11. Submissions on Behalf of the Local Government Association by Mr Allen KC

(Pause)

Lady Hallett: Is the microphone on?

Mr Allen: No – it will be. I think you probably heard me anyway.

Lady Hallett: I did.

Mr Allen: I shall start with a word, if I may, about future modules.

The LGA wishes, if possible, to be a core participant in those modules that look more deeply into social care and test and trace, and there’s much more detail to be explored in relation to those topics than can be covered in this module, or indeed in these closing submissions. So these submissions will not cover those issues in the depth that they will deserve in a later examination.

The focus of the oral evidence for much of this module has been on the often chaotic and, it seems, consistently poor internal workings of national governance. But that is by no means the limit to the issue that this module has to consider about structure of governance.

There are four basic points that my clients wish to emphasise about the oral evidence you’ve heard. The LGA recognises that urgent and grave policy decisions as to how to bring the country through the pandemic had to be taken centrally and under great pressure. Yet it’s obvious now, and it must have been then, that no policy would be successful if it could not be delivered effectively. And at all times through the pandemic in England it was for local government to operationalise those policy decisions that did not directly involve hospitalisation.

So to make the best policies that would neither be a muddle nor ineffective, central government engagement with local government was an absolutely necessary prerequisite for good governance.

Three issues follow: did such engagement happen? If not, why not? And in preparing now for the possibility of another pandemic, what recommendation should you make to ensure a better connection between policymaking and operational delivery?

Did proper engagement happen? In short, no. The detail of the LGA’s perspective is set out in its former chief executive, Mark Lloyd’s witness statement. There are many examples of when it could have been done better that you’ve also heard from in this oral evidence, and we shall reprise some of those.

Consider first the evidence from three city mayors who should have been crucial partners of government, London’s Sadiq Khan, Greater Manchester’s Andy Burnham, and Liverpool’s Steve Rotherham. Each gave compelling evidence showing the disconnect between policy and operations.

Mr Khan made multiple requests to attend COBR meetings but was never invited by government on the grounds that other mayors and leaders would also have to be present.

Mr Burnham, who’d previously chaired swine flu COBR meetings, pointed out how attendance would have provided a structured environment where serious issues could have been properly raised, such as financial support for affected workers. He also said he asked the government for patient identifiable data of people who tested positive for Covid, but this was refused for weeks and weeks and weeks.

Mr Rotherham told you of his shock to discover in the early stages of the pandemic, only through the news, that those repatriated from Wuhan would be isolating in his area.

The central theme of their oral evidence, non-engagement, played out during the pandemic across the whole of local government. Thus, all three first learned about major Covid updates affecting their cities only after seeing them in the news.

Likewise, as a whole, councils learnt about new policies and guidance at the same time as members of the public, when the televised 5 pm daily briefings were broadcast.

Requiring policy implementation before the necessary structures and support mechanisms are in place was bound to be futile in securing a full effective implementation which could be explained and justified locally.

Next look at data management and its use. In our world, the best use of available data is key to good governance, yet data sharing was a key challenge in the early stages. The ability of local government to establish effective data sharing protocols varied significantly across England and indeed in the devolved nations. On this, the module heard from Gavin Freeguard, who spoke about local government feeling central government didn’t understand what data might be needed, how it might be used or its full benefits.

Even before the pandemic, he spoke of hearing many concerns that data sharing was very much a one-way relationship and councils are not supplied with information that could be valuable to them in running their local areas, and this problem played out during the pandemic.

Local government could complement the national system rather than duplicate or compete with it, but to do that it needed to be fully engaged. We have indeed given much written evidence about this in Mark Lloyd’s second witness statement.

Take also the evidence about tiering. Many today have made reference to that already, and you will recall how Boris Johnson, deciding against a circuit-breaker lockdown in September 2020, preferred a regional three-tier system to be operationalised in England from 14 October 2020. But this occurred without proper engagement with local government. And so you had the evidence from Michael Gove saying that the tiering system was inherently flawed, and that he grew more sceptical about its efficacy. Matt Hancock said about Tier 3:

“I was in despair that we had announced a policy that we knew would not work.”

And even in his evidence, Mr Johnson quickly acknowledged this policy “[ran] out of road” and that “we didn’t achieve it”.

Look also at the interface between police and local government on the issue of enforcement. Martin Hewitt, then chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, instances an occasion when Mr Hancock signed off the exact wording of new regulations at 11.46 pm when police officers were expected to enforce this 16 minutes later, at 12.01.

Local government was equally out of the loop, though expected to support the operationalisation of the regulations.

