2. Dr Andrew Goodall

DR ANDREW GOODALL (sworn).

Questions From Lead Counsel to the Inquiry

Mr Keith: Good afternoon. Could you give the Inquiry, please, your full name.

Dr Andrew Goodall: My name is Andrew Goodall.

Lead Inquiry: Dr Goodall, could you remember to keep your voice up as you give evidence, please, for our purposes and also for our hard-working stenographer. I believe, my Lady, we’ll be sitting until shortly before 5 o’clock, so there won’t be a break this afternoon of which you can take advantage but there may be tomorrow. You will, I’m afraid, be giving evidence tomorrow morning as well. It’s impossible to conclude your evidence tonight.

You have provided three witness statements, have you not, variously dated 14 March 2023, 20 April 2023 and 20 April 2023?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, I have.

Lead Inquiry: I think it’s fair to say, Dr Goodall, you have strained every sinew to provide us with as much information as you can about the workings of the Welsh Government. Each of those statements is true, is it not, and you have appended your signature to each of them?

Dr Andrew Goodall: It is true, and I’ve appended my signature.

Lead Inquiry: Thank you.

You are currently the Permanent Secretary, the sole Permanent Secretary to the Welsh Government, are you not?

Dr Andrew Goodall: I am. I took up that post in November 2021.

Lead Inquiry: Before that, were you Director General of Health and Social Services, and therefore also the Chief Executive of NHS Wales, posts which you held between June 2014 and November 2021?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, that’s correct, and I was discharging that role during this particular period, yes.

Lead Inquiry: Which is why, of course, the previous witness, Sir Frank Atherton, referred to you in the run-up to the pandemic as being the Director General of Health and Social Services.

Dr Andrew Goodall: Indeed, that’s correct.

Lead Inquiry: Could we start, please, with a crash course in Welsh constitutional matters, and the role of the Welsh Parliament, formerly the National Assembly for Wales, the role of the Welsh Government, formerly the Assembly Government, and where health, public health and civil contingencies come in the devolved nature of things.

So, there was, under the Government of Wales Act 1998, a National Assembly for Wales established; is that correct?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, that’s correct.

Lead Inquiry: Within that National Assembly, was there an executive known as a cabinet or an executive committee which comprised members of the Assembly?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, that’s correct.

Lead Inquiry: In 1999, a broad range of functions previously exercised by ministers of the Crown for the United Kingdom in London, were transferred by way of a series of Orders in Council to the executive, the cabinet or the executive committee in Wales; is that correct?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes.

Lead Inquiry: And were they the (Transfer of Functions) Order – or orders – of 1999 and following?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, they were.

Lead Inquiry: In 2014, under the Wales Act, did the name of the Welsh Assembly government become changed or get changed to the Welsh Government?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, it did, it changed to Welsh Government.

Lead Inquiry: In 2020, did the name of the National Assembly for Wales change to the Senedd or Welsh Parliament?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, those changes happened in 2020.

Lead Inquiry: So, over the course of time, the nomenclature as well as the functions of the cabinet or the executive committee, in essence the Welsh Government, have changed quite considerably, have they not?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, indeed, they have changed significantly, in particular when the opportunity to be able to make its own legislation came through.

Lead Inquiry: Was that because until the Government of Wales Act 2006, the National Assembly for Wales was unable to make its own primary legislation?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, that’s correct.

Lead Inquiry: So the current position is this: that in the Welsh Government there is a First Minister who leads the Welsh Government; is that correct?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, that’s correct.

Lead Inquiry: There are a number of Welsh ministers equivalent to what one might call senior ministers in the United Kingdom Government in London and deputy Welsh ministers equivalent to junior ministers in the United Kingdom Government?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, that’s correct. Their names have changed over the years but broadly it will be the same, yes.

Lead Inquiry: There is at the apex of the administration of the Welsh Government a permanent secretary, and that is you?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, I lead and manage the civil service, yes.

