Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic
Public Accounts Committee
HC 29
Published 26 July 2022
Recommendations
2
Accepted
Government does not know whether it achieved value for money from the £486 million that...
Recommendation
Government does not know whether it achieved value for money from the £486 million that it spent implementing measures. Government did not track spending on implementing health measures, but the National Audit Office estimated that, across the five Departments involved, …
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Government Response Summary
HM Treasury will consider what additional guidance should be issued to departments on how cross-government portfolios should report and track their overall cost on an ongoing basis, as part of ongoing work looking at improving joint working across government. HM Treasury will write to the Committee with an update by Spring 2023.
HM Treasury
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3
Accepted
Government’s failure to communicate the reasons for frequent changes to health measures made it hard...
Recommendation
Government’s failure to communicate the reasons for frequent changes to health measures made it hard for the public to understand and adhere to them. Ministers changed the rules that people had to follow under the traffic light system at least …
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Government Response Summary
The government agrees and notes key lessons learned on communicating with the public through cross-channel campaigns, including the need for agile approaches, research and feedback sessions, simple language, mutually supported communications, strategic communications, volume, clarity, timeliness, paid-for media, and communication through local, regional and national partners.
HM Treasury
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4
Government did not strike the right balance between its reliance on the travel industry to...
Recommendation
Government did not strike the right balance between its reliance on the travel industry to implement travel controls and the support it provided. Carriers were legally responsible for checking that everyone travelling to the UK had submitted a Passenger Locator …
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HM Treasury
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5
Not Addressed
The Department for Health & Social Care’s failure to properly set up the market for...
Recommendation
The Department for Health & Social Care’s failure to properly set up the market for travel tests put the public at risk of fraud and poor quality of service. DHSC required companies looking to conduct tests to be accredited by …
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Government Response Summary
The government did not address the recommendation regarding the CMA recommendations on the testing market.
HM Treasury
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7
Accepted
The Cabinet Office failed to bring together how risks were identified and managed across the...
Recommendation
The Cabinet Office failed to bring together how risks were identified and managed across the portfolio of programmes for implementing health measures at the border. We have repeatedly found that the pandemic has exposed limitations in how government manages risks, …
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Government Response Summary
HM Treasury will work with the Cabinet Office to develop guidance on aggregating and managing risks at a portfolio level, and undertake a review of approaches taken on some other cross-government portfolios. HM Treasury will write to the Committee with an update by January 2023.
HM Treasury
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14
Accepted
In our report Government preparedness for the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons for government on risk management,...
Recommendation
In our report Government preparedness for the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons for government on risk management, we concluded that the pandemic has exposed limitations in how government manages risks, especially those that cut across institutional boundaries. We said government needs to …
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Government Response Summary
HM Treasury will work with the Cabinet Office to develop guidance, consistent with the principles-based approach in the Orange Book, on aggregating and managing risks at a portfolio level. They will also review approaches taken on some other cross-government portfolios to understand where the new guidance could be used and provide an update to the Committee by January 2023.
HM Treasury
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17
Rejected
To preserve NHS testing capacity for domestic health monitoring, DHSC created a private sector market...
Recommendation
To preserve NHS testing capacity for domestic health monitoring, DHSC created a private sector market for PCR tests for people travelling. The number of firms offering PCR tests increased from 11 in December 2020 to at least 400 by September …
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Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation, stating that it did take on board many of the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) recommendations.
HM Treasury
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19
Rejected
The NAO found that the price of PCR tests for prices ranged from £15 to...
Recommendation
The NAO found that the price of PCR tests for prices ranged from £15 to £525. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) reviewed the PCR testing market in August 2021 and found there was a ‘race to the bottom’ where …
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Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with the recommendation, stating that it *did* take on board many of the CMA’s recommendations, and describes the actions taken in response to the CMA report.
HM Treasury
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21
Accepted
As of 1 March 2022, DHSC was owed £74 million from people who had not...
