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

Mr Allen: Good afternoon, my Lady, and thank you.

As in Module 1 of this Inquiry, I represent the interests of the Welsh Local Government Association, which welcomes the opportunity to be a core participant and looks forward to assisting you in any way it can.

During Module 1, it was widely acknowledged that the UK’s preparedness and resilience for a pandemic was ill focused and inadequate. In this module, the WLGA asks you and the Inquiry team to look at how the Welsh Government could have better used the great knowledge and experience that the WLGA and its members, the WLGA being the representative of all Welsh local authorities, could have provided.

Its position, my Lady, on this is nuanced. The WLGA accepts that from the outset there was considerable engagement by the Welsh Government with it, and with local government more generally. There is, though, a qualification to this point: the nature of this engagement changed over time from initially being a process of sharing information to later a more meaningful dialogue, and eventually to a recognition of local government as a trusted delivery partner.

In short, the WLGA considers that fuller and earlier engagement could well have been more effective. Its position is, therefore, that in any future similar emergency, such engagement should be early enough for it to inform and influence strategy and decision-making, and be undertaken systematically and consistently at both the political and official levels.

You will see most fully how the WLGA develops these points in the first and very extensive witness statement from its chief executive in due course, and also in the shorter second witness statement, the latter prepared after reading witness statements from others, including those working in and for the Welsh Government.

But today, in these opening remarks, there are three aspects of the WLGA’s position that I wish to state now.

First, the WLGA does, of course, recognise that during the pandemic the Welsh Government had to make decisions under great pressure, time and circumstance, and that this process of hindsight does not readily capture the pressure of the moment; and others today have made the same point.

Next, it also recognises that the Welsh Government, though it had extensive devolved powers, had to work in partnership with the London-based administration on some issues and, where this was so, it had significant consequences for the effectiveness and efficiency of government in Wales.

Thirdly, the WLGA reminds you that whatever policies were announced centrally, they had to be delivered locally. It is this third aspect, a key point, that I must develop in these opening remarks.

In short, the WLGA submits that, however apt and well designed central government policies may appear to be, the success of their delivery will always depend on the capacity of those organisations tasked with their operationalisation.

If policymaking, whether by the Welsh Government or the London administration, overlooked the need for partnership with local government, its delivery was likely to be suboptimal. Put the point the other way around, it was the extent to which the Welsh Government co-designed its policies with local councils having responsibility for their delivery that was a determining factor in their success.

This can be encapsulated in two overarching questions for this module, and we note actually that these two questions match closely questions posed by Mr Poole this morning.

First, how significant at each stage between early 2020 and summer 2022 actually was that engagement?

Secondly, could a more extensive engagement have enriched policymaking and delivery?

These are questions about the extent to which co-design between those operationalising and those posing(?) policy could have been.

The WLGA’s submission is that initially engagement was not as extensive as it could have been, and that had greater use been made of local knowledge and expertise, there would have been a better, swifter impact on communities, though it also acknowledges that later in the pandemic there was a significantly increased degree of engagement.

I make a few points about these submissions. For instance, my Lady, you will see from the evidence that the Welsh Government created work groups that operated in a somewhat insular manner for too long before consulting with others. It could sooner have harnessed the local authority directors of public protection, and there are areas where these bodies could have done more had they known more about the disease and the measures chosen to mitigate its impact, including having more expert resource prepared and available, along with the provision of advice on social gatherings and events.

Of course it must be kept in mind that the Welsh Government was never fully autonomous during the pandemic. Nonetheless, it is submitted further that a more open dialogue with the WLGA and its local council members about the issues that arose from these matters would have resulted in better decisions.

For instance, local authorities were not engaged early enough as the pandemic developed. Knowledge and preparations were at times based on what was in the media. The Welsh Government did not involve key response partners early enough. Local authorities were aware of conversations and preparations to consider the impact of a pandemic, but were not privy to the detail of potential response needed. The concepts of a lockdown and the component elements of such a response were not relayed effectively by government. And had a more involved dialogue existed, they could have reviewed resource arrangements around care homes, reviewed systems for engaging and protecting vulnerable people, and prepared enforcement officers to deal with the restrictions on trade and movement.

This planning could have gone on at local level for some weeks before the decisions made on March 23.

Moreover, involvement in the creation and content of the regulations, such as the 21-day reviews, as they progressed, would have avoided so many minor amendments to the number 2 regulations during the lifting of the restrictions and the re-opening of the economy.

Before making decisions about the need for rainbow hospitals, the Welsh Government could have reduced the extent to which there was a failure to meet demand, used existing resource more effectively, and created extra time for the consideration of the views of others, such as local authorities.

Local authorities and colleagues from the police had a vital role in terms of enforcement and enacting decisions, and yet at times they were informed of changes at the very last moment, or even at the same time as the media, leaving enforcement officers to interpret regulations and guidance, often without an understanding of policy intent and direction.

There are six specific issues I need to develop in a little greater detail.

The first of these is test, trace and protect, TTP. Now, this initiative was very important, yet the national health protection plan was drafted without any full understanding of how it would be scaled up across the whole of Wales. In fact, by May 2020 it was still envisioned as being solely by Public Health Wales. Only eventually was local government asked to help and subsequently, when this occurred, it led on many of the initiatives associated with TTP. This could have happened earlier, and local authority expertise in managing and operating call centres utilised sooner.