Lead Inquiry: So you’re, I suppose, one might call the equivalent amalgamation, perhaps, of head of the civil service in Wales, the Cabinet Secretary, the administrative chief executive, you are the permanent secretary who is subject only to ministerial control?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, that would be true of my successors, myself from 2021 of course and, yes, my role would include acting as the principal accounting officer for the organisation, and also acting as the first adviser to the First Minister and the cabinet as well.

Lead Inquiry: We’ve seen from the relevant paperwork that Wales does not have ministries. It has, for the purposes of carrying out its functions, a number of departments known as directorates?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes.

Lead Inquiry: Is that why we’ve seen, of course, from the context of health emergencies, repeated references to the Health and Social Services directorate?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Indeed, the Health and Social Services Group, and I was the Director General of that group.

Lead Inquiry: Indeed, until you became the permanent secretary.

In your witness statement, one of your witness statements, you say this:

“Despite the range of responsibilities, the Welsh Government is, and in my experience always has been, a compact administration. Welsh Ministers and senior officials are ‘under one roof’ and frequently in the same room together.”

What consequences have flowed from that, Dr Goodall, in terms of the way in which the Welsh Government has been able historically to make decisions?

Dr Andrew Goodall: As I’ve experienced it, through this particular period but of course subsequently as well, I think it allows for a closer contact amongst both officials and also amongst ministers. It means that irrespective of working in an individual portfolio, for example in health, you have an awareness of the broader workings of government, including on other policy matters. I think it does create a network of confidence and trust, colleagues get to know each other. It also extends out beyond just the workings within Welsh government, because it translates into the way in which we work across other agencies and other networks in Wales as well. So there is a intimacy about that system internally for Welsh government, as well as outside.

Lead Inquiry: Dr Goodall, you speak very fast, and I didn’t in fact ask you at the beginning to speak more slowly or to ensure that you speak slowly. Could you please do so, however.

Dr Andrew Goodall: Of course.

Lead Inquiry: It’s very difficult for the very skilled stenographer to keep up with that level of speech.

Just to identify the major moving parts at the highest level of the Welsh Government, is there a Welsh Government board which provides strategic advice and assurance to you, the permanent secretary?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, I would distinguish its role, aside of course from the cabinet and the political oversight, which also will oversee the delivery of civil service priorities in Wales, but the Welsh Government board has a role to help me discharge my principal accounting officer role. It provides assurance, it helps us with the outlook and the strategic direction of the organisation. In simple terms, it allows me to lead and manage the organisation.

Lead Inquiry: Do you also have the benefit of an executive committee, which is both an operational and strategic decision-making body within the civil service in Wales, no doubt staffed by heads of the directorates, and other officials, and chaired by you?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, we have an executive committee, I chair it, and that really acts as the decision-making mechanism for the civil service.

Lead Inquiry: Finally, is there – and this will become relevant later – something called ARAC, the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee, which assists you to discharge the functions to which you made reference a moment or two ago as the principal accounting officer to the Senedd. You are responsible to the Senedd as the principal accounting officer for the entirety of the Welsh non-ministerial administration?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, the audit and risk committee supports the, again, discharge of the risk areas in the organisation, the annual accounts process, and brings together non-executive members alongside directors and officials in the organisation.

Lead Inquiry: Devolution.

The Inquiry is now very familiar with the distinction between devolved and reserved matters. Are health services in Wales almost entirely devolved, which means that they are within the responsibility of the Welsh ministers and the Welsh civil service?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yeah, yes, they are almost entirely devolved, I would describe them as devolved. There are some exceptions around some specialist areas which will occur on a UK basis but, yes, they are devolved responsibilities.

Lead Inquiry: By contrast at the beginning civil contingencies were not all devolved, were they?

Dr Andrew Goodall: No, they weren’t all devolved. Clearly there were Welsh responses from first responders through to government, but they weren’t all devolved responsibilities at the time back in 2004.

Lead Inquiry: That is a reference, isn’t it, to the Civil Contingencies Act of 2004 of that year, because that was a single legislative framework or provided for a single legislative framework for both England and Wales along with the statute itself, the provisions in the statute, and also the statutory and non-statutory guidance which was produced alongside the Act?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, that’s correct, and it also gave us equivalence around support arrangements like local resilience fora.

