14 May 2025

(10.00 am)

Lady Hallett: Good morning.

Ms Cartwright.

Ms Cartwright: Good morning, my Lady. Could I ask, please,

for the witness, Professor Buchan, to be sworn, please.

Professor Iain Buchan

PROFESSOR IAIN BUCHAN (sworn).

Questions From Lead Counsel to the Inquiry for Module 7

Ms Cartwright: Could you please tell the Inquiry your full name.

Professor Iain Buchan: I’m Professor Iain Buchan.

Lead 7: Professor Buchan, you’ve prepared a witness statement dated 31 March 2025, it’s 23 pages, and we see your signature on the last page. Your statement is dated 31 March of this year. Can I ask you to confirm, are the contents of that statement true to the best of your knowledge and belief?

Professor Iain Buchan: I confirm.

Lead 7: Thank you. Can we first of all start, please, by identifying your background, qualifications and career history. I’m going to summarise it but please, if I don’t do justice to it, please feel free to elaborate.

It’s right, isn’t it, that you are a public health physician of some 23 years?

Professor Iain Buchan: (Witness nodded).

Lead 7: But you’re also a data scientist and you work to harness data and technologies for patients and populations.

Professor Iain Buchan: That’s correct.

Lead 7: But you’ve also got a medical qualification, as well.

Professor Iain Buchan: I do.

Lead 7: You are also the inaugural W H Duncan Professor of Public Health Systems at Liverpool University?

Professor Iain Buchan: I am.

Lead 7: Where you’re also the associate Pro Vice-Chancellor for innovation?

Professor Iain Buchan: [No audible answer].

Lead 7: And significantly, the larger proportion of your evidence today is going to be in respect of what we will call the Liverpool Pilot. It’s right, isn’t it, that you led the evaluation of the government’s voluntary open access mass testing with lateral flow devices in Liverpool from November 2020?

Professor Iain Buchan: That’s correct.

Lead 7: Thank you. It’s right, isn’t it, that you lead Liverpool’s Institute of Population Health as part of that role as the Executive Dean, but you also manage public health partnership with local authorities and the local NHS trusts?

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes, at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic I was partly deployed as a public health physician working with my

colleagues in the National Health Service, local public

health teams, leading on the academic input and –

Lead 7: Thank you.

Professor Iain Buchan: – as Executive Dean of the Institute of Population

Health.

Lead 7: Now, your statement also tells us that you were the lead

academic member of the Covid-19 Gold Command team

overseeing testing for Liverpool City Council, Liverpool

City Region Combined Authority and NHS Cheshire and Merseyside – and is that in respect of the Liverpool Pilot?

Professor Iain Buchan: It is, yes.

Lead 7: Thank you. And then, additionally you tell us in your witness statement that you are an investigator for the Health Protection Research Unit, is that correct, the National Institute for Health Research but also you’re an investigator for UKHSA?

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes, I’m an NIHR senior investigator and I supported Health Protection Research Unit during Covid-19. That was for gastrointestinal infections but it pivoted to Covid-19. I’m now part of the Emerging and Zoonotic Infections Health Protection Research Unit.

Lead 7: Do you continue in that role to present day as an investigator?

Professor Iain Buchan: I do.

Lead 7: Thank you.

Now, we’re going to come to deal with the Liverpool Pilot and the findings and, as I’ve already identified, that related to November 2020, but can we first briefly look together at a SAGE paper from 27 August 2020 because, obviously, that pre-dated your pilot and the findings, just to identify if any of those themes chime with what you found in the Liverpool Pilot.

Please could we display INQ000061561, thank you.

And so if we move forward within that document, please. It’s paragraph 18, please, where we find the observations that SAGE provided in advance of your pilot around mass screening.

If we could go to paragraph 18, the next page, please.

SAGE found that:

“The effectiveness of mass testing will depend on several factors including the proportion of the population tested; the frequency of testing; the ability of a test to identify true positives and negatives; the speed of results; and adherence to isolation. It is important to recognise that testing is one part of a system leading to isolation of infectious individuals and the whole system needs to work in order to achieve the desired aim (which would be to identify as many infectious people as possible and isolate them from contacts during the infectious period).”

Perhaps just to complete the context, if we could go to the next page, please, and paragraph 22, the SAGE document also records:

“With mass testing, it will be most efficient and effective initially to concentrate increased testing capacity on high-risk groups and settings where transmission is likely to be greatest. Priority groups for mass testing should be identified according to the risk of individuals being infectious, and the potential consequences if they tested positive. For the system to work social and economic factors will need to be considered, including incentives and interventions to enhance adherence.”

And so, Professor Buchan, just as a general principle, could I ask you, we can see that that document identified that testing is just one part of a system that leads to isolation, and does it follow, from your perspective, that mass testing should be considered as one potential component of a wider robust TTI system alongside properly planned and resourced contact tracing and isolation, and effective use of asymptomatic testing?

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes, my colleagues in this meeting from 27 August 2020 rightly recognise that testing is more than a test. It is a whole system. It is a system embedded in a community that requires tracing around people who test positive, the understanding of why that tracing is important, effective means of isolation, including support for people in isolation, to consider social and economic factors. That is, it’s a whole-community, whole-system approach.

Lead 7: Thank you. Could I then ask you additionally, do you have a view as to whether potential mass testing initiatives should be modelled as part of scenario planning for pandemic preparedness?

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes. It’s very important to rehearse a whole-system approach to involve the communities. We have very rich public services that have deep relationships with their local communities, particularly local public health teams. And that diversity, my military colleagues describe it sometimes as “distributed resilience”, having a network of strong communities, is more powerful than one hub for preparedness with lots of spokes that wait for a command from the hub. The battlefield needs to keep on fighting the battle if it’s cut off from the war room, and that is offered by our local public health teams.

Lead 7: Thank you. Now, by way of headline, we’re going to come to deal with the Liverpool Pilot, but was it your experience from the Liverpool Pilot that SAGE’s view was completely supported by a need for a whole-system approach, as your pilot identified?

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes, there were many conversations, as you can imagine. It was a very fast-moving situation, where evidence was generated very quickly, within five weeks. As I say, I reported the interim findings on 10 December 2020, after the pilot had begun on 6 November 2020.

The findings included some deep information about inequalities. How – financial and digital poverty being a barrier to accessing testing as important information that should shape how community testing was done. It also became apparent that that the most useful kind of testing was a tool that communities could take themselves, and organise around, so self-testing. Earlier in the year the offer had been testing that needed a laboratory, other kinds of testing. So a lot of evidence generated quickly.

Lead 7: We’ll come to the findings and the interim report and then an updated report, but can you now take us through how it was that the project developed.

And you start the chronology, just to give a context of the project, from 31 October 2020. And I think it’s right to identify, by way of a broader context the Inquiry has heard, this was at a time when there was consideration being given to Operation Moonshot, we know that we are approaching the time where we went to the second national lockdown, on 6 November.

So, with that brief context, and as you’ve already highlighted, the trials that were taking place with the new testing device, lateral flow devices, could you give an overview to the chair of the lead-up to the project and then what you did in the project, please.

Professor Iain Buchan: On 31 October 2020 I received a call from my colleagues to have a conversation with government. There was an offer of testing, with military assistance, twice weekly, targeting three quarters of the population.

We said immediately that that was an unrealistic target. We couldn’t achieve three-quarters. And that testing had to be invited in by the community. It has to be understood by the community if it was to be sustained. And that was accepted, that a more community-based approach could be shaped and that the military assistance would be from a gold command run by Liverpool City. It was a very productive conversation.

We also looked at the evidence emerging on the effectiveness of lateral flow devices that was presented in that meeting, and considered it and put together the MAST, or the Mass Asymptomatic Serial Testing protocol.

Lead 7: Thank you.

Now, can you then, just for clarity for the Chair, give an overview of organisations that were involved. You tell us in the statement that it involved colleagues from the Department of Health and Social Care, colleagues from Public Health England, academics from the University of Oxford, but in addition you had the local resources of the local public health teams, the directors of public health and the local trust where obviously patients were being admitted with Covid.

Are there any other key stakeholders, as well as the police and military, that were involved in the pilot?

Professor Iain Buchan: It was very much a team effort between the stakeholders that you’ve mentioned, but one of the most important stakeholders was our local communities, the community leaders, and they were represented by public health professionals. Wearing my own public health hat and with my director of public health, we channelled the needs of our communities and promised to take back to them an initial design of how the pilot would work, and only to proceed after that consultation.

Lead 7: Now it’s clear from your statement that you worked at speed. The request came in on 31 October. You’ve just explained the MAST protocol that you then developed over 1 to 5 November. But whilst we deal with MAST, you go on to tell us in the statement that you changed the approach from MAST to SMART: symptomatic, meaningful, asymptomatic, repeated testing.

Can you just explained what the difference is and why it matters, please?

Professor Iain Buchan: Mm, it’s a really important word, “meaningful”. The meaning to our local communities is vital if they were to take testing, to protect themselves, their families, their workplaces and their wider community. One of the earlier pieces of feedback was that “serial” wasn’t understood, so that was changed to “repeated”. “Meaningful” was emphasised. “Asymptomatic”, finding people who didn’t know they had the virus and could pass it on was accepted.

We wrote a paper about this in the British Medical Journal. In the process of putting together SMART as a protocol with greater community involvement than had been anticipated, I think, at the offer of military assistance for testing, there was a lot of really useful work and thinking put together in a very short period of time. It was actually five days that the initial protocol for how sites would work, where someone turned up, would swab themselves whilst being observed, hand the swab to staff, it could be a military person, it could be a civilian person who had been trained to use the lateral flow device and then for quality assurance the lateral flow device was processed in a standard way and that went for data to be generated to come back to the research teams.

Lead 7: Thank you. Can we just then deal with the lateral flow device. We know they became in common use after your trial and as part of the community testing project, but can you help us as to which lateral flow device was being used as part of the trial, please?

Professor Iain Buchan: At the time of the pilot we weren’t told which manufacturer was involved. We did know that a number of devices had been tested by Public Health England, Porton division, with the University of Oxford and that the highest performing device was selected.

Actually, in the evidence I presented to SAGE on 10 December 2020, I put pictures of devices because we thought there were two manufacturers. There were different packaging. We had to scrape some of the codes off to investigate what – were we comparing one device. The little strip that goes in the device we were assured was from one manufacturer, it was just a different plastic packaging they had put together. It was only later into the trial that we learnt the name of the manufacturer.

Lead 7: Can we then summarise that part of the trial was to effectively assess whether lateral flow devices were suitably sensitive and specific to identify Covid? Is that correct? Because at that time the gold standard test that was only being used was the PCR lab test?

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes. What we needed in public health was a test of infectiousness to tell people that there were signs from a swab that they’d taken that they were likely to breathe out virus that was viable enough to pass on and infect someone else. The gold standard PCR test is a gold standard for a medical diagnosis. Has a patient presenting with these symptoms of Covid been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus? They may no longer be infectious. In fact, there are many days after which a patient is no longer infectious that a PCR test would be positive and we may need to get those people back to work, they may be in a key role that’s important for society in a pandemic. So we really needed a public health test of infectiousness and not a clinical test of having been infected.

Lead 7: Thank you. Now, you describe in some detail the systems of data and data flow that you utilised as part of the trial. Can I ask you to explain that to her Ladyship, in particular the Combined Intelligence for Population Health Action System that had been uniquely commissioned in Liverpool, please?

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes. One of the most important parts of an effective pandemic response is that all of the agencies are on the same page with live data, combined intelligence, so that the actions of tomorrow are informed by the data of today. We put together a new system, across Cheshire and Merseyside because there wasn’t a linked general practice/hospital/public health testing data system. There wasn’t one integrated database. That would normally take several years to put together. It was stood up in summer 2020, in 90 days by an excellent team, and it really did have the effect of helping those agencies to work well together, to a common set of timely information.

During the pilot of mass testing, we also combined military intelligence around footfall, colleagues in the British Army measured attendance at testing centres, the feedback from people running those testing centres. So that live sharing of how things were going could also involve moving a testing site.

We looked at geographical information that came not only from NHS data but from other sources of describing a neighbourhood. We had indicators of digital poverty for neighbourhoods, and that proved very useful. We were able to show that people in financial poverty and in digital poverty were more likely to get Covid and less likely to get tested.

Lead 7: Thank you. Now, you’ve indicated that that – did you say CIPHA system, was it, that had been approved by NHSX in the spring of 2020 but that was the system that was utilised in the pilot, and –

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes.

Lead 7: – you say this that it essentially gave “a feed of Covid-19 test results from the prototype national system, updated every 30 minutes”.

And you’ve helpfully extracted into your statement, I think, the dashboard as displayed.

Can we display that on the screen, please. It’s page 6 of the statement and it sits in paragraph 14, please, and could it be expanded.

Could I ask you, Professor Buchan, is that what you were seeing realtime being updated every 30 minutes during the pilot?

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes, it was. Here we see the lateral flow test results and the PCR test results, the different peaks or the different waves, as the virus evolves throughout the pandemic. Many colleagues use this as a single point of reference. They would look at it each morning and it would help create conversations. You see the big upswing from the Omicron variant, the very large peak there, the end of ‘21. At that time, a quarter of NHS staff were off work in isolation or quarantine, and the attention to these dashboards at this point were acute.

We also had dashboards on staff absence from key roles in the National Health Service.

Lead 7: Thank you.

Professor Iain Buchan: So it’s a very live conversation.

Lead 7: You have already headlined your interim report and then a later report. But there was a significant sticking point, my description, in respect of access to the data, would you agree? And rather than me summarising it, could you explain to the Chair what the issue was around data and access to the data, please?

Professor Iain Buchan: To look at the effects of mass testing of people being admitted to hospital with severe Covid, we needed to create comparator groups to Liverpool. There was no town or city exactly like Liverpool at the time so the best practice, analysis of the data, is what’s called a synthetic controlled analysis. You create an artificial Liverpool comprised of lots of small areas that have similar characteristics, such as previous hospital admission rates, their age structure, the amount of financial poverty and hardship, socioeconomic factors in that area, to make like-for-like comparisons.

At the time of the pilot we had asked for the data, in fact just before the pilot, to look at the effects of tiers on hospitalisation, the different tiers of restriction. So there was a live conversation asking for small area data to do this kind of best practice analysis. To show what we eventually showed, that the Liverpool Pilot reduced hospitalisation initially by around 43%, with a big push from the military and, overall, by 25%. It was an important finding but we did not receive the data to make that finding until 22 July 2021. There were, I think, 61 emails sent in trying to get hold of the data.

