6. Opening Statement by Mr Bermingham

Mr Bermingham: Good afternoon, ma’am. I represent the Association of Directors of Public Health, the ADPH.

My client is grateful for the Inquiry’s recognition that the role of Directors of Public Health have taken in preparing for and responding to the pandemic.

Our thoughts are of course with those who have lost their lives and the bereaved. ADPH is committed to this Inquiry and to helping it deliver recommendations to ensure that pandemic response will be better in future. ADPH has filed brief written submissions, and there are a few matters arising from these and from the other submissions that I would like to address now.

First is the question of how we investigate pandemic preparedness. We are unclear if the Inquiry intends to take the high-level approach described by counsel to the Inquiry and look at the paper state of preparedness as at, say, January 2020, or whether in investigating preparedness the Inquiry intends to look at what was revealed about preparedness by events in the early stages of the pandemic when gaps in the planning became apparent.

The example given in our submissions is of Government departments who did not have up-to-date contact details for Directors of Public Health. That seems to us to be a gap in the planning, but it is only when you descend into the early events of the Inquiry that that gap becomes apparent.

Clearly our submissions are that the Inquiry should look into those early weeks of the pandemic but, to be clear, we are not suggesting that in Module 1 in preparedness we go deep into the pandemic and into late events looking at the question of preparedness. What we’re interested in is systemic failures that are revealed by the early events.

Next up is the local government perspective. As the Inquiry will be aware, there has been a trend toward the unification of health and social care in recent years in recent legislation. As a result, local authorities were at the forefront of pandemic response and in pandemic preparation. Their plans, their preparation, are important for understanding how well prepared our society was. In light of that, it’s slightly surprising to see that we only have two organisations here dealing with local government, in the form of my client and the LGA.

It’s my client’s submission that more detail on the local government position is needed and, in that respect, two organisations that would be able to assist the Inquiry significantly are the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, and the Association of Directors of Children’s Services. Local authorities are at the forefront of service delivery in respect of both children and vulnerable adults, and those organisations will be able to assist on how those aspects of pandemic response were planned for.

In addition, my client suggests that we could look at undertaking some preparedness case studies around individual local authorities, or the Inquiry could make Rule 9 requests of individual local authorities on the question of preparedness.

The local authorities that we choose would need to be selected to be contrasting local authorities, contrasting parts of the country, contrasting areas of affluence and so forth.

The next issue to comment upon is the question of position statements. The association is against filing of witness statements and supports what was said by Mr Keith earlier. Position statements would effectively have us pleading in the Inquiry, and a position statement filed before we’ve had an opportunity to really descend into the documents would be no more than a statement of an organisation’s early impression of its pandemic response, rather than a detailed and thought-out narrative. As such, we don’t think that position statements will help.

That said, ADPH recognises that it is important that this Inquiry understands the role of Directors of Public Health, particularly as it differs across the four countries, and so it suggests filing witness evidence at an early stage to explain that to the Inquiry and to provide the Inquiry with its documents; and then, after that, for the Inquiry to move to the question of Rule 9 requests of the association.

Turning to disclosure, ADPH has great sympathy for what the survivors say about wanting to see all of the paperwork that encourages transparency. It creates an impression of openness and so we don’t oppose that submission in principle. However, in the interests of balance, we do have to comment that this Inquiry is going to acquire a vast amount of paperwork; it will be millions of pages. We’re talking about amounts of paperwork so vast that electronic document management systems, search terms, use of AI to index and audit it, will be required to control it. As such, the Inquiry has to strike a balance and, therefore, the position that we take is one of neutrality on that, but we need to be assured that the Inquiry is giving the relevant stuff and, therefore, there is a place perhaps for identifying the material that has been left out.

On the subjected of disclosure of documents generally, it’s clear that Central Government departments have been asked to preserve documents. I think Mr Keith mentioned January 2021 in respect of that. The question is whether local authorities should also be asked to preserve documents because they will be sitting on vast amounts of material which would also be of relevance to the Inquiry.

The final point for ADPH is one of perception. It’s about openness. It’s vital that this Inquiry carries the survivor community, carries full public confidence, and that’s about a perception of openness. In this information age, the more open the Inquiry appears to be, the better it will be received by the public.

On that basis, when the core participation determinations were made, it was a little surprising to learn that we had become a Core Participant but that we couldn’t communicate that fact and that fact that not going to go up on the Inquiry website until after today. I know that nothing sinister is intended by that. I know that that’s just about information management, but it is one of those things that just created a slight perception that maybe the Inquiry wasn’t being as open as it could be and, dealing with any mis-perceptions around openness, ADPH submits it is extremely important. Unless there’s anything else I can help you with, ma’am.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much indeed. One of the first things I said to the Inquiry team was that I believe in openness. I mean, the last point hadn’t occurred to me until you made it. So thank you very much, and the other points too, important points, and we’ll reflect upon them. Thank you.

Mr Bermingham: Thank you.

Lady Hallett: Ms Gallagher?