Lead Inquiry: Historically under that Act were a number of regulations made, by way of secondary legislation, which applied to both England and Wales?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, they were.

Lead Inquiry: In the fullness of time, however, and following a number of reports into civil contingencies in Wales and notably a commission on devolution in Wales, the Silk Commission in 2014, was there a major change in 2018, primarily through the Welsh Ministers (Transfer of Functions) Order which gave – at least for the purposes of the first part of the Civil Contingencies Act, part 1, the 2004 Act – powers exclusively by way of devolved matters to the Welsh Government?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, whilst it left part 2 arrangements still at the UK level, those were the arrangements that came over for part 1 in 2018, and reflected a lot of support to want to be able to transfer over those functions very clearly into Wales, because the previous arrangements probably had Welsh Government acting in a de facto leadership function and role, but actually the legislation was able to make that very clear.

Lead Inquiry: By that, do you mean that from 2010 onwards and until 2018 the Welsh Government appreciated that, because it was the government on the ground, so to speak, dealing with public health, dealing with local emergencies – because of course they arose locally – it had to take up the role of acting de facto as a responder under the Civil Contingencies Act, even though that was a piece of UK legislation and even though it wasn’t formally a devolved matter?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, it would have a co-ordination and support role, but because of its discharge of devolved responsibilities through ministers, it needed to have clarity on its involvement. In many respects, a lot of that leadership had been discharged in the Wales resilience fora from at least 2003, so Welsh Government was trying to ensure that it was able to give that co-ordination role, but again we needed to make sure that the powers were much clearer, which is what happened in 2018.

Lead Inquiry: Could we look, please, just at one of those reports to which I have referred, the reports on civil contingencies which preceded the Transfer of Functions Order. It’s a report dated 6 December 2012, INQ000107113. Perhaps we could pick it up at page 4, please.

Dr Goodall, I’m putting this page to you because, although this is dated 6 December 2012, over ten years ago, I’m going to suggest in due course that some of the problems and concerns identified back then are still relevant to this Inquiry’s consideration of the run-up to the pandemic, even though this report was prepared at a time when the Welsh Government had, pre-transfer of devolved functions, a very different role.

The recommendations were these:

“Many of the arrangements to deliver the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 work well but the role of the Welsh Government is unclear and there are opportunities for increased efficiency in local delivery.

“Complex leadership arrangements have not prevented the Welsh Government from providing effective support for the partners delivering the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.”

Is that the de facto role to which you’ve referred?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, that’s what I would have been describing.

Lead Inquiry: But:

“Too many emergency planning groups and unclear accountabilities add inefficiency to the already complex Resilience Framework.”

Could I perhaps go straight to the heart of the line of questioning, which I’ll develop over the next two or three hours, and ask you this, which is: do you believe, looking back, that that problem identified in 2012 was adequately addressed? By 2020 had that inefficiency and overcomplexity been rooted out of the Welsh civil contingencies structures, or do you think they remained?

Dr Andrew Goodall: I think we had addressed that in part in terms of allowing the Welsh Government role to be much clearer, particularly where ministers would have expectations to oversee public services and discharge their responsibilities. I think that there is an inevitable complexity about bringing agencies around the table who have a series of different reporting arrangements up and through to UK departments – there are non-devolved responsibilities, for example the police – and I don’t feel that any of that has got in the way of creating partnerships and relationships in Wales.

But, in simple terms, we rely on an emergency response that is driven from a Wales Resilience Forum structure and is supported by for local resilience fora areas. I think the complexity, of course, is every first responder having their own statutory responsibility – which means 22 local authorities, four police forces, ten health organisations – and I think that probably does start to steer some other difficulties. But I think we were at least able to address an understanding of Welsh Government’s role, but I do think that some of the supporting arrangements in place up through local resilience fora arrangements would still need to have been worked through.

Lead Inquiry: Your answer appears to address primarily the arrangements at local level, the local resilience forums and the strategic co-ordinating groups and the resilience partnerships and so on, but is that – isn’t that conclusion on that page of more general application, that there are too many emergency planning groups and unclear accountabilities in the resilience framework, so across the board, so not just at local forum and strategic co-ordinating group level but within what has now become a more crystallised part of the Welsh Government?