Recommendation
As of 1 March 2022, DHSC was owed £74 million from people who had not paid for their stay in the MQS or had not paid for their PCR tests. DHSC told us that it had allowed people using the …
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Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the recommendation and states that the UK Health Security Agency has already provided the Committee with a quarterly update on chargeback and hardship recoveries, with the next letter to be sent by the end of September including responses to the specific points raised.
HM Treasury
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22
Accepted
By January 2022, DHSC had only investigated two fraud cases and so far had only...
Recommendation
By January 2022, DHSC had only investigated two fraud cases and so far had only recovered £1 million. We asked whether DHSC had published data on amounts recovered and it confirmed it had not, but agreed to provide this information …
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Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation and UKHSA has already provided the Committee with a quarterly update on chargeback and hardship recoveries, and the next letter will be sent by the end of September with responses to the recommendations.
HM Treasury
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Conclusions (20)
6
Conclusion
Accepted
DHSC failed to adequately protect the taxpayer from fraud in the Managed Quarantine Service (MQS), and is not pursuing the fraud that it has identified vigorously enough. There was substantial fraud against the MQS programme. At 1 March 2022, DHSC was owed £74 million in unpaid bills. This includes £21 …
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation and the UK Health Security Agency has already provided the Committee with a quarterly update on chargeback and hardship recoveries and the next letter will be sent by the end of September with responses to the recommendations.
1
Conclusion
Acknowledged
On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence from the Cabinet Office, the Home Office, the Department for Transport (DfT), and the Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC), about the latest phase of government’s cross-border travel measures.1
Government Response Summary
The government acknowledges the report and provides administrative details about the evidence taken and publication date.
8
Conclusion
The NAO found that government had limited data on the impact of the exemptions and as a result it did not know how frequently exemptions were used, how many people with exemptions tested positive, or whether the number of exemptions was proportionate to the risk presented. We asked whether government …
9
Conclusion
We asked DfT why government granted exemptions for one-off events such as Euro 2020, London Fashion Week and the COP 26 summit. It said that government had put in place bespoke measures to reduce the risk of transmission at these events. For example, it explained that COP 26 attendees had …
10
Conclusion
Accepted
From February 2021, until all travel measures were withdrawn in March 2022, private sector carriers were legally responsible for some additional document checks required as part of the travel measures. Border Force told us that the administration of some measures, notably the checking of Passenger Locator Forms, fell on the …
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation to set out how it would support industry partners if health measures were reintroduced and will capture lessons learned through engagement with transport operators. They note the importance of regular engagement, updated guidance, and the intent to use the least stringent measures possible in the future.
11
Conclusion
Accepted
We received written evidence from Manchester Airports Group, which told us that, if passenger numbers remained as they were when testing requirements were in place, it would cost the UK economy £16 billion per year. It also estimated that travellers had spent £365–730 million on PCR tests between 20 May …
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation to set out how it would support industry partners if health measures were reintroduced and will capture lessons learned through engagement with transport operators. They note the importance of regular engagement, updated guidance, and the intent to use the least stringent measures possible in the future.
12
Conclusion
Accepted
The NAO found that making changes at short notice in the fast-moving environment of the pandemic was inevitable, but the processes for communicating these changes to those responsible for implementing them, in advance of a public announcement, were not timely. Border Force officials, bodies representing carriers and regulators told the …
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation and explains what it has learned about communicating with the public effectively and what it will do differently in the future, including key lessons learned for future cross-channel campaigns.
13
Conclusion
Acknowledged
We asked the Department about the support it had provided the aviation industry during the pandemic. DfT told us that government had provided up to £8 billion of support to the aviation industry during the pandemic, but recognised that this was mostly the take-up of general support, from the furlough …
Government Response Summary
The government references its response to the Transport Select Committee, stating that the default approach will be to use the least stringent measures to minimize the impact on travel as far as possible when responding to COVID-19 variants.