Lead 7: Thank you. So the statistics you’ve just given, of the 43% reduction in hospitalisation, you were only able to properly quantify that after you had access to the data in July 2021, some eight months after the pilot?

Professor Iain Buchan: That is correct.

Lady Hallett: Who was responsible for the blockage in getting you the data, or what was responsible?

Professor Iain Buchan: I think systems, a lack of clear line of sight between different agencies controlling the data of what to do in a pandemic situation. If you need to get the right data to the right people at the right time to make the right decisions, you need to have rehearsed what the process is for releasing the data. At the time the people with the contextual knowledge to provide the best analysis of the data were analysing the Liverpool Pilot, so this is a local team needing national data. There wasn’t a protocol in place to flow the data in that way.

So I think it was a system failure.

Lady Hallett: In every module, data rears its head, I’m afraid.

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes.

Ms Cartwright: Now, you’ve mentioned the 61 emails. We’re going to hear from Matthew Gould tomorrow, but I think he was one of those individuals from NHSX that you were liaising with. We can ask him tomorrow about the efforts he took and who he spoke to, to try to resolve the blockage, but could you just give a summary of the input of Mr Gould, please.

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes, NHSX were very helpful in enabling us to put together the combined intelligence system that underpinned some important work in the Liverpool Pilot, and really helped to get different agencies to release the data. The data actually eventually came, via a system we had in place, the place-based longitudinal data resource.

Lead 7: Thank you.

Professor Iain Buchan: But there was a lot of support from NHSX to move things along.

Lead 7: Can we then look, please, at, I think, a graph that shows the modelling and assumptions you made with the data you had and then the update when you had the complete picture. Could we look at page 9, please, of your statement which is at paragraph – the top of the page, please, if that could be expanded.

This is the impact of mass testing on the hospitalisations. We can see the 43% figure. Is the smaller figure, the 25%, is that the initial assessment that had been made without full access to the data as to what it was thought in November 2020 being the success of the pilot?

Professor Iain Buchan: No, the 25% is the main figure, that’s for the whole period when Liverpool was testing, and other places weren’t, with lateral flow devices. There’s about a quarter reduction in hospitalisation. That’s the main headline. In the first few weeks, with military assistance, there was a bigger effect, and that’s the 43% number. We weren’t able to show any effect at the time because we only had data aggregated for the rest of England to the level of local authority districts or hospital catchment areas. The Joint Biosecurity Centre at the time had the lead on that analysis on hospitalisation, so they weren’t able to get those national data.

Lead 7: Can I just pause you there. So after the pilot had finished in the November 2020, the Joint Biosecurity Centre also was seeking to try and get access to the hospitalisation data?

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes.

Lead 7: And were they able to say what were the difficulties they had? Did they assist as to where the problem was?

Professor Iain Buchan: They didn’t specify.

Lead 7: No. And so – I jumped ahead of myself. So, actually, by the end of the pilot, you could not make any assessment about what impact the pilot had had on hospitalisations; you were only able to do that in the July once you had the data?

Professor Iain Buchan: That is correct.

Lead 7: So can I then ask you what conclusions you were able to draw at the end of the pilot about its successes, please, and perhaps in doing so, give a summary of what was happening practically with the people of Liverpool, please.

Professor Iain Buchan: By 10 December 2020 we were able to report back to SAGE, an increase in ability to detect cases. We were finding people who didn’t have symptoms and were testing positive, the –

Lead 7: Testing positive on the lateral flow?

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes.

Lead 7: Thank you.

Professor Iain Buchan: So the testing positive on lateral flow, that increased our ability to detect cases by around a fifth. We estimated a reduction in cases by around a fifth. Communities very much welcomed this, there was very positive feedback. Communities said this gave them hope. The call to arms to our communities was “Let’s all get tested”, that then moved to test before you go. And a quarter of the city came forward in a month. This is the November rain, there was a lot of negativity in the media at the time around the value of the lateral flow devices. So with a grit and grace that is distinctly Liverpool, our communities came forward.

Lead 7: Can I ask you what is the figure of a quarter of the population of Liverpool? Just to have some idea as to the sign-up by the community, please.

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes. So there’s a half million population of Liverpool in total. Throughout the whole pilot, half of the city came forward. It was that first month with the critical findings that we had a quarter of the population volunteer.

Lead 7: Thank you.

Can I ask you, you reference in your statement the issue of culture, and you say that, despite the health challenges faced by the city of Liverpool, the decades that you’ve detailed of rising poverty and ill health:

“The culture of Liverpool is highly collaborative and welcomes participation in research and data sharing to advance health.”

Can I then ask you then, extracting themes, given the importance of public engagement in public health initiatives to combat pandemics, and in test, trace, isolate in particular, why do you think this is, and how can such a culture be promoted throughout the United Kingdom?

Professor Iain Buchan: Throughout the United Kingdom we have the benefit of local public health teams. One of the most important roles of those teams in protecting and promoting human health is to develop a relationship with communities, to understand the context in which people live, so when there is an urgent situation like a pandemic, those relationships don’t have to be created overnight. They can’t be created overnight. They’re drawn upon.

In the Liverpool Pilot we were able to access community leaders to shape the forms of communication that went out from Liverpool City Council. The key messages, even the hashtag #LetsAllGetTested, was road-tested with our own communities. The feedback from those attending testing centres, critical feedback, such as “We may not isolate because we may not be able to afford to”, were vital insights, afraid of losing income or losing jobs.

This was in a city where 48% of the economy relies upon visitors. A third children are still born in poverty. As a public health physician, I think about harms not just in a week or a month, but over a whole lifetime. And the life chances of the children growing up in the pandemic were an important consideration. That was expressed by our communities as well. They really cared about that. They wanted to understand the role of testing.

Lead 7: Whilst you’ve just mentioned children, can I ask you around, from a public health perspective, we have statements around education and testing but have you any views on who are key locally for getting testing right in schools, please.

Professor Iain Buchan: A director of public health, the existing relationships between schools. Health activities that happen all the time, in good public health practice, between schools and local public health teams are vital. In fact, in the Liverpool Pilot, many of our schools wanted to involve their children and their families in creative means of engagement, in testing. Ideally, there would have been that kind of approach, not driven from the centre, but really using that local resource. Considering parents, grandparents, extended family: you don’t test a school in isolation; you test a community. And a school is a really important part of that community. It’s a hub of information and coordination.

Lead 7: Thank you. I’m going to look with you, please, at the summary you’ve given in paragraph 19 of your statement, if that could be displayed, as to findings. But just on the practicalities, we know that lateral flow devices were being utilised. If someone tested positive on a lateral flow device, is it correct that the pilot then was to provide a PCR test, to then check if that was supporting the positivity as identified on the lateral flow device?

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes.

Lead 7: And that’s what fed into the ability to say the lateral flow devices are effective, and they are usable from a mass perspective? Perhaps if you want to give your evidence about that rather than me summarising it very poorly.

Professor Iain Buchan: There were two ways of looking at the effect of lateral flow tests. One was just the quality assurance. So a subset of the people coming forward had two swabs: one for the lateral flow device, one for PCR. And that at the core quality assurance. That’s the number that comes forward of the 40% sensitivity, which is what we expected. So that told us the device was working as expected.

On the confirmatory PCR, if someone tested positive and faced potential challenges of loss of income from work, it was felt important to do a confirmatory PCR test.

We used local messaging rather than relying on a national follow-up for PCR. And that worked very well. If you receive a text message from your general practice as normal, and you extend that to say, “You’ve tested positive on lateral flow, do you want a confirmatory PCR?” If it’s a local message people are more likely to respond to it than something they’re not used to.

Lead 7: Can I ask you about that? So was that the mechanism of giving the communication through GP text?

Professor Iain Buchan: That was developed partway through. So it was part of this evolution. So the importance of an action research response considering how you can improve an intervention in flight.

Lead 7: Thank you. Well, let’s look at your paragraph 19, please, which summarises the main findings for the pilot. Firstly, as you’ve already said:

“… testing had public support as evidenced by a quarter of Liverpool’s population volunteering to test in a month, despite that media speculation …”

Secondly:

“… testing increased detection of previously unknown cases …”

Thirdly:

“… the Liverpool Pilot reduced the number of new cases by around a fifth …”

Fourthly:

“… poverty, low digital access or poor literacy were risk factors for infection and barriers to uptake of testing …”

Fifthly:

“… fear of income loss drove reluctance to test, indicating a need for financial support for those on low incomes testing positive and having to isolate.”

Then you say this, which I’d like your help with, please, Professor Buchan:

“All but the fifth main finding were acted upon.”

Can you be clear what you mean by that, please.

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes. The fourth finding showed that those in digital poverty were more likely to get Covid and less likely to get tested, so we advised a universal access approach, not requiring a website or an app to access testing.

And some of the communities we serve, we target a reading age of nine to ten, and there’s low health literacy in some of our communities in greatest need.

So universal access, picking up tests from a pharmacy, et cetera, without needing a digital means, was really important. That was accepted.

Arguably even more important was support for people to isolate without fear of losing so much income it would imperil their family or risk them losing their job.

That wasn’t acted upon.

Lead 7: Can I ask you, because we know at this time, in November, the scheme in England that gave a £500 isolation payment availability was in place. Did you see any effects of that operating in practice in Liverpool in November time?

Professor Iain Buchan: No, it was too complicated. It was an unusual scheme. There was a local variant of that. We asked for more resourcing to local variants to engage – to use our local communication systems to explain to communities, and make it easier to access payments but that wasn’t forthcoming. Ideally these things would be prepared before a pandemic.

Lead 7: Thank you.

Then can I then ask on the general theme: do you agree that proper levels of financial support for isolation must form part of preparedness for a future pandemic?

Professor Iain Buchan: Certainly.

Lead 7: Your recommendations, which we’ll come to in a moment, include access to support for those who may struggle in isolation. What features do you consider such a system of support should offer to workers, please?

Professor Iain Buchan: Financial support, material support. If childcare is needed. Work with communities to find out, through scenarios, what support would be needed in the case of having to isolate tomorrow. These things can be rehearsed now.

Lead 7: Thank you. Now then, on data sharing as well, you’ve already mentioned about the public support. You detail in your statement that public support is vital for data sharing needed to optimise pandemic testing and that there’s been strong public support for data-driven health innovation.

Can you offer any observations on what steps should or could be taken now to maintain public support for and confidence in such data sharing?

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes, for example, Liverpool City region created the first Civic Data Cooperative to make data of local residents work harder for and with local residents, going through scenarios of how to protect and improve health with data-driven technologies.

In each of the workshops I’ve had the privilege of serving those communities in, there have been remarkably helpful and creative ideas that have come forward from residents. We’ve just run a Residents’ Assembly on uses of data for Liverpool City region with around 80 participants, and there’s a really strong feeling that there needs to be feedback. If the public have said, “We expect data to be used in a particular way”, our communities want to be kept involved, want to be in the loop.

So we’ve seen a remarkable public support for the kinds of data floss that we need in extremis in pandemic responses.

Lead 7: Thank you. And can I ask you again in the context of that, how are issues or concerns around privacy and accurate overcome in that scenario, please?

Professor Iain Buchan: By applying best practice information governance, the CIPHA was rolled out with best practice security. For example, our data analysts don’t need to see names, addresses, anything identifiable, but they still treat the data as if they were identifiable, and work in trustworthy research environments or secure data environments. That discipline was in place because we’d been preparing the Civic Data Cooperative which also includes cooperative working between universities, local public health teams, the National Health Service, using one system, so core information systems that are well governed. It’s easier to have good governance on one system than to have three parallel systems where you’re diluting your resource for that governance with separate systems, for direct care, research, and planning separately, a combined approach was very effective.

Lead 7: Thank you. Now, you tell us in the statement that on rolling basis as the pilot was taking place in Liverpool you were updating the findings to SAGE; is that correct?

Professor Iain Buchan: That is correct.

Lead 7: And can I ask you, then, whether you’ve any observations or you’ve any knowledge around a pilot that was also being run from 21 November to the 20 December 2020 in Wales in Merthyr Tydfil? Do you have any knowledge about the final workings of that pilot as to whether they, similarly, were sharing the findings of their pilot with SAGE?

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes, colleagues In the Eighth Engineer Brigade were preparing to mobilise into Merthyr Tydfil, from Liverpool. This was discussed in the after-action review meetings, the mop-up meetings with the military, what they’d learnt from Liverpool, and how they were going to deploy in Merthyr Tydfil. Indeed, one of my department was deployed into the Welsh Government, one of my department from the University of Liverpool was deployed into the Welsh Government as a health economist and worked on the evaluation of Merthyr Tydfil pilot.

We deliberately kept the evaluations independent as that is best practice.

Lead 7: So is there any other additional insights you can provide relating to that pilot?

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes, the economic evaluation showed that there’s a ten times return on investment. It was modelled that there was a ten times return on investment.

I think the eminent statistician George Box said all models are wrong but some are useful. I believe this one was useful and thoughtful, ie, the cost of testing, ten times that amount was saved. The public participation was very high. The community benefit was tangible, the community involvement was best practice.

Lead 7: Thank you.

And then, again, through a Welsh perspective, we know from your statement that asymptomatic community testing in the wider Liverpool region began on 3 December 2020, essentially a month earlier than under the scheme that was launched under the Community Testing Programme, but then similarly, or differently, rather, in the Welsh Government on 28 January 2021, they essentially targeted community testing in Wales firstly only in three local authorities from 3 March 2021, and are you able to assist as to why a different approach was taken as to rollout of that testing in Wales when your pilot had identified the clear benefits of testing and identification of positivity with asymptomatic presentation?

Professor Iain Buchan: I think there were a number of factors. Throughout England and Wales, there was discussion at the time as to whether asymptomatic sites rather than self-testing were the predominant means of delivery, conversations with local authorities, local public health teams, the variety of ways in which that would be deployed.

It became more apparent that the most powerful means of protecting communities was to give those communities the lateral flow tests, the tools to fit into their own homes, to fit into the rhythms of daily life and to self-organise around.

There was another factor in Wales, I think there were elections at the time, so there was a reluctance to commit finances for a long period.

Lead 7: Okay, thank you.

Now, can I ask you, when you’ve talked about the findings you’d identified as to digital poverty, can you help as to which policymakers you presented those findings to and any response you received to those findings, please?

