Recommendation 26

The NAO found that government had made other trade-offs during the pandemic, for example paying higher prices for goods than it would have paid before the pandemic.55 It also had to balance the risks to the economy of enacting lockdowns and other restrictions with the risks to public health of easing those restrictions. When asked how government balanced risks within different areas in making a final decision, witnesses stressed that this involved “setting out all relevant aspects of the impact” and using modelling to try to reach a consensus. The Cabinet Office explained that this modelling was primarily health- related, and that the economic and social aspects needed to be added, but that decisions were made with the relevant Ministers and “properly played out and debated, as they should be, at each step”.56