Conclusion 12

The Cabinet Office acknowledged that responding to COVID-19 was a massive operation across government requiring a very high level of co-ordination.28 However, we received inadequate responses from our witnesses when we raised cross-cutting issues that are having fundamental effects on many people’s lives. For example, on the impact of lockdown and school closures on children’s life chances and inequalities, both the Cabinet Office and the Ministry said that this was a question for the Department for Education. We recognise of course that the Department for Education is in the lead on education, but it was disappointing that the Cabinet Office and the Ministry had very little to say from the cross government perspective or on the impact for local authorities.29 While the Cabinet Office agreed in theory that inter-Departmental co-operation was essential, there was little concrete evidence of how this worked in practice”.