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes, I presented the findings on digital poverty first on 10 December 2020 to a SAGE meeting chaired by Lord Patrick Vallance. We were questioned in detail about that particular finding, and it was accepted then in the formation of a community testing policy that there should be access to testing without digital means. The full community testing rollout came into play eventually in April 2021. There was time needed, I think, to ramp up the logistics, the supply of the testing, and for local teams to get used to the previous conversation, changing to – from testing sites and specialist methods of testing, like, in a way, testing that was done to people, to testing that was done with and for people, which is by far the most powerful means of protecting a community, if they really understand and can embrace those tools and use them to best effect.

Lead 7: Thank you. Can I ask you, then, a thought around what else can be done. How do you think public health systems can better address digital exclusion, particularly for ethnic minority communities in future public health crises?

Professor Iain Buchan: We’re moving to an age where AIs can speak different languages. It would be normal for an NHS AI, at some point, to ring you up and say, “You’ve got an appointment coming up? How are your symptoms? How are you getting on with those medicines?” As it becomes normal to interact with services through AI, we can lower the barrier to information. We currently rely on technologies that you have to read and type into. When it’s talking to an AI and it’s listening to you, there is more calibration you can do with the end user. There’s a way of improving the access to the information that flexes to the needs of the person being interacted with.

Lady Hallett: But how does that lower the barrier for those that are digitally excluded?

Professor Iain Buchan: That’s a very good point, my Lady. Some of my communities can’t afford a data tariff. So we need digital inclusion across society for many purposes that would benefit us in pandemic times. The basic technologies are there. The affordability is another policy question.

Lady Hallett: And by that, are we talking about giving people devices? Because if they’ve not had a device before, the chances are they’re not going to be very adept at using them.

Professor Iain Buchan: No, I think policies to give access to connection is the most important way forward. There are many groups, in fact in my own university, Professor Simeon Yates, and others, studied digital inclusion and the means of different policy options for bringing people in to an AI age where it will be very difficult to interact with services without being online. But if I look at India at the moment, you can’t have a bank account in India without talking to an AI. Sometimes devices are shared between families. You can’t prescribe what people should use, but I think we can, in public health, and wider policy making, assist the connection of those devices to a wider world of service and information.

Lady Hallett: You can’t provide an eight-year-old grandchild to rely on either, can you, to …

Professor Iain Buchan: No.

Ms Cartwright: Thank you.

I’m going to move now to the recommendations, for the last portion of my questioning, please.

I’m going to display only very briefly so it underlines the point you wish to make.

Please can we display INQ000587458, which is the structure of the various SAGE subgroups that provided the advice that fed into and assisted decision makers, and we can see Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours, SPI-B, and the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Modelling, but I think you have an overarching recommendation that you would wish to make in respect of a different sort of group that’s needed. And I think, is it fair to say, looking at your statement, involving public health but taking a systems approach?

Can I ask you, then, to give your suggestion to her Ladyship, please.

Professor Iain Buchan: As my colleagues in SAGE have already cited, a systems approach is vital. Public health practitioners implement science in a systems way but public health researchers also create a joined-up scientific conversation. For example, members of SPI-M contacted my colleagues and were surprised to find out when they were modelling the spread of the Covid-19 virus between hospitals and care homes, they were surprised to find that staff in care homes work between different care homes in the community, some of those staff which are some of our lowest paid workers live in close-knit communities themselves. So the routes of transmission – this is second nature to public health researchers such as myself, who regularly ask to look at complex patterns such as these in local data. Giving those modellers the heads up that they should build their models differently could save time.

Now, that is a behavioural insight from frontline public health practice.

Similarly, I have researchers who do joint modelling of behaviours and the spread of a virus in a pandemic. That’s very useful for behavioural scientists to know about the latest mathematical advances as they pertain to a pandemic situation or other public health means. So public health is the glue, public health research can glue together better science. It creates a continuous learning system, a rapid learning system, which is vital for pandemic responsiveness and preparedness.

A SPI-S systems input here, it could be runners between these different groups who come together as public health researchers, like bees cross-pollinating the flowers and making sure that there is a joined-up conversation as early and as deep as it should be. And perhaps a little more representation of public health research on the regular membership of SAGE, to put that joined-up conversation back.

Lead 7: Thank you. And, in fact, Professor McKee himself also referenced the essential nature of the glue of public health and it’s clear from what you’ve just said you echo and support that principle –

Professor Iain Buchan: I do.

Lead 7: – for pandemics preparedness. Thank you.

Lady Hallett: Can I just ask, is it necessary to have a new group or could you have better representation, you’ve said about on the main membership of SAGE, but what about public health researchers on SPI-M-O and SPI-B?

Professor Iain Buchan: You could have a distributed group like that, runners who are members on those other groups. We have a good line of reporting from directors of public health to our Chief Medical Officer who does an excellent job of integrating those views but the public health research, it does need embedding in those research conversations, very, very early. And some of the research will be done differently, if you’ve got that embedded view.

Lady Hallett: So you’re saying – that’s why you’ve used “specific group” as opposed to simply scattering public health researchers across subgroups?

Professor Iain Buchan: I think the people across the subgroups need to talk to one another to compare notes.

Ms Cartwright: Thank you.

And then for ease of summary and also because of the timings, can I have displayed, please, page 21 of your statement where you’ve very comprehensively summarised your recommendations. The wider statement will be published, Professor Buchan, but your overarching recommendations alongside what you’ve just said around a SPI system is, firstly, that UKHSA to maintain and disseminate a blueprint for purpose and data driven pandemic testing, building on the work you’ve detailed in the statement, but essentially with a clear clarity as to purpose as to why you’re testing, and you’ve given all the various variations of how you use the tool of a test and the need to know why you’re doing a test. Would that be a fair summary?

Professor Iain Buchan: It’s vital to be clear about the purpose of testing. We’ve seen that the optimal medical test for Covid-19 is not the optimal test of infectiousness, for carrying the virus of Covid-19 and potentially passing it on, a test that takes two days as a medical test, two days when someone could be passing on the virus, and otherwise be informed by a rapid test that they should isolate to protect their community. To use differently, to come back to work sooner. Test-to-Release from isolation has another need: it’s when you become negative. We saw in 2021 the UK had many posts on social media about people’s repeat lateral flow tests, and when that blue line went fainter, that was then losing infectiousness. At the same time the United States, in Omicron, were saying go back to work after five days.

Lead 7: Thank you.

Professor Iain Buchan: We were able to show actually people were infectious beyond five days. So these – the clarity of purpose is really important for how you design the testing programme.

Lead 7: Thank you. And you’ve set them all out is there.

Similarly, Professor Buchan, we’ve not had time to deal with, but it’s detailed in your statement that will be published, how the lateral flow devices were used for Test-to-Release with the Blue Light service in frontline workers.

Then if we go over the page, please, we can see the continuations of Test-to-Confirm and Test-to-Understand.

Then the second recommendation is for:

“UKHSA to use the pandemic testing blueprint to run scenario planning activities and develop, maintain and publish sleeper protocols …”

It’s detailed there as to your support for that, but I think, building on what you’ve said about data, would you also be recommending essentially work is done now on developing protocols to essentially get over the issues of data that have caused blockages in the pandemic, as seen in the evidence that’s been before her Ladyship?

Professor Iain Buchan: I would. I would urge Operation Pegasus and other activities of preparedness to look very deeply at the complexity of systems of response, that need to be evaluated as whole systems. For example, with lateral flow testing, one person testing in a family can affect another person’s risk behaviours. They may be more cautious, they may adhere to guidance more if there is raised awareness in the family.

So the way you evaluate that needs to consider the whole complexity of that intervention. It is more than a test to break one transmission chain of a virus. It is the community intervention, and needs analysis from the biological, the behavioural, the environmental, social perspectives, and multi-disciplinary evaluation. The protocols for that will highlight the different data sources that need to be brought together. The granularity of those data, we mentioned earlier we needed neighbourhood statistics on hospitalisation.

Lead 7: Thank you.

Professor Iain Buchan: So having those prepared now is entirely possible and will be extremely useful for the next pandemic.

Lead 7: Thank you. You’ve given a number of headers as to what those protocols should address, but finally, please, for my questions, over the page, you also make a recommendation, again with underpinning detail which we won’t have time to explore, but essentially that:

“All stakeholders to test and refine the principles, plans and protocols through continuous preparation between pandemics.”

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes, we have a rehearsal most winters, with winter pressures, and the data systems we need to respond to winter pressures are the core information systems we need to respond well to the next pandemic. So the investment in those. Which isn’t just financial investment, it’s the investment of talented teams in each civic setting, in each academic health system. Many places where engineers, scientists, people in the NHS, local public health teams, can come together and develop ideal information systems for health. Particularly as we’ve got highly advancing AI potential.

To do so can create jobs in our local community, which many of our residents who take part in exercises of how they want their data to be used, say is really important to them.

A national grid of this kind of creativity also provides that distributed resilience, those communities who not only are inputting the right data at the right time, but they know how to use the output intelligence from those systems. If we’re applying that to responding to winter pressures, for example, we’re rehearsing for a pandemic.

Ms Cartwright: Thank you, Professor Buchan. Those are my questions.

My Lady, there are a number of Core Participants who have been granted permission to ask questions.

Lady Hallett: Very well.

Mr Jacobs.

He’s over there.

Mr Jacobs: [Microphone not on] and I think in fact that’s been covered.

Lady Hallett: Oh, thank you very much, Mr Jacobs.

Mr Jacobs: I’m grateful, thank you.

Lady Hallett: Thank you.

Mr Thomas.

Who is there.

Questions From Professor Thomas KC

Professor Thomas: Good morning, Professor Buchan. My name is Leslie Thomas and I’m representing the Federation of Ethnic Minority Healthcare [workers] Organisations.

Professor, the matter that we wish to address today is central to my clients’ concerns and relates directly to the core objectives to this Inquiry: the issue of equity in the implementation of the Covid-19 testing strategies. And of critical importance is whether there was proper consideration of the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on ethnic minority communities.

And I suppose the concern can be put in this way, whether inequalities and digital inclusion that disproportionately affected minority ethnic groups and individuals with protected characteristics were adequately considered during the development and rollout of the testing strategies.

So, with that in mind, can I turn to the questions, and the first question is this: was an equality impact assessment, an EIA, ever conducted on testing decisions that you were part of?

Professor Iain Buchan: Thank you, Mr Thomas, yes. The equality and the equity impact was core to the design of the Liverpool Pilot. We broke down our dashboards for – that all of our organisations looked at on a daily basis by ethnicity, material deprivation – in fact we noted that a greater proportion of people attending testing centres were refusing to declare ethnicity. So we talked to local community leaders about feelings on that. It was very much a conversation, not just consideration of the data after the fact. We also went to community leaders and put before them potential publicity material, the #LetsAllGetTested campaign, the #TestBeforeYouGo campaign …

Indeed, we’d had remarkable success in Toxteth with more conventional testing in summer of 2020, led by community leaders, employing unusual devices like an ice cream van, involvement of local faith groups, really shaped by communities. And this is very much a Liverpool way of doing things.

So our recommendations to national policy were to use those relationships of local public health teams with their communities and be prepared to flex.

Professor Thomas KC: With that last answer in mind, what were the outcomes and how did the findings of the EIA influence the development and the rollout of the testing strategies?

Professor Iain Buchan: I think the universal access testing strategy accepted our impact assessment that financial and digital poverty, but other forms of barrier to access to testing, were really important considerations, and that they had to listen to local public health teams, through the Association of the Directors of Public Health, through the reporting lines to the Chief Medical Officer, on other forms of inequality.

We saw increasing inequalities, sadly, throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. So this is front of mind in my public health colleagues and we’re grateful to the engagement of our communities.

Professor Thomas KC: Finally this: given the acknowledgements that you made earlier on, looking forward and, you know, being future-orientated, what more do you think could be done in the next pandemic?

Professor Iain Buchan: I think there is a planning meeting tomorrow for some of the preparedness of Pegasus in the autumn. You know, whatever we do now to consider future pandemic responses, needs to consider equity at its core. And the measures for preparedness need to be co-created with a sufficient diversity of people of lived experience of being asked to isolate and the consequences of that, being asked to use tests in ways that may not be accessible.

We can overcome those barriers if we have an inclusive approach to the rehearsals underway.

Professor Thomas: Thank you, Professor.

My Lady.

Lady Hallett: Thank you, Mr Thomas.

Ms Munroe?

Questions From Ms Munroe KC

Ms Munroe: Thank you, my Lady.

Good morning, Professor. My name is Allison Munroe. I represent the group Covid Bereaved Families for Justice UK. Thank you very much for your very clear evidence this morning. Just a few points arising, if I may, please. Just two short topics.

My first question arises from the Liverpool Pilot, Professor. Ms Cartwright King’s Counsel very helpfully has taken you through the findings one to five at paragraph 19 of your statement. And the fact that all but number 5 were actioned. So I’m not going to go through those again. You did also this morning reference a paper that you were co-author to in the BMJ, I believe that was in February 2021, a paper called “Put to the Test: Use of Rapid Testing Technologies for Covid-19”; is that right?

Professor Iain Buchan: Mm.

Ms Munroe KC: Under the subheading of Test-to-Release in the paper you say this or you and your co-authors say this:

“No test can replace comprehensive support, both practical and financial, as a means of tackling low rates of self-isolation, particularly in disadvantaged communities.”

My question is this: Professor, were you aware that your findings or the need for financial support were consistent with the views expressed by SAGE, Independent SAGE, the AMS, and others, about the importance of this factor in implementing an effective TTI system?

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes, this concern was widely discussed amongst my public health colleagues and scientifically, public health research colleagues. It was a concern and so we looked very closely at the data that was coming through from the Liverpool Pilot, and we also asked very detailed questions, people attending testing centres and household surveys, that homed in on the barriers to isolation.

Ms Munroe KC: I suppose, my Lady, if may just ask a follow-up from that.

Would you agree, Professor, then, at the time there was this growing body of findings from various agencies, then, about the fact that practical and financial support is inextricably linked to an effective TTI system and that information, those findings, the government could have drawn upon them if they had so wished because it was out there at the time?

Professor Iain Buchan: It was an expected finding. There were plenty of prior evidence that this would be an important barrier. In fact, my colleagues in Wales described the inverse testing law, as we often describe in public health, the inverse care law, that those with the most need for care often have the greatest barriers to care and the lowest uptake to care. We did not want that to be the case with the testing. So this isn’t a new – it wasn’t a surprise.

Ms Munroe KC: Thank you very much.

