Only an independent body will ensure government's pandemic accountability

There is a settled view that there will be a public inquiry into the UK’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. While the view is sound, the consequence of holding it brings a number of dangers.

To make sense, a public inquiry can only be launched once the pandemic has been brought under control or we know enough to be able to form responsible judgements. This may be a year or more from now. And Public Inquiries take time. My experience would suggest between two and three years. Only then will the things we need to know emerge fully and the relevant lessons be set out, leading to recommendations for the future.

The first danger is the notion that we must wait four years to learn what happened and how to act, and that anything said in the interim is at best provisional. As Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter has admirably demonstrated in discussing “excess deaths”, we can already say things, for example, about the comparative speed and effectiveness of the UK’s response in terms of preventing infection and mortality and the consequent preparedness of the NHS and care homes. We can already point to the relative co-ordination of government departments and agencies, the degree of international collaboration, and, perhaps most importantly, the communication between government and governed.

But, currently, the commentary on how things are being managed is at best piecemeal and only partially informed. It has proved difficult for those ordinarily charged with holding government to account, particularly the media, to do so. Parliament, in its current form, is a poor facsimile of what it needs to be and what it has been in the past. There have been calls not to “politicise” the response to the pandemic even though the issues at stake are supremely political. The government has not always been straightforward (for example in its claims of “following the science”) and has sometimes appeared confused as to its aims. Perhaps most effective of all in deflecting real accountability, has been the argument that now is not the right time. Everyone is just too busy.

The danger is that this state of affairs will continue. The sense that “things can wait for the public inquiry” has taken hold. But, the notion of holding decision-makers to account contemporaneously, rather than at some uncertain future date, is gaining some traction. Now is the right time if the right lessons are going to be learned and acted upon. To fail to recognise this is to condemn us to a continuing diet of fractured, disorganised responses, failing effectively to come close to accountability.

The second danger is that those in government will increasingly proceed with one eye on the pandemic and the other eye on history: what will the public inquiry say? While politics is politics and ever will be, we want politicians to keep both eyes on the task at hand. Thus, the Prime Minister must give an assurance, and give it now, that papers from the various bodies advising the government will be made available as they appear. This will ensure that the judgements made in real time and the evidence on which they are based will be available for public scrutiny. They will have to be released for the public inquiry in due course. It would serve the public interest better if they were released as they appear. It will also ensure that accountability can be attributed appropriately in real time. The opportunity to reverse-engineer the evidence years later when memories have faded, documents have been “lost”, and people have moved on will be removed. Issues of confidentiality can be ironed out.

The traditional arguments, that officials must be able to give unfettered advice and must not be constrained by the fear that their view (later discarded) was put forward for public scrutiny, do not apply. We are in a different world where the starting point is that we do not know the answers. There is, therefore, a positive benefit in having advice enter the public domain so that it can be tested, endorsed, criticised and all other points of the compass. As for appeals to confidentiality, they must not be used as a shield against accountability, as is commonly the case. Confidentiality can be managed.

The third danger is that government would limit current or future access to individuals, whether members of the government, officials or those involved in providing scientific analysis or formulating policy. The Prime Minister should therefore give a clear assurance that access will be granted and not obstructed.

To repeat, we cannot wait four years or so to find out what we might or should have done. People are dying and falling ill in large numbers. The NHS is on its knees. We need to examine and learn as we go along and ensure that those making decisions are held to account. This need not inhibit those in government. Indeed it could be a blessing as those who come late to the party armed with the certainty of hindsight can be given short shrift.

How to respond? One approach is radical but these are times when doing what’s usual hasn’t worked. It’s an approach which is intended to respond to the unprecedented with a mechanism that is unprecedented but, in the circumstances, is the only sort of mechanism which can address what confronts us. It involves setting up an independent body charged with the responsibility of ensuring continuing accountability during the course of managing the pandemic — let’s call it Response to Covid 19 or “Resco”.

Resco would be created under statute and answer to Parliament. It would be required to make public and submit a report to Parliament at least every month, and more frequently if appropriate. If Resco forms the view that the public ought to be aware of this or that, then it would be made public. This means that Resco would be the arbiter of the public interest just as the subsequent public inquiry would be.

How would Resco work? It would not be a parallel government. It would be more like an ombudsman working in real time. It would receive papers as they emerge and be free to talk to those involved in decision-making. To those who say that it’s the wrong time to bother our decision-makers, the response must be — if not now, when? Resco’s key role will be its commitment to transparency. It would need to develop a taxonomy of the issues warranting consideration, just as the government appears to be doing now and as a public inquiry undoubtedly will do, and then examine and scrutinise the various elements and their interrelationship.

It would share with the public all the relevant data, the arguments and the reasons behind them, the plans for the future and the resources required. It would be a massive vote of confidence in the public — that they can be treated as grown-ups. It would send the alarmists and conspiracy theorists back down their dark rabbit holes.

Resco would not replace a public inquiry. It would be wound up when its job was done — when the pandemic has been managed as best it can be. The public inquiry would take its own course, informed by whatever Resco has done. Whatever the merits of asking judges to chair public inquiries, it would not be necessary or perhaps appropriate to require that Resco be judge-led. Rather, it should be led by someone with relevant experience of working in public affairs and with some understanding of the relevant science. The membership should be relatively small (half a dozen) with ready access to whomever can assist.

A public inquiry will come in time. But we can’t wait to learn. Resco, with the right membership and expertise, can provide the necessary assurance that the relevant lessons are identified as they emerge and are heeded, and that the basis for current and future decisions is identified and made public.