Next, there are many issues concerning money and resources and, running through all the relevant issues of this module, this is a key theme. The current dire straits of many local authorities are suddenly more in the news, but it isn’t a new story. You will be aware from Module 1 that, prior to the pandemic, all local authorities had suffered austerity, budgets under significant pressure, for too many years.

The point is they had of course done their best to cope, and as a result there was a dangerous assumption that local authorities were adequately resourced to deliver the tasks arising from the pandemic controls even whilst maintaining service continuity, and this assumption was never subjected to any detailed forensic analysis.

Some points, though, about this are now quite clear:

Local authorities are aware that permanent funding was given to Public Health Wales, whereas local authorities only received some temporary funding for the period, now discontinued.

Many of the officers deployed to work in health protection supporting care homes, providing expert advice to TTP, enforcing the coronavirus regulations, have left the profession, and the pressures facing public protection services in Wales are set out clearly in the directorate of public protection report of 2021, Building for the Future. Their recommendations, we suggest, must inform the basis of resource planning with the Welsh Government for the future.

So investment is now required before a future pandemic emerges so as to avoid uncertainties, complexities and variability such as happened in 2020.

My Lady, I emphasise that this isn’t just a money issue, but one of capacity and of time and process. The WLGA says that legislation should be drafted now, in conjunction with the police, and investment should be made accordingly, and a rolling programme of secondments from local authorities and the health boards into a Welsh Government contingency team would build better relationships, develop a pool of expertise and enhance understanding across the public sector.

Thirdly, my Lady, I want to say something about data and communications, such as some others have raised today. It’s another area requiring significant investment. It was a key issue during the pandemic, and this is why a better regime is now needed to understand fully the risks and transmission issues and how these can be best explained locally in the future.

The picture during the pandemic was again nuanced. The information that was collected and shared did improve over time, and this permitted a greater understanding of both the prevalence and spread of the disease. However, when local authorities and other stakeholders submitted evidence and feedback, it was not so clear where it went and how it was used, or whether it had influenced policy direction.

So that’s why the WLGA argues that investment in a better understanding of the public health and public protection roles of local authorities is also critical, and that this must address data sharing in detail.

My Lady, this is a theme you’ve heard before from me.

Local authorities acknowledge that the Welsh Government did use partners to send its key communication messages to them, and to specific audiences and communities, though the role that they took in advising the business community should not be overlooked.

Finally on this particular point, the WLGA argues that it’s a significant consequence of the diverse nature of our communities that regular TV briefings can only have a limited reach to many of those most vulnerable. Public confusion had to be resolved locally during the pandemic, and the same applied to queries from business about the substantive effect of regulations.

My Lady, my fourth point concerns the PPE. It’s been said that the market was flooded with fraudulent or substandard PPE, and indeed the supply and control of it was inconsistent, failed to meet the required standards on some occasions, and was often described falsely. This of course must not be allowed to recur, and there is much that could be done. Local authorities have a better understanding of the trade sectors and the enforcement responsibility to challenge non-compliant product. For instance, the role of the local directors of public protection through their trading standard services has been overlooked. Early communication by the Welsh Government could have led to an advanced market surveillance regime being introduced, and to more interventions being made.

Fifthly, NPIs.

My Lady, before I conclude, I want to stand back from these points for a moment to consider NPIs from a different angle.

First, NPIs are more than just an issue for local authority engagement with the Welsh Government or for better investment for the future. They have, as you’ve heard, an intergovernmental aspect. The Inquiry will surely note the uncertainty on the scope of NPIs, particularly in border areas, though in fact they diverged both across borders and with further differences between urban and rural areas. It is surely obvious that workability about cross-border issues was essential – there was some note of that, of course, in the film at the beginning this morning – yet border local authorities received neither advance warning nor time to prepare, nor time to adapt local arrangements. Better engagement with local authorities would have provided more insight into potential consequences around decisions to stay local, the 5-mile guide, and the impact upon the vulnerable, along with the restrictions on the sale of certain goods. Local authorities’ input could have avoided failure associated with these policies.

The next point about NPIs is that they had of course significant and social and economic impacts. So a more extensive engagement with local authorities would have had a more positive impact on a range of social and economic issues, such as the impact of – from school closures, the impact on those who were vulnerable, and the consequences for the local economies. More communication with local authorities on the option of lockdown would have enabled them to use that opportunity to look at remote working options earlier.

Finally, I finish with some comments about compliance with those NPIs that were in fact imposed. In practice, local partnership with the police provided invaluable insight on local similarities and differences, and the complementary powers of enforcement agencies provided more effective outputs. Local authority engagement with the four Welsh police forces was initially a bottom-up approach with local engagement from the National Police Chiefs’ Council or the CPS. However, meetings between the Welsh Government, the WLGA leaders and the Welsh Police and Crime Commissioners became a good example of joined-up and regular discussion in relation to pressing enforcement issues.

Overall, local authorities in Wales believe they adopted a proportionate and mature approach, providing guidance and advice alongside more robust enforcement when appropriate. Their aim for the future is to do that and to do it better, my Lady.

Thank you. We look forward to assisting you during this module.

Lady Hallett: Very grateful, Mr Allen, thank you very much.

Mr Kinnier, I think you finish today’s proceedings.