Dr Andrew Goodall: I think there are arrangements that work differently when planning and preparing, which turn into something different in a response mode. So I would say that we need to have an understanding of the difference between those two areas.

I think that some of the individual points of working arrangements that take place and some of the detailed level of work has inevitably needed a level of expertise and experience to be applied.

So I would have some concerns about the range of sub-groups that can appear, that can be used constructively, but we would have needed to have made sure they had a task and finish focus rather than just become an embedded part of our machinery.

I think the interrelationship between the use of different frameworks and plans at different times for me would be an issue. We actually had tidied up some of those arrangements, even back I think in around 2012 – because the infectious disease framework, as an example, was an amalgam of four previous plans – but nevertheless I think that the interrelationship between pandemic health and social services responsiveness and preparedness guidance alongside the infectious disease plan, alongside the pan-Wales response plan, we still I think need to make very clear about what parts of those are working at which moments, and certainly – in my own understanding, just to help with the clarity of the issue – it’s the pan-Wales response plan which is the overall co-ordinating and guiding hand, if you like, on the arrangements in Wales.

Lead Inquiry: Dr Goodall, the paperwork demonstrates that there are a plethora of different bodies from the Wales Resilience Forum, the Wales Resilience Partnership Team, the civil contingencies group, the Welsh Civil Contingencies Committee, the resilience steering group, STAC, the tactical(sic) advisory cell, the tactical(sic) advisory group, the Emergency Coordination Centre, the civil contingencies and incident response room, the Joint Emergency Services Group, HEPU – to which we’ve just had some evidence directed – you have the pan-Wales response plan, there are a multitude of guidance documents. There was a swine flu, a Wales pandemic influenza response arrangement, swine flu task and finish group, a Wales pandemic flu task and finish group, Wales Pandemic Flu Preparedness Group. I haven’t covered them all.

For an administration which prides itself on its efficiency of movement because of the relative lack of scale and an administration that operates effectively under one roof, are there not in fact a plethora of bodies in this labyrinthine system?

Dr Andrew Goodall: There are many bodies. I think some of those relationships are probably clearer to me about how they would work. I think some of them would feel as though that they were duplicating some of the tasks and activities, and certainly the balance of what is discharged nationally as opposed to what is discharged within those sort of local responders and in the regional arrangements or the local resilience fora would also be an issue.

But, yes, that’s a very significant list of areas, and looking forward in our “safe and secure Wales” of course we need to make sure that that is very explicitly set out, that it is clear and it is also efficient.

What I also don’t want to lose within our assessment, though, is the times when we do need to, of course, deal with issues that are a matter of detail. But again, as I said earlier, I think that needs to be a philosophy of task and finish rather than ongoing arrangements.

Lady Hallett: Sorry, I don’t follow – task and finish. I think I do.

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yeah, task and finish groups really just to make sure that they quickly handle an issue. They may have a cycle of two or three meetings with experience and expertise around the table, and then come out with a solution which can be implemented, rather than an ongoing set of meetings.

Lady Hallett: So it’s a response?

Dr Andrew Goodall: A response, so as an example, if one is working through a response about excess deaths in the context of pandemic flu, to ensure that there is a timescale that is given in order to achieve those and deliver them, and not just be an ongoing contact point between those experts.

Mr Keith: Task and finish. Following swine flu, the Wales Resilience Partnership Team agreed that a Wales pandemic flu task and finish group be established; correct?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes.

Lead Inquiry: Following Exercise Cygnus, the Wales Resilience Partnership Team delegated overall responsibility to the Wales Pandemic Flu Preparedness Group, and following Exercise Cygnus the Pandemic Flu Readiness Board was promulgated, instituted for the purposes of making sure that that, those recommendations were identified and finished.

But would you agree that, despite those three instances of task and finish functions being identified, not all the recommendations from any of those reviews or exercises were, in the event, implemented?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Not all of those were implemented, so –

Lead Inquiry: And those committees, those task and finish bodies, took in some cases a very long time to attempt to ensure that the relevant recommendations were implemented, did they not?

