Recommendation 11

The Cabinet Office set out the governance and decision-making structures for the UK government’s response to COVID-19. These comprised four ministerial implementation committees representing health, international, economic and wider public services, led 16 Qq 92–93 17 Qq 105–8 18 Committee of Public Accounts, Thirty-ninth Report of Session 2015–16, Accountability to Parliament for taxpayers’ money, HC 732, 4 May 2016, para 18 19 Q 53; C&AG’s Report, para 7 20 Q 56; C&AG’s Report, para 7 21 Committee of Public Accounts, Thirty-ninth Report of Session 2015–16, Accountability to Parliament for taxpayers’ money, HC 732, 4 May 2016, para 20 22 Q 57 23 Q 58 24 Supplementary Information dated 29 June 2020 from HM Treasury, para 4 12 Whole of Government Response to COVID-19 by relevant ministers and reporting into the COVID-19 group chaired by the Prime Minister. Departments also have their own reporting structures and governance.25 The Cabinet Office explained that it had adapted its governance structures for each phase of the crisis so far, including by creating the ministerial implementation committees and moving at the end of May to a new “simplified, rationalised structure”, comprising an operations committee and a strategy committee. However, we have concerns about whether government has made full use of expertise across government in developing its decision and coordination structures—for example, how far the Cabinet Office had involved Army and Ministry of Defence strategists with experience in this area.26 The Cabinet Office responded that the Army has been “highly involved” in the planning of operations, working at the centre of government and in procurement and logistics, as well as at a local level with local resilience forums. Nonetheless, there do seem to be lessons that could still be learned from the Armed Forces so that decision making structures are swifter and better informed.27