In October 2019, the UK was rated by the Global Health Security Index as the second best prepared country, behind the US, to deal with an epidemic/pandemic. This then begs the question as to why the UK has suffered some of the worst casualty rates in the developed world (191.83 deaths per 100k at the time of writing). The immediate failures of government and wider establishment will undoubtedly receive significant attention from within Whitehall and the mainstream media (MSM). Despite the attention, it is unlikely that the failures of SW1 will receive, accept and act upon the critical analysis necessary to prevent future governments from making similar mistakes in the future due to its inert nature. Whilst the response of Westminster has been hampered by the politicians leading it and the policies they have implemented, it is unlikely to be the central reason behind the UK’s failure to prepare sufficiently for a large-scale pandemic and to make the correct decisions during it. Rather, it is systemic problems within Whitehall that have allowed poor, slow policy decisions and implementations. The inadequacy of the entire, conventional Westminster structure has been amplified by the pandemic. Even when SW1 managed to execute a project effectively (the vaccine rollout), the inadequacy of conventional structures has been shown as the vaccine rollout only worked due to the removal of the vaccine program from the DHSC and instead entrusting it with entrepreneur Kate Bingham.
This essay will not rewrite or re-cover many short-term mistakes/failures of government policy (although there are many), nor seek to place responsibility on an individual policy, department, expert or politician. This attitude, displayed by the MSM and in any inquiries by Select Committees, is unhelpful and will not give SW1 the opportunity to learn from errors that historically have been the downfall of western establishments. Therefore, my essay will adopt a more analytical mindset, focusing on longer term issues rather than the policy errors made by a particular government. Indeed, I won’t seek to focus on the shortcomings of scientific experts or comment on the failings of China and the international community in preventing a pandemic, even though it doubtlessly contributed to the UK’s poor performance. Instead, I will focus on the dysfunctional nature of Whitehall and how that prevented an effective response. In particular, the idea that Cabinet positions are consistently filled with people who are unfit for the job will be examined and how groupthink (a historical theme that has prevented western establishments from making the best decisions) prevented the UK from making better preparations. Further, I will seek to focus particularly on the first waves as this is where the lack of crisis preparedness is emphasised most significantly: the waves since may have been more considerably affected by the policy decisions (or a lack of them) of individuals, which is outside the remit of this essay.
As I am outside Whitehall, my diagnosis of Whitehall’s issues may need to be updated as more information becomes available in the public domain. I would be surprised if there wasn’t a mistake or misleading comment within my essay.
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Wrong people
The amount of mistakes made by Johnson, Hancock et al has been well documented by the MSM. Therefore, rewriting their reports would add little value to our understanding of why the UK failed to respond effectively. Instead, it must be questioned why these politicians are in the position to be making vital decisions on the UK’s pandemic response. A system that allows the PM to have studied Classics at University and the Secretary of State for DHSC to have studied PPE is quite clearly dysfunctional. It is therefore understandable that Hancock and Johnson may not understand the nuances of the science behind COVID (as indeed I and the majority of the population do not). This means that Johnson et al may not have recognised the severity of the potential pandemic early enough to take strong, decisive action and accelerate preparations. However, it must be noted that better advice from SAGE scientists would have enhanced the likelihood of an earlier lockdown in March 2020. This alone may not have meant an earlier lockdown as shown by the delay of lockdowns in Autumn 2020. That aside, the Whitehall system rarely puts the best people in the right job.
Outlined below are the major issues that prevent the best people being appointed to the right job in Whitehall:
Ministers and civil servants often do not have a large amount of expertise in the Department’s area of government. This means that advice or decisions are not as informed or well-rounded by individuals as they may be if they had studied in their specific departmental area at University and gained experience in the private sector, allowing them to see where potential problems may arise and help the state to deliver services effectively and efficiently.
Ministers and civil servants are often transferred between Departments. Therefore, the Whitehall system discourages ministers and civil servants from accumulating expertise in a specific area of government. It should not be the case that a promotion may involve switching governmental departments for civil servants and ministers shouldn’t be rotated at the Cabinet reshuffle as often because this prevents the State from acting as effectively. Reasoning for previous decisions and future decisions will have to be re-explained and/or re-researched, wasting time and resources. Indeed, previous decisions may even be reversed by incoming Ministers. For example, there have been 18 Housing Ministers since 1997. A successful housing policy requires a long term, consistent plan and if ministers believe they will only be at a department for a short period of time, they may focus on short-term initiatives that increase their reputation with the public and the leadership of the party. Similarly, solving the social care crisis in Britain requires a long term solution and changing Health Secretaries regularly would prevent the most effective, efficient implementation of any such plan. This means that SW1 discourages effective, efficient government due to the rotation of personnel throughout government, meaning that expertise and consistency is rarely built up and delivered.