Dr Andrew Goodall: In my view, they took too long to make sure that the recommendations were implemented, even if there had been progress on some of those activities and matters and they were completed.

Lead Inquiry: So despite your recourse to the benefit of task and finish bodies, history and the reality has shown that they themselves have not really performed terribly well, have they?

Dr Andrew Goodall: They haven’t been able to discharge the outcomes on all of those areas, and we need to understand how, if we have got to a better place, that we need to be able to update the guidance at that point rather than try to keep searching.

Lead Inquiry: Please may we not have a terminological debate. They have not done very well, have they?

Dr Andrew Goodall: The task and finish groups did not deliver all of the objectives, they didn’t achieve them, no, I agree.

Lady Hallett: They were given the task but they didn’t finish.

Dr Andrew Goodall: They didn’t achieve all of the tasks, my Lady, yes.

Mr Keith: Rather defeats the purpose of a task and finish group, does it not?

Dr Andrew Goodall: (Witness nods)

Lead Inquiry: Could we go back to INQ000107113, please, page 9, paragraph 13. This is the paragraph which underpins that conclusion, which is in red at the top of the page, which I read out from the index page, that the role of the Welsh Government was unclear and there were opportunities for increased efficiency in local delivery.

So in 2012, one of the concerns expressed in this Welsh Audit Office report concerning civil emergencies in Wales was that there was a distinct need for increased efficiency in local delivery, that is to say in the practical application of civil contingencies arrangements, and that there was a confusion about the role of the Welsh Government.

I asked you what your view was on this a little earlier, but we’ve now had the debate about the task and finish committees. Would you now perhaps reassess that some of the problems identified in this report from 2012 continued right up until the onset of the pandemic because the committee process, the group process, the structures in the Welsh Government, continued to be in significant respect inefficient?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, I would agree with you that there were too many arrangements in place at that time that may have changed our focus and what was needed. As I said earlier, I do think that some of those mechanisms occur because of preparedness as opposed to the response itself. But, yes, I would agree that there is an ongoing need to make sure that we can have a less complex system, yes.

Lead Inquiry: Thank you.

Page 10, paragraphs 17 and 18:

“Too many emergency planning groups and unclear accountabilities add inefficiency to the already complex resilience framework.”

That’s the summary I read out earlier.

Paragraph 17 generally says the current structures lead to inefficiencies at a local level, unnecessary complexity and unclear accountabilities; and at 18:

“Complex reporting arrangements are leading to confusion about the roles and responsibilities of the numerous emergency planning groups and organisations. The complexity risks fragmentation of resilience activity with potential overlaps or gaps in the arrangements for resilience.”

That is an astute and precise summary, is it not, of the Welsh Government’s civil contingencies arrangements between 2012 up to the time of the pandemic?

Dr Andrew Goodall: I believe we had addressed some of that complexity but, to take your point, I do agree that we have had too many examples of duplication and activities happening. Even as we adopted the Welsh Government responsibilities in 2018, we have probably still not worked our way through the implications of that transfer of responsibilities by the time we’d hit the pandemic as well.

Lead Inquiry: In essence the Welsh Government was faced with a very complex strategic conundrum, which was: having been given a multitude of what had, up to then, been reserved functions by virtue of the Transfer of Functions Order in 2018, somehow those new responsibilities had to be discharged, and that of course required a great deal of thought to be given to the best way of setting up the system, the committees, the groups, the entities, the responders and so on, to be able to do those new functions?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Indeed that’s correct, and we had just in 2018 started to do some of the resilience assurance within the system in Wales at that point, but were unable to continue with that as a cycle as we had originally intended, but that was very early on in the transfer of responsibilities.

Lead Inquiry: As a result of, inevitably with all governments, resource issues, as a result of the diversion of attention away from civil contingencies planning to the consequences of a no-deal EU exit, and of course the impact of the catastrophic pandemic, work was never allowed to get very far?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, we haven’t yet passed regulations that would discharge those part 1 responsibilities, as an example, but certainly, as you say, the EU exit arrangements ended up being a priority over and above some of the underlying resilience activities. That’s correct.

