Inquiry Recommendations
Further action in response to our campaign
There are also aspects of Module 2 where the Government has gone further than the official inquiry recommendations, thanks to pressure from Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice. These include:
Data requirements -
We called for the Government to identify in advance the data needed to assess, prevent, mitigate and respond to each risk in the National Security Risk Assessment. This was not adequately addressed by the Inquiry. The Government has, however, partially moved towards our proposal by developing new guidance on the data and analysis needed to identify vulnerable groups and assess disproportionate impacts for NSRA risk scenarios. It has also created a Risk Vulnerability Tool to estimate the number of people vulnerable to the impacts of different NSRA risks. While these measures focus specifically on vulnerability rather than the full range of data needed to understand and respond to each threat, they represent a significant step towards building data requirements into emergency planning before a crisis occurs.
Health and economic impacts -
We argued that pandemic decision-making must take proper account of the relationship between health and the economy, including the wider economic and social consequences of measures introduced to protect public health. This was not specifically addressed in the Inquiry’s recommendations, but the Government has gone some way towards adopting our approach. Its Pandemic Preparedness Strategy will assess both the direct impacts of a pandemic and the indirect impacts of response measures across different sectors and communities, including consequences such as income loss and job insecurity, and use this evidence to shape future policy options. The Government will also review how data and analysis can be used to evaluate the impacts of measures.