Finally, ministers leading departments are nearly always selected from MPs in the governing party. In the US, the President can select anyone who is a US citizen for their Cabinet. This allows them to select individuals with greater expertise, meaning that decisions are more likely to be better informed and the delivery of projects and policies may be more effective as the departmental leader may be a project manager. Whilst it must be noted that the UK changing to this system would decrease the legitimacy of the government’s democratic mandate, it may lead to a more effective state. For example, Hancock would never be appointed as Health Secretary because there are many people better suited to the role but aren’t MPs.
As seen above, Whitehall does not promote civil servants building up expertise in one department, nor does it allow the best people to be in the best jobs. Therefore, government structures have hampered, not aided, the COVID response. In future essays, I will go on to discuss how SW1’s structures hamper effective government.
Furthermore, Hancock and Johnson are not the most effective managers either. For example, Hancock was slow on testing: the US managed to increase their testing capacity by over 4000% in a fortnight whereas the UK took months to reach 10k tests per day capacity and then to 100k tests per day. Whilst it must be accepted that there are other contributing factors to a difference in the ability to scale up testing capacity such as manufacturing capacities and contracts, it should be noted that Hancock did not enhance the UK’s testing response. In some cases, Hancock’s leadership hampered the UK response: for instance, Hancock rejected offers to aid the supply of PPE as the DHSC stuck to Whitehall’s protocols. Therein shows another weakness of Whitehall as its conventional protocols decrease efficiency through not using all resources in a lean but effective manner and slower responses. However, this is not intended to be a direct criticism of Hancock in particular. Rather, it shows the dysfunctional nature of the Whitehall system as politicians are rarely fit to lead the ministerial positions they are appointed to.
The unconventional decision to remove the power of the DHSC to run the vaccine program and instead entrust it to Kate Bingham highlights that reforms to Whitehall would improve its effectiveness and efficiency. Bingham studied Biochemistry from Oxford and then went on to graduate from Harvard Business School with a degree in business administration. In this sense, she has the qualifications from some of the best universities to apply to managing the UK Vaccine Taskforce as she can understand the intricacies of the different technology involved in the manufacturing of vaccines and solve the logistical issues caused by a nationwide rollout of vaccines, including how to transport them with the requirement of keeping the Pfizer/BionTech vaccine below freezing. She has also gained the experience to make her more suitable than Hancock (or other politicians) for the role. For example, she has worked at lower and higher levels of pharmaceutical companies. Therefore, the likelihood of the UK vaccine rollout being successful was increased by Bingham and the expert team she had around her. The example of Bingham shows that when SW1 gets the right people in the right job, they can deliver a ‘world beating system’.
Groupthink
As noted earlier, the US and UK were rated as the best two prepared countries for an epidemic/pandemic in October 2019 by the Global Health Security Index. Indeed, the UK even ran a ‘wargame’ during Jeremy Hunt’s time as Secretary of State for DHSC to prepare for a scenario similar to COVID. Therefore, there must have been a serious lack of analysis of the UK’s plans and preparations from within DHSC and the wider Whitehall system.
Groupthink has harmed western establishments throughout history. For instance, the European establishment failed to prevent WWII, despite aggressive nationalism and subversions of democracy by Hitler in the 1930s signalling that the likelihood of a large-scale conflict was increasing. Indeed, the policy of appeasement was heavily influenced by the idea that there could not be another large-scale war between the European powers due to the damage caused by WWI rather than any empirical evidence that Hitler would avoid war with France and the U.K. at all costs. In the US, they failed to react to warnings by the UK about a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour as US officials believed that the Japanese wouldn’t start a war that they were unlikely to win. In both instances, the failures by the establishment to heed the warnings and to prevent motivated reasoning and therefore groupthink has enabled geopolitical disasters.
More recently, the example of the invasion of Iraq can illustrate the negative effects that groupthink can have on the decisions of the establishments. In 2005, the report into the failures of the US Intelligence Services surrounding their wrongful assumption that Iraq had WMD concluded that there were ‘serious errors in analysing information it could gather, and a failure to make clear just how much of its analysis was based on assumptions, rather than good evidence’. The wrongful analysis and advice by the US Intelligence Services influenced US policy on Iraq, meaning that US intervention was based on false assumptions and has ultimately caused chaos and harmed the lives of its peoples.
The same analysis written in 2005 about the US Intelligence Services could be applied to SW1’s response to COVID. SW1 and the Global Health Security Index assumed that the UK was well-prepared to deal with a viral outbreak rather than looking at the evidence (which will be outlined below) suggests that groupthink and motivated reasoning was prevalent in Whitehall surrounding preparations for a pandemic. Indeed, the initial plans and thinking in government did not take COVID seriously enough.
On the 3rd March 2020 (when the highly reputable Italian healthcare system was struggling to cope with demand), the DHSC released a policy paper outlining its plan to deal with COVID-19. In it, they describe the UK as being ‘well prepared for disease outbreaks’ with ‘regularly tested’ plans. Clearly then, SW1 was complacent and failed to fully analyse the preparations. Had preparations been rigorously scrutinised and compared to other countries worldwide, it is almost certain that SW1 officials would have concluded that the UK was not the second best prepared country, nor was it well prepared at all.