Next topic and question: you note at your paragraph 24 that the need to consider local public health complexities was seen in the outcomes of initiatives to increase vaccine uptake, and comment that findings of unsuccessful initiatives were rarely publicised but discussed in forums such as the ADPH.

First question: do your observations about the need to consider local public health complexities apply equally to TTI, given the importance – and it’s certainly come out from your evidence this morning – of local knowledge, public health experts, and the effectiveness of a test and trace initiative?

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes. We used local tracing and, in fact, many public health teams across the country benefited from highly local approaches to contact tracing. In fact, in reopening mass events with a public health safety net in place, we focused on not just testing before attending an event, but vigorous contact tracing for anyone who tested positive, and communication to minimise mixing before and after the event. That local approach is highly effective when you’re responding to continuous feedback from your communities on what is understood, what is expected, what their concerns are. And I’d encourage that local approach in future – even in designing artificial intelligence that allows greater scale in contact tracing. There aren’t enough people to go round to follow up everyone at the height of a pandemic. We’ll have to use technologies. But they can be designed by local communities to fit the way they speak about life in general, about the concerns that they have, the language that’s used, and how that adapts to the feedback they give is really important.

We can put that in some of the preparedness rehearsals that we’re doing now.

Ms Munroe KC: Thank you very much.

Finally, again from your paragraph 24, do you think would greater transparency about unsuccessful as well as successful public health initiatives be of assistance for future pandemic preparedness and planning?

Professor Iain Buchan: Yes. And I think that message should go to scientific journals on what they accept. Negative findings are extremely important, and there is a reluctance of some scientific colleagues to publish negative findings because they are hard to get into journals.

On the Liverpool Pilot we deliberately put out findings on the university website. As we had ratified them, we had teams working blind from one another, analysing the same data, answering the same question. And when we ratified their findings, we put that out there before waiting for the publication.

There were important negatives – let me give you an example, of the use of vaccine buses. So we saw in Liverpool an increase by 25% of uptake of vaccination, with a combination of a bus that went into areas of low vaccine uptake but with a wraparound communication that was designed by those communities.

In other parts of the country, I think in Greater Manchester used the bus but without the wraparound communication. There wasn’t that uptake, but there isn’t a scientific paper I was able to find on the publication of that. We did publish something from Liverpool. If it had been a negative finding it might have been more difficult to get into a journal. We would have kept pressing.

But negative findings teach you a lot, and the more we have natural experiments – many different local public health teams tried different ways to improve uptake of testing and vaccination. They used different data sources. That compare and contrast is extremely valuable learning. Indeed, I think there’s a social responsibility to surface the natural experiments that happen in a pandemic situation.

Ms Munroe: Thank you very much, Professor.

My Lady, thank you very much.

Lady Hallett: Thank you, Ms Munroe.

Those are all the questions we have for you, Professor.

I can’t speak on behalf of the people of Liverpool, but I’m sure they’ll wish me to, thank you so much for all that you tried to do to protect them and of course protect the rest of the public of the United Kingdom. So – were you born and bred in Liverpool? You’re very proud of Liverpool.

The Witness: I was, I was born in Norris Green, in 1967 –

Lady Hallett: I’ve got a number of Liverpudlian friends. I thought I detected – I think the phrase you used, was it grim and grace?

Professor Iain Buchan: Grit and grace. A gritty community.

Lady Hallett: Why did I say “grim”? Thank you very much

for your help to the Inquiry as well.

The Witness: My pleasure. Thank you.

Lady Hallett: I shall return at 11.35.

(11.17 am)

(A short break)

(11.35 am)

Lady Hallett: Ms Cartwright.

Ms Cartwright: Thank you, my Lady. The gentleman in the witness box is Mr Garton. Can I ask for him to please be sworn.

Mr Will Garton

MR WILL GARTON (affirmed).

Lady Hallett: I hope we haven’t kept you waiting, Mr Garton.

The Witness: You certainly have not. No, no, not at organisational.

Questions From Lead Counsel to the Inquiry for Module 7

Ms Cartwright: Can you please tell the Inquiry your full name.

Mr Will Garton: My name is Will Garton.

Lead 7: Thank you. And Mr Garton, can we identify your witness statement, please, and at the outset it is clear it is a corporate statement. It is 98 pages long, and we see your signature on page 98 on the statement dated 25 April 2025. And can I ask you, are the contents of that statement true to the best of your knowledge and belief?

Mr Will Garton: They are.

Lead 7: Thank you. Can we then identify who you are and the department for whom you work, because, plainly, this highly detailed statement has been the product of a huge amount of work, and it will be published, but I hope, with your assistance, to touch upon a number of issues, and in particular the issues that have been raised of concern on behalf of the Core Participants.

So can we commence, first of all, then, with identifying who you are. It’s right, isn’t it, that you are the Director General for Local Government, Growth and Communities, and you’ve been in this post since January of 2025?

Mr Will Garton: That’s correct.

Lead 7: Although, as you’ve told us, you had been a Director General in the Department since March 2022?

Mr Will Garton: That’s correct.

Lead 7: And you tell us that you’ve been responsible for the Department’s Covid-19 Inquiry Unit since January 2025?

Mr Will Garton: That’s correct.

Lead 7: And the Department is now known as the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government?

Mr Will Garton: Correct.

Lead 7: And you tell us in the witness statement how it was – it resorted to its earlier name –

Mr Will Garton: (Witness nodded).

Lead 7: – but just for completeness, because we may see it on some of the documents, can you just confirm how the Department was known at the time of the pandemic, please?

Mr Will Garton: Yeah, throughout the pandemic the Department was named the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

Lead 7: Thank you. Plainly, the Inquiry has already heard much evidence from the Department.

Mr Will Garton: Yes.

Lead 7: Mr Garton, it’s right, isn’t it, as well as the statement that will be published, what the Department has done, equally, is you have collated as appendices to the statement, reports by way of lessons learning but also the recommendations that the Department had already identified –

Mr Will Garton: Mm-hm.

Lead 7: – since the pandemic.

Mr Will Garton: That’s correct.

Ms Cartwright: My Lady, with your permission, those appendices also will be helpful to be uploaded.

Lady Hallett: Yes, thank you.

Ms Cartwright: Thank you.

Now, Mr Garton, I hope to touch upon a number of issues with you and necessarily with the short time we have together today, there will be a top line, but in the knowledge that the very detailed statement sits below it. The topics I’d like to deal with with you are: firstly, the Department’s conduit role with local government, including challenges with data; secondly, the issue of self-isolation, including the Test and Trace Support Payment Scheme and non-financial support; the issue of disproportionately impacted groups; the issue of centralisation of the TTI system, and we may touch upon the Department’s role in the Community Testing Programme; but I, finally, will deal with recommendations with you.

So can we start then, please, with the Department but also its conduit role with local government and it’s clear from a number of the statements we’ve received there are lines of responsibility –

Mr Will Garton: Mm.

Lead 7: – and oversight. So can I ask you, please, to explain the relevant role that the Department had by reference to matters of test, trace, isolate, please?

Mr Will Garton: Of course. Thank you. I think it is helpful to set it out. So the Department is the Lead Government Department for a range of different policy issues: housing, planning, rough sleeping, homelessness. Included in those is the stewardship of the local government system as a whole. So it is responsible for the system, for ensuring that it is adequately financed, and that it works.

And individual government departments have lead responsibilities for issues which are delivered through local authorities. So a simple example of that would be the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has responsibility nationally for waste and recycling but it is often done by local authorities.

So we are not the Lead Government Department in all instances. Sometimes we have Lead Government Department responsibility but the policy is also delivered through local authorities. So an example of that would be planning or rough sleeping where we are responsible centrally but local authorities do it.

So responsible for the system and – but not always the policy delivery, if that makes sense.

Lead 7: Yes, and it seems with making that point on many occasions the policy decisions, would it be fair to say, would then sit within the local authority and the local government?

Mr Will Garton: Yes, so to give you a different – so an issue pertaining to children’s services, the Department for Education holds policy nationally and operational decisions are made by local authorities, but MHCLG doesn’t necessarily have a role in that conversation, per se.

Lead 7: And the Inquiry has already heard evidence around the role of the Associate Directors of Public Health?

Mr Will Garton: Yes.

Lead 7: And particularly the role they would have on things like local contact tracing, which is obviously a role that sits within local government and local authorities. Can you just assist us to the role that the department has then in respect of that function of the local authority, please.

Mr Will Garton: So directors of public health would have and do have a direct relationship with the Department of Health and Social Care because that is the lead government policy line that runs through.

Insofar as the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government wants that relationship to go well, it is a sponsored department for their sector. It – if there are problems, we can play a role in unblocking them. We may be in the room. I don’t think we always necessarily need to be in the room and I think it is a sign of central government – a mature relationship between central government and local government that those relationships between, for example – in your example, directors of public health and the Department of Health and Social Care exist directly. We’re not some sort of gatekeeper and nor should we seek to be so, in my view.

Lead 7: I think you’ve identified, in answering that, the role essentially that the department does have for the proper funding of the functions of local government?

Mr Will Garton: Yes.

Lead 7: Thank you. And I think we’ll come on to look at that in the context of the isolation support scheme that was put in place –

Mr Will Garton: Yes.

Lead 7: – as part of the later period in 2020. But perhaps in terms of the role that your department had linked to that isolation payment that was essentially a scheme that was then operated within local government and locally, can you just be clear about the role that the department had by reference to that important isolation scheme, as it operated in England?

Mr Will Garton: Yes. This is self-isolation payments.

Lead 7: Yes, that’s correct.

Mr Will Garton: So this was a – this is – the policy responsibility here is with the Department of Health and Social Care. I think on this one we worked pretty closely with both the Lead Government Department and local authorities to try to devise a scheme that worked. That was because it was somewhat novel. We didn’t have an established mechanism of doing self-isolation payments to individuals that qualified for them. There are a number of operational considerations about how you make such a scheme work, how you mitigate fraud risk and how you ensure that the scheme is an overall success.

So the accountability and the policy lead sits with the Department of Health and Social Care. On that particular scheme, we were quite involved because we were – frankly we were concerned that we could make it work and we want to play that conduit role between local authorities and the Department of Health and Social Care.

Lead 7: Thank you. Can I ask you, because we know and we’ve got details already from His Majesty’s Treasury around the funding and the aspects that went to that, but the Inquiry also has evidence that the schemes as they operated across the devolved nations differed on the issue of isolation payments across the devolved nations. And can you give any oversight or view from the department as to the further complexities when you have schemes that are different across the devolved nations or can you only comment on as it applied to England?

Mr Will Garton: So our responsibility, I’m afraid, only applies to that that worked in England. I think we’ve been working with the devolved governments for over 25 years now so we’re in a good operational understanding about the different approaches that are taken in different nations of the United Kingdom. So my understanding is that the test and trace support payments, the complexity was not enhanced it was not made more difficult by the fact there were different systems operating in Scotland and Wales, but those were largely matters for those respective governments.

Lead 7: Thank you. Can we then explore just as part of topic 1, then, please, areas where essentially the department engages with local government. If it assists, we’re at your paragraph 27, please, page 6. Thank you.

You detail within the witness statement that essentially the various components of engagement that exist by way of this conduit role with local government include, through the local government regional relationship teams, engagement with local government sector bodies such as the Local Government Association, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, engagement channels by way of emails, letters and bulletins, and is that sort of a very high-level summary of the assistance the department provides?

Mr Will Garton: Yes, yes. I mean, I would say there’s not a – probably not a day that goes by in my job where I don’t engage with the sector as a whole. We draw a great richness from the experience that the sector brings us. We have a number of fora by which we do that. Some are formal. You’ve got some of them here, you know, the R9 various working groups, distinct engagement with local authority chief executive, county council networks, district council networks. Some are informal, but the department has a – the churn, the everyday rhythm of the department is to engage with the sector and to have deep relationships, and it’s one of the things that benefits us greatly.

Lead 7: Thank you. And I think if we scroll down, please, on page 7, to paragraph 28, we essentially see that those relationships were crucial to how the department was able to assist during the pandemic. I think you say that you used those pre-established engagement frameworks to engage with and communicate with local government, and it allowed cross governmental access to local authorities and access by local authority leaders to central government.

Mr Will Garton: That’s right.

Lead 7: Can we then please explore an issue as to I think what you’ve described a moment ago about how the Department could assist where blockages occurred.

Mr Will Garton: Mm-hm.

Lead 7: And one of the issues that’s identified within the statement, and I’m going to do it as an overview rather than get into the particularities of the detail, is that local government was raising issues around access to data, and particularly data that the Department of Health and Social Care had a role in that linked to the local resilience forum role that local government deploys.

Sorry, that’s many layers and different bodies and organisations, so perhaps if I break it down first of all.

It’s right, isn’t it, that the local resilience forums sit within the local authority, and its multi agencies that cooperate to the local resilience forums, and particularly in pandemics, as part of the Civil Contingencies Act?

Mr Will Garton: So local authorities don’t sit within a – sorry, resilience forums don’t sit within a local authority, so there are – local resilience forums map on to police authorities in England, and I know that you unpacked this a bit in Module 1. They were an important part of our response to the pandemic, there are 39 of them in England, and were able to give us an insight into what was happening with places.

Actually, I think the most of the engagement on this model is for test, trace, isolate and the some of the issues that have been raised in the witness statements about access to the data pertaining to the individual local authority. So they are at a smaller geographical scale than the local resilience forum which will tend to be a group that coordinates the major frontline services, not deal with public health outbreaks in an individual council.

Lead 7: Can we look at it, then, in the context of a particular paragraph, and thank you for the clarification around the local resilience forums.

Could we move, please, to page 29. It’s paragraph 125, please.

And this is a specific issue that’s raised and you’ve helpfully set out in your statement by reference to a data issue relating to the test, trace, isolate system. You say this:

“As the TTI system was established, the Department worked with the [Department of Health and Social Care] to raise the data needs of [local authorities]. Some local level data was provided to [local authorities] via the [local resilience forum] Dashboard”, as you deal with later in the statement.

Mr Will Garton: Yes.

Lead 7: You say this:

“… however, [local authorities] frequently escalated concerns to the Department around having limited and unreliable access to Covid-19 test and trace data.”

So can I ask you to either unpack that or expand as to that issue, and how the department assisted, and was it able to unpack that issue of access to data, please?

Mr Will Garton: No, of course. I mean, I think this is a significant issue. It comes up, obviously, in my witness statement and in that of many others. I think it is true to say that at the start of the pandemic, the department received many, many representations from local authorities about what they perceived to be a lack of any data or data that they could usefully use.