Lead Inquiry: May we now then look at some of the bodies, and see to what extent that proposition in that paragraph was justified in terms of unnecessary overlap and at the same time gaps.

The first body to which you refer, or the first part of the Welsh Government to which you refer in your statement is the Welsh Government resilience team.

Could we have, please, the organogram at page 10. Somewhere – ah, yes, on the far left of the page, please, of the diagram, halfway down, Welsh Government resilience team. Although on this representative diagram the Welsh Government resilience team is shown as being outside the Welsh Government box – the First Minister’s box in the middle of the page, and the directorate for health and social services, the Welsh Government resilience team is, we presume, within the Welsh Government?

Dr Andrew Goodall: It is within the Welsh Government and it helps the Wales Resilience Forum to co-ordinate its role, and works with the other agencies in Wales.

Lead Inquiry: Is it within a directorate within the Welsh Government, or is it a self-standing separate entity?

Dr Andrew Goodall: It’s not self-standing, it’s within one of our directorate structures.

Lead Inquiry: Was it originally located within the community safety division in the human resources group and then transferred to the community safety division in local government, then moved to education and public services?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, that’s correct, it stayed in consistent arrangements linked to the local government roles in particular, yeah.

Lead Inquiry: Is it going to stay where it is now or might it move again, Dr Goodall?

Dr Andrew Goodall: That team, including an expansion of that team as well, is still currently located within the same Director General arrangements, and is still associated around those public services and local government areas.

Lead Inquiry: Do you think it likely that it will remain in the education and public services group and then within the sub, community safety division, or is it going to move again?

Dr Andrew Goodall: It will be staying within those group arrangements.

Lead Inquiry: All right.

There is evidence before my Lady that that resilience team attempted to procure, or at least the Welsh Government attempted to procure additional resources and funding from the United Kingdom Government in order to better enable the Welsh Government to discharge those functions, which were transferred – formerly being reserved functions – to the Welsh Government under the (Transfer of Functions) Order 2018.

Are you aware of whether or not those requests for further resources and funding to deal with these additional issues were successful?

Dr Andrew Goodall: The transfer of responsibilities happened, but there was no funding that came across with those responsibilities from UK Government, so we had to review those arrangements ourselves at the time.

Lead Inquiry: I believe there’s a witness statement before my Lady from Mr Kilpatrick, who’s a senior official in the Welsh Government, in which he compares unfavourably the amount of funding and the staffing levels for the Welsh Government resilience team to the analogous organisation in the Scottish Government.

Does the Welsh Government acknowledge that that resilience team is, even by the standards of pre-pandemic and post pandemic civil contingencies planning, under-resourced and undermanned?

Dr Andrew Goodall: It was under-resourced at the time, and it expanded and it has continued to expand, but there are lots of examples in our discharge of our responsibilities in Welsh Government where, irrespective of having a wide range of responsibilities, we still however remain a compact organisation. So I know at the time we did expand the resources for that team. They have subsequently been expanded on the back of experiences including, of course, during the pandemic itself.

Lead Inquiry: I believe that in 2022 a new directorate was formed within the Welsh Government called the Risk, Resilience and Community Safety Directorate; is that correct?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, that’s correct.

Lead Inquiry: Are all resilience functions in the Welsh Government now within that single directorate, for the better purposes of transparency and accountability, or are they still diffusely arranged across the broad spectrum of the government?

Dr Andrew Goodall: They are mainly located there but it doesn’t remove the individual responsibilities that are held by ministers and also by directors general for other sectors across Wales. But, as an example, the Health Emergency Planning Unit would still be sat within the health structures as part of supporting the co-ordination of those responses, but that unit has expanded to include areas like cyber security, response, and does act now as the sort of expert facility within the organisation.

Lead Inquiry: So there is now a primary risk and resilience directorate within the Welsh Government – so that everybody may know, that is the directorate in charge generally of civil contingencies – but in the context of health emergencies and civil contingencies, plainly there needs to be another body dealing with health resilience and emergency planning and that is elsewhere in the Welsh Government?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, we line manage the NHS in Wales and it would form part of those responsibilities, but of course there would need to be, you know, very close liaison and co-ordination in the Welsh Government context.

