Brexit effect on Covid planning

THE Government was not “fully prepared” for the “wide-ranging impacts” that Covid19 had on society, the economy, and essential public services – lacking detailed plans on shielding, job support schemes and school disruption, a new report has found.

And some lessons from “previous simulation exercises” – that would have helped with Covid-19 preparations – were “not fully implemented”, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).

The report, which looked at the Government’s preparedness for the Covid-19 pandemic, also found that time and energy spent preparing for Brexit both helped and hindered planning for future crises.

The watchdog said preparations for leaving the European Union enhanced some departments’ “crisis capabilities”, but also took up significant resources, meaning the Government had to pause or postpone some planning work for a potential flu pandemic.

“Some work areas of the Pandemic Flu Readiness Board and the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Programme Board, including scheduling a pandemic influenza exercise in 2019-20, were paused or postponed to free up resources for EU exit work,” the report said. The NAO found that the emergency planning unit of the Cabinet Office allocated 56 of its 94 full-time equivalent staff to prepare for potential disruptions from a no-deal exit, “limiting its ability” to plan for other crises.

“This raises a challenge for the Government as to whether it has the capacity to deal with multiple emergencies or shocks,” the report said.

The watchdog found that, overall, the pandemic “exposed a vulnerability to whole-system emergencies”.

Although the Government had plans for a pandemic, many of these were “not adequate” for the challenge at hand, it said.

It added that there was “limited oversight and assurance” of the plans in place, and that some lessons from “previous simulation exercises” – that would have helped with Covid-19 preparations – were “not fully implemented”.

For example, the report said that Exercise Winter Willow, a large-scale pandemic simulation exercise carried out in 2007, warned that business continuity plans needed to be “better coordinated” between organisations – and this was “not evident” in most of the plans reviewed by the NAO.

It also said that following Exercise Cygnus, another pandemic simulation held in 2016, the Government noted that “consideration should be given to the ability of staff to work from home, particularly when staff needed access to secure computer systems”.

However, when Covid-19 hit, “many departmental business continuity plans did not include arrangements for extensive home working”, the watchdog said.

The report said the Government was able to use some mitigations it had in place when Covid-19 hit – for example, the personal protective equipment (PPE) stockpile.

However, it was “not fully prepared” for the “wide-ranging impacts” that the disease had on society, the economy, and essential public services – lacking detailed plans on shielding, job support schemes and school disruption, the watchdog said.

Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, said: “This pandemic has exposed the UK’s vulnerability to whole-system emergencies, where the emergency is so broad that it engages all levels of government and society. Although the Government had plans for a flu pandemic, it was not prepared for a pandemic like Covid-19 and did not learn important lessons from the simulation exercises it carried out.”