My witness statement from paragraphs 125 to 135 gives examples of how the department tried to raise that centrally to try and break through, to try and make progress. And I think what you see over the course of 2020 is an evolving story and an improving story. I think that to start off with – and I think the Local Government Association recognised that. In March and April, I think local authorities felt that they weren’t getting data that could meaningfully assist them. I think by May 2020, the arrival of Tom Riordan as both the chief executive of NHS Test and Trace and, simultaneously, the chief executive of Leeds City Council helped matters considerably.

Good practice network was set up, local authorities were on the board, and by about June 2020, the Department of Health is producing an interactive dashboard, as I point out in paragraph 133 of my statement, that whilst not perfect, and not doing everything that local authorities would like, is giving number of cases, rolling averages, and so on and so forth, but nonetheless there are limitations.

Lead 7: Can we just look together at paragraph 133 and 134 because if we look at the context it seems what the local authorities were saying is the lack of access to this data was fundamentally impeding what local authorities could be doing on the ground in the various local authorities. Now, you’ve already highlighted:

“On 6 June … [the Department of Health and Social Care] contacted the Department to request support in sending a letter to [local authority] chief executives, [local resilience forums] and Directors of Public Health to provide details of the new data dashboard to monitor outbreaks in their areas. The dashboard was developed by [the Department of Health and Social Care], NHS Digital, and NHSX. The letter provided colleagues in local government, Directors of Public Health and Clinical Commissioning Groups …”

Just pausing there, I know it was Clinical Commissioning Groups at that time –

Mr Will Garton: Yes.

Lead 7: – but they’ve subsequently gone now and it’s ICBs.

Mr Will Garton: Correct.

Lead 7: So:

“… Clinical Commissioning Groups, details on how to access that data dashboard.”

Then you deal with that letter and you say this:

“The dashboard allowed [local authorities] and Directors of Public Health to view anonymised data including data on the total number of tests conducted and positive tests including a rolling average.”

Then you detail where the data was being combined from:

“NHS Digital’s Covid-19 National Testing Programme database, consolidated data covering the National Testing Programme … and 111 and 999 data about the rate of calls.”

If we could just please expand paragraph 134; you say this:

“Despite the launch of the [local authority] dashboard, the Department raised concerns with the [Secretary of State] that there were a significant number of gaps in the data which [local authorities] required in order to respond to the Covid-19 outbreak.”

Then you go on to detail the work culminating in the advice being sent to the Secretary of State Mr Jenrick, who was in post at that time, and also on 24 June 2020 setting out the additional data requirements of the local tier.

We can see in that statement, as well, that the advice recommended by Mr Jenrick was escalated to the Secretary of State for Department of Health and Social Care Mr Hancock.

Then if we go over the page, please, to 33, we can see that it details:

“The draft letter included a breakdown of testing data requirements, including requests from Directors of Public Health, LRFs and [local authorities].”

You say:

“A draft version of the letter was shared with the [Department of Health and Social Care] officials, which resulted in further progress being made and by 30 June 2020 the Department had gained access to data around testing, Covid-19 cases and contact tracing at [local authority] level.”

And you say that evidence suggests it was Mr Jenrick also escalated the issue with Mr Hancock at a ministerial meeting in July. But you have no further evidence of the outcome of that conversation.

Mr Will Garton: That’s correct.

Lead 7: And so what I really want your help with, we know that the pandemic was announced in March of 2020. Here we are more than three months later where local authorities and, in particular, the directors of public health who have a key role in respect to responding to the pandemic were saying that they did not have access to the data they needed.

And can you assist at all in terms of how that could be but also whether those issues have now been resolved by reference to learning since the pandemic?

Mr Will Garton: Yeah. So as you have articulated, the department throughout these months was pushing very hard for an improvement in the data sharing going on between central government and local government. I think it did get there, and by July we see a significant improvement and I think it’s a perfectly reasonable question to say: could it and should it have been faster? And Department of Health colleagues, I’m afraid, will have to – will explain to you better than I can why it didn’t happen faster. I would say, though, that I mean, as I look through some of the witness statements, sometimes the department for which I work was requesting information from the Department of Health to assist local authorities and the Department of Health came back to us and said, “We just don’t have it in that form. We can’t do it.”

So I think sometimes it’s easy to perceive, if you’re not in the receipt of the data, that just over the fence there is the perfect dataset that’s ready to be sent over, if only someone would press the button, and I suspect – I don’t know because I wasn’t in the Department of Health at the time – that that was not the case, that it was inaccurate, there were multiple problems in assessing it and getting it together, and therefore it wasn’t as simple as: could you just email it over in an accessible format?

That said, I think there is a question for us collectively as we look back at: could we have reached that better place in July earlier? And I suspect we – of course, we could have done and we could have done better.

The second part of your question was: are we now ready?

Lead 7: Yes.

Mr Will Garton: I don’t think – I think, in principle, there would be a collective understanding in central government that data sharing should happen more quickly and there should be a higher degree of risk tolerance. I don’t think, though, we have yet, although it might be, I understand, something the Inquiry might want to look at and recommend and we would obviously take very seriously, I don’t think we yet have protocols in place, principles agreed for how we would want to do it differently. If you’ll allow me a general observation, and it is a general observation, so it is flawed, like all general observations, but I think we are still quite conservative, small “c” conservative on data sharing. I think quite often GDPR, the general data legislation is cited as a reason not to do something. And as a whole in the public sector we need to get better at creative ways of making this happen. Some colleagues will have concerns, data security, and the like, all of which is legitimate, but I think there is more to do in this space.

Lead 7: Thank you. And we’ll perhaps come back to what appears to be a potential area of recommendation for her Ladyship around protocols around data sharing.

Mr Will Garton: Yeah.

Lead 7: Mr Garton, thank you for that answer, but also the frankness with which the issue is identified in the statement.

But appreciating what you say about it wasn’t necessarily that the data was sometimes there waiting for someone to press a button but would you agree from the perspective of interoperability and the areas where the data sat, that were particularly important in a pandemic, plainly it involved access to health records, medical records, it involved public health data, personal data that individuals were sharing with data – the contact tracers. But essentially those pockets of data where they sat to inform planning and systems is completely capable of consideration in peacetime as to development of protocols to ensure that the relevant data controllers can find a solution to data issues and privacy to enable agile interoperability in a pandemic.

Mr Will Garton: I think that’s something we should – that is the standard to which we should hold ourselves and it is not unreasonable at all that the British state should be able to do. Yes, I think that is something we should aim for.

I think we got better. I think it got better, the contain framework published in July effectively, and you’ll have a more detailed understanding of this than me, but it effectively moved much of the lockdown on to a more localised footing. We got better at localism as the pandemic moved on, but it is the case that in the early months it was a national response.

Lead 7: Mr Garton, thank you. The evidence you’ve identified linked to protocols chimes with evidence we heard this morning from Professor Buchan with a very real example of a blockage of data flow that he needed around his project, so it’s very helpful, the evidence you’ve given, but I know you weren’t in the room when he gave evidence. Thank you.

Can we then just explore an issue, please, linked to a particular document, and I know you appreciate that the issue improved, but could we please display INQ000104738.

Thank you.

So if we just orientate ourselves here, this is the advice memo that the Secretary of State sent about the ongoing data issues, about the test and trace data requirements. Could we move, please, to page 4. Thank you.

I think the table acknowledges that the data was needed to understand coverage of different communities, sectors of society, to target policy change and engagement activities. Have you had an opportunity to review this as part of preparations?

Mr Will Garton: I have, yes.

Lead 7: So would that be a broadly fair summary about what the table is identifying here about the data requirements?

Mr Will Garton: Yes, I think it is, and – I wasn’t in the department at the time but I think it’s a rather helpful table in that it tries to specify in plain English what we need, why, but critically, have we got it? Is it possible? So it’s not just wishful thinking. And that enables us to have a more mature conversation about can we get this fixed?

Lead 7: Thank you.

Now I think this is part of the categories of data that were being requested and pushed for from local authorities. And perhaps you’ve already touched upon it. The table details that, in respect of some of these categories, the data did not exist, certainly at the time when the document was drafted.

Mr Will Garton: Yeah.

Lead 7: Can you assist, do you have any views as to what were the implications of this data not being available at the local level, at this stage, in terms of developing timely interventions that may have been necessary to support particular communities?

Mr Will Garton: I mean, only a general observation, which I don’t think is very profound, I’m afraid, but to say that the more information that we all have, the better placed that we are to tackle the pandemic, the better placed – the better position we are in to try to mitigate the impact on disproportionately impacted groups and – yeah, the more we have, the better.

Lead 7: Thank you. Then just a follow-on question if you can assist. Are you able to comment at all about what the lack of that data, how that impacted or may have impacted upon your department’s ability to support local authorities to understand and respond to trends in their communities?

Mr Will Garton: I don’t think it would have affected my department’s ability. I think it would have affected the ability of the Department of Health.

Lead 7: Thank you, that’s helpful.

Now I’m going to take you to some of the criticisms that have been identified in witness statements provided by the Local Government Association and the associate director of public health, Mr Fell, who is the author of that, and give you an opportunity, if you can assist at all, to comment or provide your perspective of the problem that’s identified.

Could we please display INQ000587454.

And this is the witness statement of Joanna Killian on behalf of the Local Government Association and I know this is provided in your pack, and it’s paragraph 52 I seek your assistance with, if you are able.

We can see in that statement it’s detailed:

“The lack of any individual level data on Covid-19 cases being shared with [the directors of public health] at the outset made it impossible to support those affected and to control outbreaks. The LGA repeatedly requested this data at meetings and in emails … At various times the LGA was questioned by Public Health England about why [directors of public health] would need individual-level data.”

And so Ms Killian describes the issue as making it impossible to support those affected and control outbreaks. Do you have any observation or do you share that view?

Mr Will Garton: Joanna Killian obviously speaks for the sector as a whole. I would say that my witness statement contains lots of evidence of the department, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, also making the case for more data sharing. So I don’t know – I’m not really in a position to judge whether that makes the work impossible. I think it certainly makes it more difficult. But yes, MHCLG at the time were making a similar and related point that we needed to do this more quickly, as evidenced in the witness statement.

I don’t know the extent to which that was possible because I don’t have sight of the trade-offs and the difficulties the Department of Health had, and I don’t have an accurate picture of what data they were sitting on and how – how hard or otherwise that was. But I think irrespective of that, this is something that we should collectively get better at.

Lead 7: Thank you. And, again, you may not be able to assist, but we can see one of the blockages here or the barriers was Public Health England, as it existed then, questioning why the directors of public health needed that level of data. Did that degree of granularity of the blockages get delivered into the department to assist with unpicking those sorts of issues?

Mr Will Garton: I think it’s unlikely we would have necessarily done it on a local-authority-by-local-authority basis, but, as you have highlighted, we were engaged with the Department of Health on the types of data that were missing and why on a consistent basis.

Lead 7: Thank you.

With your assistance, please, can we move forward in the witness statement, please, of Ms Killian to paragraph 59. Thank you. Could it be expanded please?

Ms Killian details:

“Because of the [United Kingdom] Government’s misunderstanding about the role local authorities could play, it also excluded them from the design of any data collection – which captured information needed to act on the test result, such as an individual’s identity, location and key characteristics. As a result, the data collection forms for testing and tracing were poorly designed for operational use at a local level; the early test and trace data had no unique identifier, ethnicity, postcode, occupation or information on work address or care home address, despite the fact this would be needed for outbreak control. In addition, only positive results were being shared, not negative, making it impossible to tell the positivity rate.”

Now, obviously this criticism is levelled against central government. I appreciate your department is just a department, and you’ve already clarified your role, but did you, in the department, first of all, have any misunderstanding about the role that local authorities could play?

Mr Will Garton: No, I don’t believe we did.

Lead 7: And so – it’s really a matter for Ms Killian, who – particularly, it’s said, in terms of central government. Do you have any detail around the data collection forms that were in operation to be able to comment or assist at all about the criticism that’s levelled there?

Mr Will Garton: I mean, again, this is, I’m afraid, primarily a – data that sat with and held as the responsibility of the Department of Health and Social Care.

Lead 7: Thank you.

Mr Will Garton: I would just say, I think – I think – we would agree that, by July, that had been resolved. So the exam question from my mind is: what stops it happening earlier, and was it possible to do it more quickly? So I think this is the LGA’s observation at a point in time, and it is something that improved over time.

Lead 7: Thank you.

Can we then, please, move to paragraph 62, please.

We again see reference to those collection forms. It details:

“Despite repeat at the time requests to change the collection form to solve some of these problems, officials were not willing to change the form to correct data even though it would have helped local response.”

Was the department, your department, aware of those requests at a local level, for amendments, and were these the sorts of issues that were being assisted with by your department to unblock the blockages?

Mr Will Garton: Yeah. I can’t speak to the precise reference made in paragraph 62. What I can say is, as we set out in the witness statement, that the kind of issues that the LGA were raising were issues that the department was also raising in order to try to get it resolved. So that is consistent.

Lead 7: Thank you.

Now, you have already helpfully suggested a potential area where there could be work done in peacetime around data protocols but can I ask you whether this still is an issue as identified in paragraph 62; Ms Killian goes on to say that valuable – there’d been:

“… general reluctance by Government to routinely share individual test and trace data with local councils …”

She goes on to say:

“… valuable time and effort was expended by local [directors of public health] in trying to access data that would enable them to respond better …”

Do you know whether any individual work has been done around that support for directors of public health since the pandemic on that issue that’s identified by Ms Killian?

Mr Will Garton: So I’m not aware if the Department of Health and Social Care have done more work on this since. I think, as the Inquiry knows, we intend – the government as a whole is intending to run a pandemic preparedness exercise this autumn. I would suggest that this would be one of the key things that we should look to test as part of that process, to understand whether or not – how, not whether, but how improvements can be made.

I think there are, since then, other examples of central government getting better at data sharing with local authorities. I do not think we have a complete picture. I do not think problem solved, that’s now fixed.

Lead 7: Thank you for that frankness because, as you’re well aware, my Lady is looking and considering, as part of this module in particular, about any recommendations that may assist future planning for pandemic preparedness.

Thank you.

Then with obviously you identifying the overview position as you believed the situation got better, can we briefly look, please, at paragraph 66. Because Ms Killian is detailing within paragraph 66 – and we’re now at 29 July 2020 – that the data requested on 29 July was not made available until some months later, and her statement, back a paragraph, then effectively says when it was shared it was poor quality.

