Recommendation 17

The Government should designate a task force within the Cabinet Office with explicit responsibility for assessing departmental capabilities and resilience, as well as providing strategic collective leadership of the UK’s biological security efforts. Such a task force should: 56 Biosecurity and national security a) monitor operational progress on the commitments in the Biological Security Strategy, and act as a ‘critical friend’ to departments. Assessing the information reported annually by the Strategy’s governance board would be the starting point for its work; b) identify ministers’ training requirements for dealing with all types of emergencies; and c) have an explicit audit role to check that all relevant departments and agencies actually implement planned emergency response capabilities (or ensure that the National Security Council fulfils that role).