15
Conclusion
Accepted
The NAO found that while government implemented controls through both its committee structures and individual departmental programmes, it had not set out risks for the overall system of border measures in one place. It found that government had not adopted system-level good practice such as risk registers, regular data dashboards …
Government Response Summary
HM Treasury will work with the Cabinet Office to develop guidance on aggregating and managing risks at a portfolio level, and undertake a review of approaches taken on some other cross-government portfolios. HM Treasury will write to the Committee with an update by January 2023.
16
Conclusion
Rejected
The NAO reported that government had no formal, agreed articulation of how competing objectives for implementation of the system as a whole should be balanced and prioritised. We asked how government ensured that the seven separate programmes worked together to protect health without suppressing economic activity. The Cabinet Office stated …
Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with the committee's recommendation regarding the balancing and prioritisation of competing objectives, stating that they did take on board many of the CMA's recommendations and detailing actions taken.
18
Conclusion
Rejected
DHSC told us that it had tried to ensure that the market could provide valid and accurate tests, and that without its approach it would not have been able to develop the scale of testing market that it needed. We asked whether DHSC had reflected on the value of the …
Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with the Committee's recommendation because it did take on board many of the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) recommendations; lists multiple specific actions it took to address the issues raised, and states that if health measures were re-introduced, the UKHSA would continue to learn the lessons from previous iterations of travel testing.
20
Conclusion
The largest part of government’s spending on COVID-19 border measures was on the MQS, which cost the taxpayer £329 million. This is after the recovery of £428 million from guests paying for their accommodation and tests. In total, the service cost £757 million.34 DHSC explained that it originally intended to …
23
Conclusion
Accepted
DHSC allowed people facing financial hardship to stay in quarantine hotels or buy tests without paying upfront. At 1 March 2022, DHSC was owed around £54 million from people who have not paid their bill. DHSC allowed people to self-certify financial hardship until September 2021, after which it introduced a …
Government Response Summary
The UK Health Security Agency has already provided the Committee with a quarterly update on chargeback and hardship recoveries.
24
Conclusion
We asked about the experience of guests in quarantine hotels and what had been done to safeguard people staying in the MQS. DHSC told us that it had put a great deal of effort into making sure that hotels were a safe environment for all those staying in them. It …
25
Conclusion
Accepted
The NAO estimated that government spent at least £486 million on cross-border travel measures in 2021–22 across the five main departments responsible for the system. Government did not track the cost of implementing cross-border travel measures. The Cabinet Office said that it considered that the border measures were not a …
Government Response Summary
HM Treasury will consider what additional guidance should be issued to departments on how cross-government portfolios should report and track their overall cost on an ongoing basis, as part of ongoing work looking at improving joint working across government. HM Treasury will write to the Committee with an update by Spring 2023.
26
Conclusion
In addition to not tracking costs, government did not formally set out what it regarded as successful implementation of the cross-border travel measures, nor its measurement of success.45 We therefore asked the Cabinet Office how it knew whether measures were effective and how it would determine whether they had been …
27
Conclusion
The airport industry commissioned its own research into the costs and benefits of travel restrictions which found that, had there been no travel restrictions in place during November and December 2021, the peak in omicron cases would have occurred only seven days earlier and would have been 8 per cent …
28
Conclusion
The NAO reported that the circumstances in which government had to implement the traffic light system had often been a crisis response requiring government to move at pace.49 The Cabinet Office explained that the system was a response to the then concern about vaccine-evading variants of COVID-19. We observed that …
29
Conclusion
Acknowledged
We found in our report on Government preparedness for the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons for government on risk that government would have been better prepared for COVID-19 if it had applied learning from previous incidents and exercises.52 The NAO reported that, following the removal of travel restrictions in March 2022, government …
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the committee and states that lessons learned continue to inform contingency planning across government, including for future public health threats. They retained COVID-19 surveillance and set out an overarching contingency strategy based on pharmaceutical interventions.
30
Conclusion
The Cabinet Office explained that decisions about the rules were taken by the COVID-O (Operations) ministerial committee who met frequently, with support from committees and working groups of officials.56 The NAO found that supporting groups had 49 C&AG’s Report, para 1.5 50 Qq 61, 70–71 51 Qq 101–103; C&AG’s report, …