And so again, Ms Killian is suggesting that the issue went on for months beyond the end of July still. Are you aware of that issue?

Mr Will Garton: I think it is the case, and is set out in 135 of my statement, that by July directors of public health had postcode level data for positive cases, sex, age, and ethnicity data.

I’m quite sure that this was – continued to iterate and improve. That it’s not, sort of, we can declare victory on data at that point. That there was more to do. But my understanding is that those most basic requests that you highlighted in the table earlier on that the department summarised were resolved by July ‘20. I think – I’m sure that wouldn’t have then been game, set and match, nothing else to do, there’d have been further work. But I think substantive improvements were made.

Lead 7: Thank you.

Can we move then to the second topic that I headlined, please, Mr Garton and it’s any additional assistance you can provide in respect of self-isolation, including the Test and Trace Support Payment Scheme.

I’m going to orientate us just with some things that I think are non-contentious. I think we’ve already identified that it was a Department of Health and Social Care funded scheme, paid by local authorities, which enabled eligible individuals or households to receive a discretionary support payment of £500 if they were told to isolate by NHS Test and Trace.

Mr Will Garton: That’s correct.

Lead 7: Thank you. And we know from information provided that it was quite late into the pandemic before this financial support was available, and again, just to summarise again, these are things you tell us in your witness statement, so I don’t want to go to the paragraphs unless we need to, but if these don’t refresh your memory please say and I’ll take you to them.

So, essentially, on 19 September 2020 the Department received confirmation from HMT that £40 million of funding would be made available for the scheme from October 2020, and that the Department would pay it to local authorities.

Then on 20 September, the Prime Minister’s Office announced a new package to support and enforce self-isolation which included the payment of £500, and local authorities were required to implement arrangements to make the payments as quickly as possible. By 12 October at the latest.

Do you have any views from the department as to why local authorities in reality were given such a short period of time to operationalise the scheme on the ground?

Mr Will Garton: They were. I mean, I have to say they’re highly impressive. I mean, I think once the ministers had made a decision that this was something that they wanted to pursue, the department played a role with the Department of Health and local authority colleagues in designing a system that, as you say, was up and running very quickly – again, my not very profound observation is, because they’re very skilled and good at this sort of thing, and they did an excellent job in turning it round so quickly.

Lady Hallett: But it would have been better, I, detect from what you have been saying, had somebody devised a scheme before the pandemic hit us?

Mr Will Garton: I think if we had, if we knew – I think, having optionality before the – I think it’s very hard to have predicted in, let’s say, February 2020, that we would have wanted a scheme precisely like this without knowing the exact nature of the pandemic. So I think the more that central government can work with local authorities to develop options by which these sort of things can be achieved, the more speed at which – the more speed – the more speed – more quickly that can be done.

I think, in this case, ministers decided they wanted us – as the KC has said, they wanted to see it in September and actually it was relatively – it was not straightforward but it could be done relatively quickly.

Lady Hallett: But quarantine has been a recognised response to pandemics or spread of high-consequence diseases for sometime now. Dare I say it centuries even, possibly. So why should a scheme have to be devised? Surely you can plan for the fact that if you’re going to make people isolate or quarantine, whatever word you call it, that they don’t miss out financially and therefore are reluctant to isolate or go into quarantine?

Mr Will Garton: Yes, we can plan for that.

Ms Cartwright: Thank you.

Can I pick up on the questions of her Ladyship. We know that the United Kingdom called the system “test, trace, isolate”, but there exists systems, research and knowledge that what is necessary for the system to work is test, trace, isolate, support.

You’ve just mentioned to her Ladyship that it couldn’t have been envisaged in February that – the exact terms of the scheme, but from the position of the department, would you agree it was fundamentally going to be necessary, at the start of the pandemic, for there to be a financial scheme that encouraged and supported those with the least to be able to isolate and stay at home if they were unable to work because of a positive test?

Mr Will Garton: Yes, and I think the shielding programme that the department ran is the best example, if you like, of practical support, of a means for those particularly, but though not exclusively, those that were clearly clinically extremely vulnerable, the elderly, that helped them with the basic things like you might not be able to shop online, getting shopping delivered. It might be as practical as sorting out someone to walk the dog if they didn’t want to leave the house. So I think the shielding programme was set up in the early days of the pandemic that slightly preceded the practical support for those in isolation and, overall, was a success.

I’m sure there are lessons we can learn and could have been more prepared and would be more prepared next time, we know how to run a shielding programme now. But yes, I agree with the sort of proposition of your question, but I actually think the department did a good job in getting that up and running in the time available.

Lead 7: Thank you.

Lady Hallett: Who would be responsible for planning for financial and other support for those isolating? Which department?

Mr Will Garton: So on financial support, that is a combination of the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions because of the interaction with the welfare system. On practical support, that was my department, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Ms Cartwright: Thank you.

Mr Garton, again, there’s brevity of time but certainly your statement deals throughout around other non-financial support packages that were available, so I don’t want you to think I’m not cognisant of those things you’ve just mentioned.

Can we then, please, look briefly at an email from Mr Dan York-Smith who the Inquiry will be hearing from next week. It’s INQ000585931.

Again, this is one of the documents, I think was in your pack, but you are particularly one of the recipients of this email sent on 26 June 2020, but it’s specifically an email that is outlining the Prime Minister’s concerns about the need for financial support for those needing to isolate.

So just, again, a topic on the same theme around the delay for a financial support scheme to be in place, and particularly with this email highlighting the Prime Minister’s concerns, are you aware why it took until about September, October 2020 to implement that financial support scheme and, in particular, given that the Prime Minister himself was raising concerns in the June?

Mr Will Garton: So yes, my name is on that email in a previous capacity when I worked in the Treasury, so not in the role that I am in currently.

I mean, I think the straight answer to your question is there wasn’t ministerial consensus that they wanted to proceed with this programme. I mean, that is a fairly standard, not standard, but that is the Prime Minister’s deputy principal private secretary asking for more advice and more thinking. I think that work then happened, and once the ministers decided that this is what they wanted, it happened relatively quickly. But the gap, as I understand it, between the June and the September, is a collective agreement to proceed with the scheme.

Lead 7: Thank you.

Mr Garton, with your assistance once again, can I just display some of the views, again, of Ms Killian, please.

Could we display INQ000587454, and can we this time go to paragraph 84, please.

And again, this is the LGA’s perspective on the implementation of the scheme. And so if we start at paragraph 84, please, Ms Killian details as follows:

“Challenges were present from the outset, due to the speed of implementation and the need to refine the scheme in real time. Ministerial concerns, and competing objectives across Government, meant that councils found themselves working with strict but shifting eligibility criteria, which made the scheme harder to administer and led to confusion and resentment as local people perceived a lack of consistency and fairness in who was able to access payments.”

Just pausing there before I ask the question, you may be aware that the Inquiry has collated an Every Story Matters record and similarly, that view as to consistency and confusion and availability of the scheme is one of the themes that has been picked up by the Every Story Matters record. But can I ask you for the Department’s view about whether you agree that shifting eligibility criteria made the scheme harder to administer?

Mr Will Garton: So the Department is not the lead department on the administration of the scheme so we are, to some extent, a bystander but I think it is true, it must be true, that if we ask local authorities to deliver a scheme and the eligibility, the criteria, the conditionality around that scheme change, that makes it harder to do. Because it’s not our – it’s not the departmental – it’s not led by my department, I don’t know the extent to which that is the case, but clearly that is a point that Jo Killian is making in her witness statement, and for any of us trying to carry out some instructions, if the instructions change then life becomes more difficult.

Lead 7: Thank you.

Can we display paragraph 85, please. Now, we know that alongside the scheme, there was some availability of funds outside of the set rate, and the Inquiry also is aware that Northern Ireland operated a discretionary scheme, but here Ms Killian is detailing:

“Despite consistently highlighting the need for flexibility, local authorities were initially given a small pot of funding to provide discretionary support (to support those who did not fully meet the strict criteria in the main scheme, which included passporting from specific welfare benefits) set against significant demand. Flexibility was primarily necessary because the criteria for the main scheme required receipt of benefits. This meant that many people at risk of financial hardship did not qualify.”

Can I ask, then, did the Department have a role in seeking an alternative for those at risk of financial hardship who did not qualify?

Mr Will Garton: Not that I’m aware of, and it wouldn’t be for the Department to lead on. I mean, the one thing I’d say about the interaction with the welfare system is not something that I’m expert on, although – Dan York-Smith would be much better than me. It is immensely complicated, and the minute you put benefits over a certain level and does this count as a benefit, that has all sorts of other complications for people on Universal Credit and the like.

So it is not straightforward, trying to run the welfare system in a fair and consistent way, and the lack of – although I’m generally an advocate of discretion for local authorities, the lack of discretion given to local authorities here may have been for very, very good reason: because you don’t inadvertently want to make somebody ineligible for Universal Credit or another benefit.

Lead 7: Thank you.

Could that be removed from the screen.

Topic 3, please, Mr Garton: disproportionately impacted groups. And again, you say and tell us about, at paragraph 151, that the Department considered the adverse impact on disproportionately impacted groups, and this included the introduction of the Community Champions initiative, and that’s detailed within the statement so I don’t want, in summarising, asking you focused questions, to not be looking at positive things and things that went well.

Mr Will Garton: Yes.

Lead 7: But can I ask you then, what is the Department’s assessment of the success of the scheme of the Community Champions, please?

Mr Will Garton: So many people in this room will have their own views. I mean, I think we think it was a success, and I think we have done independent evaluations which show that it worked. It was locally led, we allocated money to 60 local authorities, and I think that was overall a positive experience. I understand – although I understand outside the vires of this particular module, that much of that was carried in to work on tackling vaccine hesitancy. So good practice was continued into a later stage of the pandemic.

So overall a good thing, I think.

Lead 7: Now, the detail in your statement tell us that the Community Champions scheme allowed local authorities to be responsive to their community and to recruit these Community Champions, but can I ask you, instead of delivering a new scheme, do you know whether there was consideration given to utilising pre-existing community networks, local representatives and organisations?

Mr Will Garton: My understanding is that in order to run the most simple and effective scheme, the Department’s view was that by allocating money to local authorities, that they in turn could engage with the community and voluntary sector because quite often they would have those existing relationships, whereas if the Department tried to go around local authorities, that would make the process more complicated and more likely to fail.

Lead 7: Thank you. Can we briefly go to your paragraph 388, please, on page 97 of your statement.

Thank you.

Again, this is the lessons learned aspect of your statement from disproportionately impacted groups where you tell us about the final meeting on the 8 December 2021 and that included a presentation on lessons learned. But can I ask you, do you have any views, or the Department, as to whether more could have been done prior to August 2022 about the insufficient focus on disproportionately impacted groups?

Mr Will Garton: I think you’re hearing from my colleague Emran Mian later in the day who was responsible for this work so he will be more articulate than I am. I mean, when I look back on this, the obvious question to me is: could we have done it sooner? It seemed to work, but summer 2021 is late – sorry, summer 2020, forgive me, is late, and I think that when we reflect on what we could do better next time around, this is certainly the sort of thing that we would want to repeat but I think we’d want to do it faster, but Emran will be better on this than me.

Lead 7: Thank you.

Could I move to an aspect of topic 4, please. I’m going to have to cut my cloth, but can I ask you briefly about contact tracing.

That can be taken down, please.

Can we go to paragraph 201 of your statement at page 51. Thank you.

Just to identify, you explained that NHS Test and Trace worked directly with local government to carry out contact tracing via the Local Contact Tracing Partnership Model and later in the next paragraph, please, you say that the Department’s role was to support local authorities in understanding any emerging issues with local tracing partnerships, but can I ask you, then, one of the issues appears from the Inquiry that certainly when the test and trace scheme, particularly from the March and what was implemented, then, of test and trace in May, that there was an underuse of the contact tracing resources in local authorities and in the directors of public health and it went to the centralised contact tracing model, albeit that then, I think as the months progressed, the local resources were brought in.

Mr Will Garton: Yes.

Lead 7: Was that something the Department had identified in the creation of the strategy of test and trace?

Mr Will Garton: Less so on this. We were less involved. We had more of a watching brief on this one. This was largely a – this was largely a direct relationship between NHS Test and Trace and local authorities. But again, I think one of the learnings for us is the simple things that people, I think it is true that people are more likely to answer the telephone from a local number, and perhaps more likely to engage with somebody on the phone if they feel they’re from their part of the world and not a million miles away.

So those are all things I think we could look to do better and be prepared for next time but this was more of a direct relationship between the NHS and the local authorities.

Lead 7: Thank you. And that helpfully moves us on to topic 5, please, which is just a little more exploration, please, of the centralised versus local TTI system, and can we use Mr Fell’s statement, who has provided the corporate statement on behalf of the Association of Directors of Public Health.

And can I go, please, to INQ000587434, and it’s paragraph 102, please, I’d like to go to, please, which is at page 24. Thank you.

Mr Fell has provided evidence, and we will hear from him in the final week of the Inquiry:

“During the pandemic, especially in the early stages, there was a significant disconnect between how policy was formed nationally and how it was implemented on the ground. The top-down approach by Government meant that DsPH were sidelined in terms of the national decision making and centrally run programmes such as testing regimes. There was an assumption decisions could be made at a national level that would be suitable for all local areas and that proved costly as the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach was not effective.”

Can I ask you, from the perspective of the department, do you agree with that analysis or have any views on it, please?

Mr Will Garton: I – they’re not words that I would use, but I recognise that, over the course of the pandemic, we moved – there was an evolution from quite a centrally-run process in the early days – and there may have been very, very good reasons for that, and the Department of Health and Social Care will want to articulate them – to a more localised approach.

That localised approach was, sort of, best summarised, I think, by the contain framework published in July 2020. On the specific issue of community testing, I mean, I actually think when we moved to a community testing model, it was at least the case that – I think we started off in Liverpool and looked at the possibility of whole-population testing, and we got strong feedback through the R9, one of the groups that we used to engage with local authorities, that whole-population testing in Liverpool, or any other place for that matter, wasn’t the right approach, that it needed to be more targeted and more specific. And I think, to be fair, the NHS Test and Trace architecture then changed to respond to that feedback.

So a slightly more positive take is, it’s an example, to my mind, of central government listening to feedback from local authorities and evolving the programme as a consequence.

Lead 7: Thank you. And I think you have looked at it thorough where I think the test, trace scheme had developed, certainly to the end of 2020, when we get to the Community Testing Programme.

