Cabinet Office takes control of Covid alerts in shake-up

A NEW Covid-19 alert system is to come under the direct control of the Cabinet Office as part of Boris Johnson’s plans to centralise the running of the Government’s response to the pandemic.

The shake-up comes as the Prime Minister plans a speech in the coming weeks based around “three pillars of renewal” – technology, infrastructure and education – as the UK exits the coronavirus lockdown.

The Government announced plans last month for a new monitoring system and a Joint Biosecurity Centre to work on the independent collection and analysis of data on infection rates.

The centre will be in charge of “setting the new Covid-19 alert level to communicate the current level of risk clearly to the public”, according to government documents.

It had been assumed that the new centre would solely report to Matt Hancock at the Department of Health. However, two sources confirmed it will come under the overall control of Michael Gove’s Cabinet Office.

The move is being seen in Whitehall as a further attempt by Mr Johnson to centralise the response to the crisis after a torrid few weeks.

Separately, business leaders and Whitehall departments have been told to pitch ideas to No10 by tomorrow to feed into Mr Johnson’s speech.

One source said businesses had been told by a senior figure in No10 to email Ben Gascoigne, Mr Johnson’s political secretary, rather than Sir Edward Lister, his chief strategic adviser.

The source said: “Eddie is MIA [missing in action]. He is technically about but people have been told not to email Ed Lister – there is no point if you want a response. He is not going anywhere but he is not doing very much.”

The claim was categorically denied by No 10.