary
The government agrees with the committee's observation, stating that lessons learned inform contingency planning, COVID-19 surveillance is retained, and future responses will focus on pharmaceutical interventions, while wider pandemic scenarios are being developed.
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HM Treasury
29
Conclusion
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Acknowledged
We found in our report on Government preparedness for the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons for government on risk that government would have been better prepared for COVID-19 if it had applied learning from previous incidents and exercises.52 The NAO reported that, following the removal of travel restrictions in March 2022, government …
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We found in our report on Government preparedness for the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons for government on risk that government would have been better prepared for COVID-19 if it had applied learning from previous incidents and exercises.52 The NAO reported that, following the removal of travel restrictions in March 2022, government had an opportunity to stand back and put its overall system for implementing travel measures on a more sustainable footing.53 We asked if the Cabinet Office was developing toolkits for responding to future situations, noting that this was particularly important given the ongoing threat of other diseases, such as monkeypox, and the possibility of new COVID-19 variants emerging. The Cabinet Office told us that each Department, and the COVID-19 taskforce, was following good practice by writing up its conclusions and lessons learned, and that this was partly to ensure they were ready for the public inquiry.54 The Cabinet Office also told us that it was undertaking scenario planning for possible future crisis scenarios through the Civil Contingencies Secretariat. It recognised that many of the COVID-19 taskforce had now moved on to other roles, leaving residual capacity.55
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Government response AI summary
The government agrees with the committee and states that lessons learned continue to inform contingency planning across government, including for future public health threats. They retained COVID-19 surveillance and set out an overarching contingency strategy based on pharmaceutical interventions.
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HM Treasury
30
Recommendation
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde…
Accepted
The Cabinet Office explained that decisions about the rules were taken by the COVID-O (Operations) ministerial committee who met frequently, with support from committees and working groups of officials.56 The NAO found that supporting groups had 49 C&AG’s Report, para 1.5 50 Qq 61, 70–71 51 Qq 101–103; C&AG’s report, …
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The Cabinet Office explained that decisions about the rules were taken by the COVID-O (Operations) ministerial committee who met frequently, with support from committees and working groups of officials.56 The NAO found that supporting groups had 49 C&AG’s Report, para 1.5 50 Qq 61, 70–71 51 Qq 101–103; C&AG’s report, para 2.30 52 Committee of Public Accounts, Government preparedness for the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons for government on risk, Forty-Sixth Report of Session 2021–22, HC 952, 23 March 2022, summary, para 5 53 C&AG’s Report, para 22 54 Qq 77, 149, 153, 149 55 Qq 150, 152 56 Qq 78–83 20 Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic no formal decision-making role nor minutes. We asked witnesses how they would ensure that their lessons learned will be readable, available and accessible to future generations given that technology may have moved on when the next pandemic occurs. The Cabinet Office told us that it was collecting 200,000 documents for the upcoming public inquiry. We emphasised the importance of documents providing an honest assessment of what went right and wrong so government can improve its responses in future crises.57 57 Qq 85–86, 110, 133, 151; C&AG’s Report, para 1.9 Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic 21
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Government response AI summary
The government agrees to develop guidance on aggregating and managing risks at a portfolio level and to review existing approaches, committing to provide an update to the Committee by January 2023.
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HM Treasury