Look also at test and trace and isolate. The evidence on TTI provides a paradigm of the consequences of policy made without operational input. It is simply extraordinary. Mr Johnson should have said that he was initially told the UK was well covered and had ample preparations and a very good test and trace system by the contracted system. It was simply not true. The contracted system was not only way off the mark, but developed in complete ignorance of the capacity of local government.

As the LGA’s former chief executive, Mark Lloyd, has said in his witness statement, councils have deep knowledge of their local communities, their local health and social care system, and had the skills to support and make contact tracing work, yet they were not engaged from the outset, even though environmental health officers and public health specialists had been doing this for many years.

Only as the pandemic progressed was there increasing recognition of the vital value of local leadership when directors of public health, chief executives and civic leaders were brought in to provide that perspective. They were then able to inform the development of local outbreak plans that ensured the challenges of Covid-19 were understood and addressed.

Consider also the evidence of Age UK director Caroline Abrahams. She re-emphasised what she called the “strong words”, in her witness statement, that the government’s response to the first wave was deeply ineffective because of policymakers’ complete misunderstanding of what happens in care homes. She spoke of the long time for policymakers to respond to the reality of people living in care homes, often having very significant health issues, supported by too few staff. She also said of the hesitation on the part of government to intervene or to provide support to services which were predominantly provided by the private or voluntary sector, contrasting this with the steps the government took to protect the NHS.

Why was this? It would seem this is likely to be the consequence of a long-term neglect of the realities of this sector. This you will consider in a later module, we know. For now, the LGA asks you to recall how Professor Watson noted that the cuts to social care funding before the pandemic reduced the capacity of local authority services to provide social care and support, and how Professor Shakespeare noted that funding pressures on councils contributed to linked pressures on fee levels for care providers, leading to fewer staff and unmet need in the period before the pandemic.

There can be no doubt that the significant and sustained funding pressures facing adult social care and support stymied its ability to respond effectively when the pandemic arrived.

But we also remind you that Caroline Abrahams said that it was the arrival of Sir David Pearson to sort out the government’s response to social care as being the single biggest reason things got better. His involvement was so significant because Sir David, as a former director of adult social services, and indeed a former president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, brought real local government experience on the operationalisation of these issues.

And so to my last question: why was there not the necessary engagement with local government?

There seems to have been a multitude of evasions about this, from blaming local government itself to blaming the dysfunctional way the centre of government worked during the pandemic. But it won’t do to blame local government. The LGA stood ready at every stage to input directly and to convene experts to support policy making.

Mr Lloyd’s first witness statement is 111 pages long, and many of them demonstrate exactly this point. And in any event, it’s up to central government to get the information necessary to make good policy. Its failure was to ignore councils’ special role in the community. Yet every central government should know that local councils, with local knowledge and local community relations, play an essential part in public life. In the US, they say that all politics is local, and it’s as true here as there. When it comes to dealing with authority, people tend to trust their local council rather than national remote sounding bodies, because they relate to their area and circumstances, what’s going on in their street or neighbourhood.

Putting it more positively, the LGA submits it was essential to understand what local councils could already do well and how they could be helped to do it even better in the face of the new social pressures and extra demands during the pandemic.

And so here are the LGA’s recommendations for future good governance.

First, it must be recognised that in a pandemic locally driven processes and responses will be more speedy and better designed to secure the necessary co-ordination and collaboration between agencies. By contrast, centrally prescribed top-down policy lacking such local involvement will always be sub-optimal.

So local organisations that should always be brought into the policy making as soon as possible to inform and, where possible, help to co-design national decisions.

First among these is the LGA being the only association which can speak for all authorities and which covers all bases. There are important other relevant, more specialist representative organisations such as the Association of Directors of Public Health and the associations of directors of adult and children’s social services, who should also be involved.

Local government must be represented at the highest level in COBR. Of course COBR meetings should not be too big, and so cannot have all councils as members, but the LGA, with its width of membership, and long experience in disseminating policy, can provide that representation, where necessary subgroups could include leaders or mayors of specific councils.

Improved engagement in this way would help optimise key decisions such as the proper balance between the needs of the NHS and of the social care sector, and the arrangements for the flow of the central data and intelligence from national agencies to local public health teams. It would also improve transparency, and the timely and effective communication of central government policies as they develop during a future pandemic.

My Lady, many more technical recommendations have been made in Mr Lloyd’s witness statement, which I shall not repeat but urge you to adopt.

So, my Lady, the LGA thanks you for the opportunity to participate in this module so as to bring the concerns of local government for the future good governance of any future pandemic to the fore.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much, Mr Allen.

We will break now. I shall return at 3.15.

(2.58 pm)

(A short break)

(3.15 pm)

Lady Hallett: Mr Stanton.