Recommendation 17

Government quickly needed to ensure that those shielding had reliable access to food, medicines and care. It chose a national system of support run by central government.36 MHCLG considered that a centralised offer was more likely to guarantee delivery of food boxes in every part of England at the start of the pandemic, when there was real concern about food shortages in supermarkets.37 MHCLG consulted with a small number of local 29 Letter from DHSC to the Committee 10 March 2021 30 Qq 27, 32, 46 31 Qq 25–26, 28, 47 32 Qq 29–30 33 Qq 25, 28 34 Qq 30, 31 35 Letter from DHSC to the Committee 10 March 2021 36 C&AG’s Report, para 1.5 37 Q 73 12 Covid 19: supporting the vulnerable during lockdown authorities as to the best way to support people shielding, but acknowledged that it had not done a full assessment of local authority capacity in the way it would for a business-as- usual programme, and had made a judgment based on the evidence available at the time.38 MHCLG told us that it engaged with local authorities, and some reported they would not have been able to provide the food delivery service in the early months of the pandemic.39 However, the NAO reported that some local authorities queried why government had chosen a centrally directed rather than a local system of support, particularly for food, and some authorities felt that they would have provided better quality support.40 MHCLG was confident that it had made the right decision to have a national system to provide food boxes, rather than a local one.41