Recommendations & Conclusions
6 items
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
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
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
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
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