Without wishing to rewrite MSM reports on the government's failings, the example of ‘test, trace and isolate’ does highlight that groupthink was prevalent in the UK’s pandemic preparedness.
Any successful response to a large-scale pandemic needs a highly effective ‘test, trace and isolate’ system. The contrast between the UK’s preparedness and South Korea’s preparedness couldn’t be more startling.
TEST:
South Korea had the capacity to run at least 100,000 tests per day by March 2020. Indeed, they were even able to test for asymptomatic cases by February 2020 as they had developed screening centres (including drive through centres) to ensure that they could test parts of the population who had been close to a cluster of cases, meaning that they were more likely to break the chain of transmission.
By contrast the UK was only processing just over 11,000 tests per day by the end of March 2020. Testing was prioritised for those working in the NHS and the general population were told to isolate at home instead of getting tested as there was not the capacity to test all symptomatic people. Mass testing for asymptomatic cases started in the autumn of 2020.
TRACE:
South Korea managed to limit the daily peak of cases in the initial outbreak of 2020 to just over 900 due to an effective tracing system that ensured the isolation of contacts. South Korea managed to avoid a ‘stay at home’ lockdown because cases and their contacts were isolating and government restrictions had a high degree of compliance. Between 20th January 2020 and 27th March 2020, South Korea managed to trace 59,036 contacts from 5706 cases: an average of over 10 contacts per case. Indeed, the ability of the South Korean authorities to prevent cases exponentially increasing out of control is testament to their successful tracing and isolating of potential contacts.
In the UK, positive cases (only those confirmed by testing) increased by over 8000% in March 2020, meaning that Johnson was forced to introduce a ‘stay at home’ lockdown. On the 18th February, SAGE minutes indicated that PHE could stretch to a capacity of testing 50 cases per week. Quite clearly, PHE’s tracing capacity could not stretch to meet the demand of tested positive cases, let alone all positive cases, meaning that transmission rose exponentially.
ISOLATE:
Although South Korean citizens may be more willing to follow government rules, the government may have enhanced the high levels of compliance with isolation due to their ‘carrot and stick’ approach.
CARROT: Officials provided food and toiletries, psychological counselling and free video-streaming services.
STICK: All those isolating were required to download an app or wear a ‘safety band’, which would alert officials to those who broke the rules. Breaking the rules would result in a fine of over $8000.
In the UK, isolating was necessary if you or someone in your household had symptoms in March 2020. There was no specific support for isolating: instead, government advice was to ask family and friends to help supply food etc. This means that not all families could afford to isolate as they would miss work and contacts (such as friends or work colleagues) were not advised to isolate, meaning transmission was still likely to rise exponentially.
It must be questioned why SW1 and the Global Health Security was so confident when the UK was clearly under-prepared for a global pandemic. Any evaluation of the UK’s pandemic preparedness that was free from motivated reasoning and bias would have shown SW1 the UK’s significant shortcomings. Indeed, Exercise Cygnus should have shown that the UK was not well-prepared for a large-scale epidemic. Instead, NHS bed numbers were cut, PPE stores were not increased and an insufficient ‘test, trace and isolate’ system was maintained, despite recent examples in other countries (such as South Korea and MERS in 2015) that insufficient systems would result in an increased amount of deaths. Therefore, the UK’s complacency and insufficient plan was due to a groupthink mentality that reinforced and encouraged the assumed belief that the UK was ‘well-prepared’ for a large-scale epidemic/pandemic. Instead of using empiricism, Westminster and the Global Health Security Index assumed that the UK was ‘well-prepared’ due to the reaction to recent epidemic threats, rather than looking at empirical evidence about PPE, ‘test, trace and isolate’ capacities, NHS hospital capacities etc. Therefore, groupthink prevented sufficient pandemic preparedness as the DHSC did not effectively analyse plans.
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Whilst the factors contributing to the UK’s failure to adequately respond to the pandemic go beyond the reasons discussed above, the structures and culture of Westminster has significantly contributed towards the UK’s poor preparations and policy decisions throughout the pandemic response. Indeed, I shall go on to discuss the eternal civil service problem that prevents effective government in future essays.
The structures and dynamics of SW1 has prevented an accumulation of expertise, both by politicians and officials. SW1’s failure to recruit and promote people who have significant expertise and manage successful policy implementation programs has ensured that the hierarchy of Whitehall is too often determined by loyalties, friendships and connections rather than empirical evidence of expertise and successful management of policy implementations. This culture has prevented those who are prepared to challenge the beliefs of SW1’s leaders and effectively scrutinise policies, plans and preparations. Had a range of officials effectively scrutinised plans for a pandemic, the risk of groupthink in the DHSC and, in more widely, all of Whitehall would have decreased. These longer term factors have contributed and allowed the failures/mistakes specific to this pandemic to occur. Indeed, a radical alteration to the structures and culture of SW1 is necessary to increase the effectiveness of government and prevent the groupthink that has repeatedly harmed decision-making in western establishments.
ENDS
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