Lead Inquiry: There is in Wales a Wales Resilience Forum, which was created in 2003, and I think at least at some stage chaired by the First Minister and made up of senior leaders or partners in the civil contingencies field in Wales, similar to what we’ve heard is the Scottish Resilience Partnership.

Does that Wales Resilience Forum, which is obviously a wider body, still function?

Dr Andrew Goodall: It does still function. Whilst there may on occasion be deputising arrangements for the First Minister, in my experience the First Minister has been the lead minister for that arrangement and has been a routine mechanism for meetings and discussions in Wales, in preparedness and planning mode.

Lead Inquiry: Our genius technician has flagged up Wales Resilience Forum on the screen. Does that body give direction to another body called the Wales Resilience Forum – sorry, does the Wales Resilience Forum give strategic direction to what is known as the Wales Resilience Partnership Team?

Dr Andrew Goodall: The Wales Resilience Partnership Team are there to support the function of the Wales resilience fora, so it’s where the civil servants are located who will act as the secretariat and who will oversee the arrangements by linking out with the wider system in Wales.

Lead Inquiry: Can’t it just be a single body, Dr Goodall?

Dr Andrew Goodall: The Wales Resilience Forum –

Lead Inquiry: Forum and the Wales Resilience Partnership Team; if that is simply the operational mirror of the strategic forum, do there have to be two separate bodies?

Dr Andrew Goodall: The Wales Resilience Forum is a meeting which is supported by the team, so it discharges a range of responsibilities, but that is just the supporting team. But they do have a role beyond the secretariat: they of course act to link out to partners and agencies in Wales as well.

Lead Inquiry: What, then, is the Wales Civil Contingencies Committee on the top right?

Dr Andrew Goodall: The civil contingencies committee will actually meet in the early phase of an emergency response. Rather than being chaired by the First Minister or a designated minister, it will be chaired by a senior official, and that allows it to understand its responsibilities within a response phase of a major incident or an emergency planning issue.

Lead Inquiry: So what’s the difference between the Civil Contingencies Group, which is the box in the middle of the yellow box in the middle, and the Wales Civil Contingencies Committee?

Dr Andrew Goodall: The Civil Contingencies Group establishes itself in the early stages of an emergency response. The Wales Civil Contingencies Committee is when the triggers have been identified and when we are moving into a proper emergency response, and it acts as a liaison point with Cabinet Office and the UK government arrangements, including, where needed, to give advice up to the COBR arrangements of course.

Lead Inquiry: What, then, is the resilience steering group, which we may or may not have on the chart?

Dr Andrew Goodall: The resilience steering group is just a smaller subset of colleagues. Because the Wales Civil Contingencies Committee inevitably involves a range of agencies and other colleagues around the table, it’s just a small interface that allows the activities from that group just to be taken up to support some of the liaison as well. So the Wales Civil Contingencies Committee is a wider group of colleagues who act to give advice when we are in response mode.

Lead Inquiry: Coming back to what you said earlier about, I don’t know, the doctrinal or theoretical difference between preparedness and response, is this duplication of bodies in part the result of a need to be seen to be having a separate committee that deals with preparedness than that which deals with response?

Dr Andrew Goodall: I mean, generally the approach is –

Lead Inquiry: My Lady, this is the point that you’ll recall Mr Mann and Professor Alexander addressed, what now seems some time ago.

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, indeed. For example, the Wales Resilience Forum didn’t have a role to discharge within the pandemic response because it was there to prepare and to bring agencies together under the auspices of the First Minister, but, yes, it’s to separate out the preparedness from the response arrangements that are operationally occurring at the time.

Lead Inquiry: There is, in the bottom left-hand corner, a body known as Scientific and Technical Advice Cell, STAC. Are you familiar with that body?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes.

Lead Inquiry: We believe that was set up or at least radically changed in July 2019. Why was that?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Just to try and ensure that, whilst needing to rely on of course advice, science and advice and use the networks at the UK level, that there may well be areas and there were experiences that showed that there was a need to translate advice directly into the Welsh context. That wouldn’t necessarily happen in every arrangement, but on the basis of the emergency that was under consideration, there may be the need to draw in some more specialist advice at that time, which is when those arrangements came into play.