Can I just ask for any other clarification you wish to give, because I’m more perhaps looking at the period of time from the March to the May and the announcement of the initial strategy of contact tracing and test, trace and isolate, where it very much was starting a contact tracing system from scratch using a centralised, well staffed – I think there’s talk of 20,000 or so contact tracers in a call centre, as to whether there’s any exploration or additional things you want to say about – not the end period, where it ended on community testing, but the period of time when the strategy was formed – that implemented in the May?

Mr Will Garton: I think that’s the an excellent question. I don’t think I’m the best person to advise the Inquiry on whether that was the right thing to do or not. I have just some hesitance that you’ve – that it would be possible to go to an entirely local approach too quickly.

Because we just talked about the need for data to be interoperable – I think is the phrase – and collected on a consistent basis in order that it is in many way meaningful. So I think that some national infrastructure has to kick off a nation-wide, a global pandemic, and it has to be in place, and you couldn’t have – you’ve got 152 local authorities in England, it would be a disaster if we had 152 different systems.

Now, I don’t think anyone is really proposing 152 different systems, but you do need some consistency, coordination, ability to compare and contrast.

So the sweet spot that I think we are all looking for is: how do you have that consistency, coordination and ability to compare with a local element? I honestly I don’t know whether or not that was possible prior to the summer of 2020, I’m afraid that’s something so that colleagues in Test and Trace would have to advise you on, but I don’t doubt that it was a complex operation that they were trying to undertake.

Lead 7: Thank you.

Again, with your indulgence, please, could we briefly then look at – comment on that central local tension that’s provided in a witness statement we have received from Jennifer Dixon of the Health Foundation.

It’s INQ000485185, thank you. Paragraph 82.

Again, this is in your pack.

You can see that within that statement it’s provided that:

“The balance between national and local leadership of England’s test and trace regime was a recurring challenge, which failed to strike an optimal balance.”

I think you yourself have identified the desire and drive to try to find that sweet spot. Is there anything else you’d wish to comment upon, in the context of this further statement, that highlights the issue of the central local tension?

Mr Will Garton: Just to say that I think the LGA recognised that it did improve and it did change and the appointment of a chief executive of Leeds City Council to run the system I think is a really good example of staff from central and local government becoming more and more interchangeable, and from that I think we can derive huge policy benefits.

Lead 7: Thank you.

That can be taken down, please.

I am at my topic 6. I’ve already headlined the very detailed witness statement you’ve provided. Annex B and C contain the various documents that the department considers reflect learning, and I’m not going to ask you to even try and put a framework on that.

You’ve already helpfully flagged one area where you think there is still a potential area for the work to be done on protocols in peacetime that look at the issue of data, data access and sharing of relevant information needed in a pandemic. I think you’ve revisited it a number of times in your evidence. But is there anything else you’d wish to at to that potential recommend for her Ladyship’s recommendation, please?

Mr Will Garton: No, I don’t think so, thank you.

Ms Cartwright: Mr Garton, thank you very much indeed for your assistance. Those are my questions.

My Lady, there are some questions.

Lady Hallett: There are, thank you very much.

Ms Munroe, I think it’s you.

Questions From Ms Munroe KC

Ms Munroe: Thank you, my Lady.

Good afternoon, Mr Garton.

Mr Will Garton: Good afternoon.

Ms Munroe KC: My name is Allison Munroe. I represent Covid Bereaved Families for Justice UK. I just have a few matters I’d like to deal with, some of which you’ve touched upon, so hopefully I can take these quite swiftly.

Firstly, thank you for setting out in your statement and your evidence this morning the role that the department plays and the interplay with other departments and, in some instances, a conduit role that your department may play.

So, looking at Test and Trace, I don’t know if you were able to catch any of the evidence yesterday from Professor McKee –

Mr Will Garton: I saw some of it, yes.

Ms Munroe KC: He has provided, obviously, as well as giving the oral evidence, a witness statement to the Inquiry, and he is a member of Independent SAGE. In that statement, he states that:

“We emphasised the need for [a test and trace] system rooted in local communities, integrated with the NHS, and led by local Directors of Public Health. We argued that the current private sector-run ‘NHS’ Test and Trace system should be replaced with a more effective model that leverages local knowledge and resources. We were your aware of the actions taken by Directors of Public Health in Leicester … subsequently emulated by his counterpart in Sandwell and others, that had proven very successful in overcoming the significant weaknesses in the national system.”

Just to help you, Mr Garton, to contextualise, he exhibits MMK/24a – INQ000574992 for the record – an exhibit which he sets – which is basically, I think, a blog account of how things were done in Leicester and Sandwell, and effectively they took control. I mean, they literally say, “We took control, this is what our director of public health did in Leicester, and it was very, very successful, tapping into local resources”, and Ms McNally, the counterpart in Sandwell, did the same.

Now, touching – the question is – and I’m mindful of your last answer about finding the sweet spot between national and local – but would you agree with what Professor McKee says, that the system should be rooted – not exclusively, but rooted in local communities and led by local directors of public health, and that would be preferable to the highly centralised model that the government opted for in May of 2020.

Mr Will Garton: I think that’s an excellent question. I’m slightly freelancing on the Department of Health and Social Care policy, so I’m going to be a little bit careful. Look, rooted in communities, yes. I’m somebody who spends most of my working life going round trying to persuade people for a more localist approach. I have some nervousness on things like capacity in local authorities. A lot of local authorities are struggling financially hugely at the moment. Too much variability in data collection. Security and the like. So I think, if those things – and consistency, if those things can be – if we can have assurance on those things, that I think the centre can do best, that we wouldn’t want to do 152 times in each local authority in England, there’s a process of local authority reorganisation happening in England at the moment, that’s making it more complex.

So I think there are risks to an entirely local approach, and I say that as a localist, but I’m sure that we can do more once we have the basic tenets in place, of consistency, security, capacity, and the like, to make sure that we use the data that we have to enable local authorities to serve their populations, because as you’ve articulated, they tend to know them best.

Ms Munroe KC: Thank you, Mr Garton.

Then my second question, still on this topic, was your department aware of the actions taken, for example, by the Director of Public Health in Leicester? And I can again contextualise it for you by just reading from that exhibit, it says:

“[As read] On July 14, Leicester took matters into their own hands and set up their own local contact tracing system. It worked in concert with the NHS test and track taking over local cases that the national system call centres struggled to reach, and tracking them down on the phone and physically going to people’s homes.”

The mayor, Peter Soulsby, said that the city’s local contact tracing system managed to reach about 90% of the cases it handled. He asked for more powers to be given to local authorities in regard to the handling of the pandemic.

So that gives you a flavour of what was going on in Leicester.

Mr Will Garton: Yes, absolutely.

Ms Munroe KC: Was that something that your department was aware of at the time?

Mr Will Garton: Yes, I think so, and I think it’s one of the really impressive pieces of practice that was run and initiated from local government and shows just how powerful a role local authorities can and should pay.

Ms Munroe KC: Thank you. And finally, Mr Garton, do you think that the proven successes of the local initiatives such as the one of Leicester and also Sandwell and others, led to any changes in the approach to test and trace, or the support and guidance provided by your department at the time?

Mr Will Garton: I think those examples of success meant that the gradual localisation of the pandemic, if I can describe it like that, that central government had more confidence that that was the right thing to do because there were these examples. So I think that they help, definitely, and I think the question for us, as we’ve discussed today, is: could we get there more quickly? How do we get to a more mature relationship where we are using the benefits and expertise that exists locally in order to try and protect, especially the most vulnerable in our communities?

Ms Munroe KC: Well, I suppose the point that those I represent would really want to know is, you’ve mentioned the variabilities?

Mr Will Garton: Yes.

Ms Munroe KC: The data, consistency, sometimes resources, because local authorities are very hard done by in terms of funding. Knowing and seeing those initiatives locally, Leicester, Sandwell, et cetera, and the successes that were – they were achieving, was anything done in terms of the government considering more resources, looking at the consistencies and bolstering those systems?

Mr Will Garton: Yes, so I think – yes, I think, is the straight answer to your question. Part of that, the most obvious example of that is one of the things, I think, actually the Department and the government did relatively well during the pandemic is fund local authorities properly. You’re absolutely right, there is not an excess of cash in local government. We’ve got many local authorities in exceptional financial support at the moment, but in addition to the Contain Outbreak Management Fund, the Department put about £6 billion into local government during the first two years of the pandemic. That money was weighted towards local authorities that had higher levels of deprivation, and I would say that it was good practice in that it was un-ringfenced, non-conditional funding, and that made it easier for local authorities to fund initiatives like the ones you identify in Leicester and Sandwell because there was that proper baseline level of funding that went in.

Ms Munroe: Thank you very much, Mr Garton.

My Lady, thank you.

Lady Hallett: Thank you, Mr Munro.

That completes the questions we have for you, Mr Garton. Thank you very much indeed for the help you and your department provided in your written statement and, of course, the help you have given this morning. I know the burden the Inquiry places on government departments and we couldn’t operate without the cooperation of organisations like yours, so thank you very much.

The Witness: Thank you very much.

Lady Hallett: Very well. I shall return at 1.50.

Ms Cartwright: Thank you, my Lady.

(12.47 pm)

(The Short Adjournment)

(1.50 pm)

Lady Hallett: Ms Nagesh, yes.

Ms Nagesh: My Lady, the next witness is Martin Hewitt, who appears on video link. May the witness be affirmed, please.

Lady Hallett: Mr Hewitt, can you hear us?

The Witness: I can now. Yes, I can.

Lady Hallett: We thought you looked a bit adrift.

Mr Martin Hewitt

MR MARTIN HEWITT (affirmed).

Lady Hallett: Thank you for joining us again, Mr Hewitt.

Ms Nagesh: Thank you, Mr Hewitt, can you hear me.

Lady Hallett: Can you hear Counsel to the Inquiry, Ms Nagesh, Mr Hewitt?

Ms Nagesh: Mr Hewitt, can you hear me now?

The Witness: No, it’s very, very quiet.

Ms Nagesh: I knew there would be technical difficulties at some point.

Mr Hewitt, does this work?

The Witness: No, I’m sorry.

Lady Hallett: I don’t know if RTS can help.

Thank you, if you can bear with us, Mr Hewitt, they’re going to try and solve the problem.

The Witness: I will.

Lady Hallett: I don’t understand. The green lights on your microphone are on.

Ms Nagesh: It’s echoing in the room.

Lady Hallett: Mr Hewitt can hear me.

The Witness: I can, loud and clear.

Ms Nagesh: Can you hear me now Mr Hewitt? No.

(Conversation re technical difficulties)

Ms Nagesh: I’m told, my Lady, they’ve asked for a five-minute break to sort out issues.

Lady Hallett: I’m sorry about this, Mr Hewitt, we’ve had very few problems, I’m delighted to say, with technology, but this afternoon happens to be one of them. So they’ve asked for a five-minute break and we’ll try and get back to you as soon as we can.

The Witness: Okay.

(1.55 pm)

(A short break)

(1.57 pm)

Lady Hallett: Let’s try again, Ms Nagesh.

Ms Nagesh: Yes, my Lady, thank you for the five minutes. I believe Mr Hewitt you can hear me now.

The Witness: Yes, I can hear you loud and clear. Thank you.

Questions From Counsel to the Inquiry

Ms Nagesh: Thank you very much for bearing with us.

You have provided a witness statement to this Inquiry. I won’t pull it up on the screen but I believe you have a copy with you.

Mr Martin Hewitt: I do.

Counsel Inquiry: And if we look, please, on the, I believe it’s the last-but-one page, that’s page 63.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Mm-hm.

Counsel Inquiry: And we see there, don’t we, a statement of truth attesting to the truth of everything in the witness statement, and your signature; is that right?

Mr Martin Hewitt: That’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: Is it true that everything in that witness statement remains true as of today?

Mr Martin Hewitt: It does.

Counsel Inquiry: It’s right also that although you have authored that statement, you’ve done so on behalf of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, otherwise known as the NPCC?

Mr Martin Hewitt: That’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: Because you were the chair of the NPCC between 2019 and 2023; is that right?

Mr Martin Hewitt: That’s right.

Counsel Inquiry: So that’s why you’re qualified to talk about not just the role of the NPCC but the role of policing in general during the pandemic.

Mr Martin Hewitt: That’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. So you have also provided one previous witness statement to this Inquiry for Module 2. And you in fact gave live evidence to this Inquiry for Module 2; is that right?

Mr Martin Hewitt: That’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: Now, inevitably, there may be some overlap between the matters you talked about then and the matters we’ll talk about today, but do please rest assured I don’t intend to exhaustively repeat matters you’ve already told us in detail.

Having said that, could we start with your professional background, which we’ll go through quite quickly by way of refresher. You’d been a police officer since 1993, I believe, when you joined Kent Police.

Mr Martin Hewitt: That’s true.

Counsel Inquiry: And you subsequently moved to the Metropolitan Police in 2005?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Correct.

Counsel Inquiry: And in fact whilst in that role, you served as Assistant Commissioner in two spheres: professionalism and frontline policing?

Mr Martin Hewitt: That’s right, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And then from 2015 to 2019 you were vice-chair of the NPCC?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yeah, that was alongside my full-time role in the Met.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And then you were appointed Chair of the NPCC in 2019, and you held that role until April 2023?

Mr Martin Hewitt: That’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. So if we now move on to talk about what the NPCC is, in fact. It’s right that it’s a national body which coordinates police forces in the United Kingdom.

Mr Martin Hewitt: That’s correct, yeah, for all police forces in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and then non-Home Office, so the smaller police forces as well and, indeed, for police forces that are in overseas territories.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. All those forces participate in decision making for the NPCC through a council called the Chief Constables Council?

Mr Martin Hewitt: That’s correct, and I would chair that Chief Constables Council meeting.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. Now, importantly, the NPCC doesn’t have powers to direct police forces to do anything; is that right?

Mr Martin Hewitt: No, all of the forces sign up to be – under the Police Act, sign up to be part of the NPCC but each chief constable or commissioner, depending on the senior person in that organisation, is entirely legally independent and is responsible for their own particular force.

Counsel Inquiry: And so the NPCC can offer, I believe, guidance and recommendations to the police forces?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes, definitely. Particularly around policy and strategic issues that affect policing, the role of the NPCC is to bring all of those forces together so that we collectively, as policing, can decide on the direction.

Counsel Inquiry: I believe that the chief constables have signed an agreement to follow the recommendations of the NPCC, but they do have the power, if they so choose, to derogate from that agreement.

Mr Martin Hewitt: That’s correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: But in practice is it right that derogation from the agreement is rare?

