Select committee: Public Services Committee
Recommendation 46
1st Report - A critical juncture for public services: lessons from COVID-19
Published 13 Nov 2020
Paragraph 211
Public Services Committee Public services: lessons from coronavirus All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
Because the Government did not give oral evidence to the inquiry, and its offer to send written evidence arrived too late, we were unable to discuss how it intends to learn lessons from the pandemic in the forthcoming public inquiry and the approach that it will take to public service reform. We therefore call on the Government to carry out: (1) a rapid evaluation of what worked well and what worked badly in public service delivery during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, to ensure that services quickly learn lessons. The Government should carry out this evaluation within the next six months; (2) an assessment of the changes seen in public service delivery during the first lockdown, to embed the innovations that worked well. To ensure that positive changes are not lost, the Government should publish its findings within a year; (3) a long-term evaluation of the fundamental weaknesses in public services that have been revealed by the pandemic, to inform a major project of public service transformation.
From: Public Services Committee, 1st Report - A critical juncture for public services: lessons from COVID-19, paragraph 211, 13 November 2020
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 25 February 2021 (deadline 13 January 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government's response sets out existing programmes and funding across health, education, children's services, social care and data-sharing, and gives dated commitments on only some recommendations, with others deferred 'in due course' or to a later decision.
- On the Outsourcing Playbook, the Cabinet Office "agrees with the Committee’s recommendation" and plans to launch the updated version in 2021.
- On adult social care reform, the government says it "will bring forward proposals this year", and notes that "a range of options are being considered".
- On the Prevention Green Paper and the successor to Public Health England, the government will "update on the response to the Prevention Green Paper in due course", and the National Institute for Health Protection's accountability arrangements will be published when it is formally established in Spring 2021.
- On the recommendations for a cross-agency strategy for vulnerable children, the government "notes the Committee’s comments" on the Troubled Families Programme and says it is "committed to extending it", with up to £165 million in 2021-22.