Lead Inquiry: But, Dr Goodall, we’ve heard evidence already this afternoon from Sir Frank Atherton, the CMO, who pointed out to my Lady that there is already a Chief Scientific Adviser for Wales, a Chief Scientific Officer in NHS Wales, a Chief Scientific Adviser, Health, within the Health and Social Services Group, Wales has the benefit of NERVTAG, any learning that comes from SAGE. Why was there a need for yet another body?

Dr Andrew Goodall: To make sure that those experiences could be brought to bear and it would also allow us to use those science experts within Welsh Government as well. So it was just a connecting point, not on every occasion or for every emergency, but when needed.

Lead Inquiry: But it has a secretariat, it requires funding, it requires people to fill the posts on that cell, and has it not in fact also transmogrified over time because there is now a tactical advice cell and a tactical advice group, both born from and having their genesis in the Scientific and Technical Advice Cell; is that correct?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Yes, the technical advice cell that was introduced basically is in line with that particular mechanism and was able to discharge advice and support for the areas that were under consideration in Wales during the pandemic response and, yes, it did bring to bear that sort of closer understanding of modelling data and evidence in the Welsh context and in the context of discharging devolved responsibilities.

Lead Inquiry: But Wales attends SAGE, so why wasn’t SAGE and NERVTAG together sufficient? And, if it wasn’t, why wasn’t STAC sufficient? Why was there a need to have yet a third level of new bodies, the Technical Advisory Cell, TAC, and the Technical Advisory Group, in order to provide a forum for scientific and technical advice which was already being provided by Welsh Government advisers and available from UK entities?

Dr Andrew Goodall: So Welsh Government had an observer status on SAGE, I know that changed over time and during the pandemic, which was helpful in clarifying some of the responsibilities. We did end up converting this arrangement into the technical advice arrangements in Wales through the pandemic response, and I do believe that that allowed us to understand the discharge of responsibilities in the Welsh context, not to recreate all of the SAGE mechanisms but to allow us to just simply translate the implications of that into the Welsh context, including the data and the evidence.

Lead Inquiry: Finally, what is the difference between the Emergency Coordination Centre, which we understand is a Welsh Government – well, as it says on the tin – emergency co-ordination centre, and the Civil Contingencies and Incident Response Team?

Dr Andrew Goodall: The emergency co-ordinating centre is a physical response which involves the co-ordination activities and is located within Welsh Government, and that can be set up fully or in part on a 24-hour basis if needed during any emergency response. But it is a physical entity. In our local resilience fora arrangements across Wales there are also physical locations where colleagues and staff do come together to actually oversee and co-ordinate the different activities.

Lead Inquiry: But isn’t that what the Civil Contingencies and Incident Response Team does? It comes together as an incident response team, and I read from your statement, to “[lead and facilitate] the Welsh Government’s response to civil emergencies”. Well, what’s the difference?

Dr Andrew Goodall: The ECC(W) is the physical establishment of the centre –

Lead Inquiry: It’s the building?

Dr Andrew Goodall: It’s the building –

Lead Inquiry: Ah.

Dr Andrew Goodall: – plus where the desks and individuals will be sat, and discharges that co-ordinating focus within the building. So it’s a physical establishment and was physical during the pandemic, irrespective of course of other virtual arrangements.

Lead Inquiry: So is the short answer that the Civil Contingencies and Incident Response Team work in the Emergency Coordination Centre?

Dr Andrew Goodall: Indeed.

Lady Hallett: I think that’s plenty for today.

Mr Keith: My Lady, that’s, I think, about as far as I think any of us can go today. Is that a convenient moment?

Lady Hallett: That’s plenty.

I’m sorry we have to break off, Dr Goodall, but I think you’re prepared for it.

The Witness: No, my Lady, I understand.

Lady Hallett: I shall return at 10 o’clock tomorrow, please.

(4.53 pm)

(The hearing adjourned until 10 am on Tuesday, 4 July 2023)