Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 17
17
While government took action following major pandemic simulation exercises such as Cygnus and Winter Willow,...
Conclusion
While government took action following major pandemic simulation exercises such as Cygnus and Winter Willow, it did not act upon some of the warnings about the UK’s lack of preparedness from these simulations. For instance, at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many departmental business continuity plans lacked detailed arrangements for supplier assurance, despite the fact that following Winter Willow the government had noted the need for organisations to ensure that their business continuity plans were better coordinated with those of their partners.28 The Department recognised that government needed to embed lessons learned through a range of simulation exercises.29
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
5: PAC conclusion: Government would have been better prepared for COVID-19 if it had applied learning from previous incidents and exercises. 5: PAC 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. 5.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented 5.2 There are existing structures, platforms and processes to capture and share lessons identified from exercises and operations, notably, the Joint Organisational Learning (JOL) system, overseen by the Joint Emergency Services Principles (JESIP) team. Through JOL the Home Office and Cabinet Office collate, validate and promulgate lessons from both local and national emergencies. Additionally individual programmes, such as the Home Office Counter Terrorism (CT) Exercising Programme, performs the same function within the CT domain. This is ongoing. 5.3 The government commits to evaluate options to expedite the sharing of lessons at a suitably early stage after they are identified; achieve greater coherence between existing platforms to ensure lessons are shared across and not just within domains; and more effectively track lessons identified through into action to either make recommended changes, take other action, or formally determine that no action will be taken. The extent to which the detail of lessons can be shared publicly will depend on the sensitivity of the risk, but the Resilience Strategy will include proposals to improve both the public reporting on risks and the actions being taken to mitigate them. 5.4 Prior to COVID-19, the government had applied learning from a range of incidents and exercises, which increased our preparedness for the current pandemic in many areas. Exercises at both the national and local levels continue to form an essential element of developing and assuring our preparedness plans and policies. 5.5 The cross-government Pandemic Diseases Capabilities Board is actively reviewing the capabilities built for the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic response, to ensure that relevant capabilities can be prepared for future deployment, building upon the legacy and lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic response and in line with our new strategic approach to pandemic preparedness. 5.6 The UK COVID-19 Inquiry has been set up to examine the UK’s preparedness and response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and to learn lessons for the future. The inquiry will be chaired by Baroness Hallett and draft Terms of Reference were published on 10 March 2022.