Mr Martin Hewitt: It is very rare, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And in fact, there was no such derogation from the recommendations of the NPCC during the pandemic?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Not to my recollection at all, no, they weren’t.

Counsel Inquiry: Before we move on to the NPCC’s role in the pandemic, there is one more organisation I’d like to touch upon and that’s the College of Policing.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Mm-hm.

Counsel Inquiry: Is it right that the College of Policing is an organisation separate from the NPCC which sets standards for the police and is responsible for their professionalism development such as training and things like that?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yeah, that’s correct. The college has the responsibility, so works into the Home Secretary but has the responsibility for standards setting, for the provision of guidance to policing, and also learning and development, particularly. It’s effectively the sort of knowledge centre for policing.

Counsel Inquiry: Is it right that the NPCC work closely with the College of Policing?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes, we work very closely, in my – when I was undertaking the role as chair, the two other key links that I that was with the chief executive of the College of Policing at the time, and also the chief inspector from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue, and we would work as a trio in terms of policing leadership.

Counsel Inquiry: Now, in terms of the NPCC’s role in the pandemic, is it right that it was as follows: when the government issued regulations that included matters relevant to policing, such as the creation of criminal offences, your role was to work with police forces to ensure implementation of those regulations?

Mr Martin Hewitt: That’s correct. So when the pandemic, when it was clear the pandemic was coming, as we were seeing it move, sort of, westwards across Europe, I took on the role, I took a gold leadership role in policing to bring together how the police service was going to respond, to what was going to be requiring of us policing, but policing in a pandemic context. So that was the responsibility I took on and then – and therefore it was through the NPCC that we were guiding and leading and coordinating the activity from the forces thereafter.

Counsel Inquiry: And in fact, you set up, I think, a specific operational response to the pandemic in March 2020 and was that response called Operation Talla?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes, so we created Operation Talla. It was clear that we needed to bring together the way that everybody was operating across the UK, and then what happened alongside that was that in each individual police force, they essentially replicated a gold, silver, bronze structure, which is the sort of traditional way of dealing with an operation within policing. They replicated that in their own force context. Many of those they designated as Op Talla, some forces chose a different name, but we then were able to work at a national level and then feed down so that the same was happening individually in each police force.

Counsel Inquiry: Just finally on this topic about the various roles of organisations, I’d just like to ask you about the Independent Ethics Committee. Is it right that that was a committee set up specifically during the pandemic to, as the name might suggest, consider ethical issues and advise the NPCC and Operation Talla?

Mr Martin Hewitt: So it was very clear to me when we were setting up the operation, and on – the, sort of, priorities around the operation would be the ones that you would expect in terms of how we could help to preserve life and safety, but also absolutely key for me, recognising that we were about to go into a scenario that was really without precedent in policing in the UK. It was really important that we were going to come out of the other end of the pandemic maintaining public confidence in policing, and that really defined the approach we were taking.

Very early on in the operation, it became clear that we were going to have to make decisions around really challenging issues, ethically challenging issues because of the nature of policing in a pandemic. And so we created the Independent Ethics Committee, which was – which we pulled together. It was chaired by David Walker, who was the Bishop of Manchester, with a group of people, and it was really, if you like, the conscience to us as Operation Talla made decisions, particularly difficult decisions, it was a conscience that we could test and ask questions of that group to give us a view, not to make decisions on our behalf, but to be as a, sort of, a challenge point and a critical friend, if you like.

Counsel Inquiry: Now just about – on the NPCC’s engagement with the government, please, again, you’ve spoken to the Inquiry about this in Module 2 at some length, but is it right that, firstly, in normal non-Covid, non-pandemic times, would the NPCC be consulted when there was, for example, the creation of criminal offences?

Mr Martin Hewitt: There would be – there would be some consultation for different groups within NPCC that had particular lead areas, but that would be at a relatively early stage, as policy was being developed or even legislation being developed.

That took on a completely different tempo once the pandemic – the pandemic situation began. So the interaction very directly with the Home Office was intense, and the teams working for me were pretty much always alongside the equivalent teams of officials in the Home Office as things were developed and we were trying to make sure that we were up to speed with how things were changing.

Then I was also very, kind of, closely engaged with both the Home Secretary and the policing minister in a very regular pattern as we were collectively trying to provide advice on the policing implications for whatever the government was choosing to do.

Counsel Inquiry: And what stage would that be? Would that be before legislation was enacted or would it be generally afterwards?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Generally speaking, we would find out that there was a new provision, a new regulation, this is particularly once we started to get into all the regulations. That process would take place within government, and we would – because of our links, we would generally have some understanding of what was being proposed and we may get an opportunity to give a bit of an input of what the policing implications of such a measure would be. But it became one of the challenges for us throughout the pandemic that quite often the new regulations signed off by the Secretary of State in the Department of Health would land on us, and it was then a matter for us to try to then subsequently work out how best to advise policing to deal with that particular piece of legislation.

Counsel Inquiry: Was there any similar engagement with the Welsh Government?

Mr Martin Hewitt: The Welsh forces – so the way that we operated, I would do the work that I did through Op Talla with all forces, and all forces were part of the rhythm of meetings and information sharing that I led through Operation Talla. But then what would happen, obviously, in Scotland, Police Scotland would be linking directly with the government in Scotland, similarly with the Assembly in Northern Ireland.

And in Wales, because policing is not devolved in Wales, it still comes under the Home Secretary but the chief constables, the four chief constables in Wales, who work very collectively in that region, would clearly be linking very directly into the Welsh Government. And one of the challenges in fact that we had when we were putting our operational briefings out, which we would put out every time there was a new regulation or change to a regulation, one of the things that delayed us was that we had all of those guidance or operation briefing documents translated into Welsh so that they were able to be used in that country.

Counsel Inquiry: You bring me nicely on to the next topic I wanted to ask you about, which was in relation to operational briefings and guidance.

So firstly, on operational briefings, could you explain what exactly those were.

Mr Martin Hewitt: So – and I’m sure we’ll come on to the – the one piece of guidance that we issued was the approach that we wanted – the 4 Es approach. And I’m sure we’ll talk about that, but the operational briefings was really the mechanism by which we were able to share information to all the police forces in relation to a new regulation, a change to a regulation, any changes that took place that allowed that to be filtered down through – disseminated through the forces so the officers on the ground were able to do their role in the way we wanted them to do, because there was quite clearly a role for policing in trying to explain to members of the public what the new regulations were and how that new regulation might affect them.

Because – you know, because, for me, I saw that as a really clear role. And as we set the strategy at the beginning, we were setting a strategy that was a consensus rather than a compliance strategy. We wanted to work with the public in the way that we try to do in policing to get the public to understand and then to follow the regulations, rather than it being more of a compliance-type regime, which we had seen and I’d witnessed that as – as the pandemic had moved through Europe, I’d witnessed the sort of styles of policing that were happening there, and I was really determined that we weren’t going to adopt that in this country.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

How were the operational briefings disseminated? Was it in the form of training – (overspeaking) –

Mr Martin Hewitt: So in a number of ways. They would be issued whenever they – whenever they were complete, they would be issued to all forces. We used a whole range of different means of communicating.

The whole purpose of the operational briefings was to make them very straightforward for the individual officer on the ground who was going to have to understand this and then translate that into how he or she was going to act in accordance with the law. We used infographics, we used a whole range – which we have shared with the Inquiry previously – to really try and make it as useful a tool for the individual officers who were the ones that are having to face the decisions about what action they did or didn’t take.

Counsel Inquiry: You’ve mentioned guidance. It’s right, I think, that you only issued one piece of guidance during the pandemic?

Mr Martin Hewitt: That’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: And if we can get that on screen now, please, INQ000999 – oh, there it is.

Can you see that guidance?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes, it’s just come up, yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: That’s guidance on applying the 4 Es, as we can see at the top, and we’ll come on to talk about the 4 Es are in just a moment. I first want to ask you a bit about the guidance itself, please.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: First of all, there isn’t a date on it; do you recall when this guidance was issued?

Mr Martin Hewitt: It was very early on. I mean, it was in March of 2020 that we worked through very quickly to try to provide that guidance, and I guess the important point to make is that it didn’t change throughout the policing of the pandemic. It remained as it was, and it was the only guidance document for policing issued during the pandemic.

Counsel Inquiry: Mentioning that it hasn’t changed, if we look at the bottom right-hand corner, the final bullet point that starts “Police can issue a fixed penalty notice of £100”.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: We will hear, I suspect, later, that the fixed penalty notices –

Mr Martin Hewitt: (Distorted audio – inaudible)

Counsel Inquiry: – I believe the fines changed?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Was the guidance updated at all to reflect the changes in the fine levels?

Mr Martin Hewitt: I’m pretty sure the guidance would have been updated to reflect that. Sorry, I guess the point I was making was the concept of the “4 Es” approach didn’t change throughout, but – I can’t say for certain but I would be very sure that that would change as the levels changed, which as you know, they did a number of times, and in the different countries.

Counsel Inquiry: And just in relation to the different countries, I can see at the top right-hand corner of the guidance, I think you’ve anticipated, there’s an English flag?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Does that indicate this guidance was just disseminated in England or was it in fact disseminate across the four nations?

Mr Martin Hewitt: It was shared with all four nations. Clearly Wales would have translated that into Welsh as well as English, and the “Four Es” guidance was shared with Police Scotland and with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Now, they didn’t formally – they kind of operated to that principle but they didn’t formally, if you like, sort of, adopt it as guidance because they clearly were also working with what was coming from their respective administrations.

Counsel Inquiry: Did you at all assess the effectiveness of the guidance? Did you seek feedback or anything like that?

Mr Martin Hewitt: We constantly did, and we were constantly, sort of, challenging ourselves as to whether the way we were operating was how we needed to operate, and clearly, we were – once we started being into the regime where fixed penalty notices were being given out, then we were monitoring and looking at the changes around there because clearly, in the guidance terms, the point where you’ve used a fixed penalty notice is at the “enforce” point, so we were really just trying to assess and we were doing that continually throughout the process, to – just to satisfy ourselves. And then individually, obviously, forces were looking at the performance within their own force area to try to understand whether that was demonstrating that the four Es model.

But I am very confident, having been through the whole process, that the four Es was adopted very strongly as the means of us operating, but it always was facing the challenges as the situation shifted and regulations shifted, and the, sort of – the tone and the atmosphere in the country shifted in the various phases going through the pandemic.

Counsel Inquiry: So I would like to ask you about the four Es and what exactly they were. We can see at the top, perhaps an explanation: engage, explain, encourage, enforce.

So could you please explain what the four Es were?

Mr Martin Hewitt: The whole purpose of the four Es was – the point that I’ve made about this wanting to be how we can become, we can use a consensual model rather than a compliance model, and everybody was very clear from the outset there was going to be challenges with people understanding what the regulations meant for them, understanding what had changed. So the whole concept was – and this is how you try and apply policing in a general sense.

So the first thing is about engaging with people, so this is not a kind of robotic policing enforcement issue. We are here to provide policing services in the context of a pandemic. So engage with the people that you are coming across.

The “explanation” point was really important, because we recognise that the average member of the public would be getting information from here, there and everywhere, which often in the media was not accurate, and so we, by producing our operational guidance – our operational updates, briefings, were allowing the officers to understand precisely what that meant and we were explaining that in very plain English: So your role is to explain that to the person and then encourage them to comply if there is a requirement for them to comply. Because the whole purpose was to avoid getting to the point where what you had to do was enforce, which could either be arrest or, more prominently, became fixed penalty notices. We wanted that to be the last point that you went to, only when the other three – or certainly the second and the third elements had gone through before you got to the point where you were then doing something which had a potential sanction on the individual.

Because again, this whole – the – our whole approach was not about trying to deal with criminality per se; it was about how do you allow and help people to abide by the regulations that are there to avoid, you know, spread of the pandemic.

Counsel Inquiry: So as enforcement was a last resort, does it follow that there were cases which were dealt with without the need for enforcement?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Oh, very many, would be my argument. And unfortunately, and I recall this from when I gave evidence in Module 2, it was unfortunately impossible for us to be able to – you can measure when a fixed penalty notice was issued, you can measure if someone was arrested. It was impossible and it would have been a wasteful process to try, because there will have been thousands and thousands of engagements with – between police officers and members of the public at the various stages as the pandemic progressed, and in the vast majority of those cases, my belief would be that we got to the point of encourage, and that was all that happened. But, clearly, there were a number where there was a requirement to enforce where people were blatantly refusing to abide by the regulations.

Counsel Inquiry: And so we’ll move on to that enforcement side of things now.

And thank you, we can take that guidance off the screen.

There were two, effectively, two ways in which officers could enforce an offence, weren’t there? First, fixed penalty notices.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: And secondly, charging an offence for court proceedings. So I’d like to talk with you, first, about the process of fixed penalty notices and the court process just so that we understand the background.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Mm-hm.

Counsel Inquiry: So in a nutshell, a fixed penalty notice is what we might colloquially call an “on the spot” fine; is that right?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Well, it’s when you’re effectively giving someone that notice of an intention to prosecute. It’s a bit like you get the speeding ticket comes through the post where there is obviously ultimately a potential that that could go to court but you are essentially being offered an option to deal with the process by paying a fine within a particular period of time, that then obviously saves the need for the process to work the way through to the courts.

Counsel Inquiry: So therefore it’s not a criminal conviction?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Correct.

Counsel Inquiry: So in practice, if I understand this correctly, what would happen during the pandemic, if an officer saw someone or knew somebody was committing a Covid-related offence, assuming we’d get past the first three Es and move to enforcement, the officer would inform the person that they’ll be subject to a fixed penalty notice; is that right?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: The officer then, I believe, fills in a pro forma with the relevant details about the offence and the offender, and that pro forma is sent to a central organisation called ACRO Criminal Records Office. ACRO is a central organisation separate from the police –

Mr Martin Hewitt: It is.

Counsel Inquiry: – and the NPCC. ACRO would then review the pro forma, and, if all was in order, would issue the formal notification to the respondent. If there were any problems with that form, they would return the matter to the police force.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Mm-hm.

Counsel Inquiry: Just pausing on ACRO briefly, did they deal with fines for all four nations or was it just England?

Mr Martin Hewitt: So we – ACRO’s normal role is managing criminal records and the exchange of criminal records. It very quickly became clear that there was going to be a real challenge. We needed to centrally find a place to manage the fixed penalty notices, which were – the pro formas were done differently in different forces. So the process would be that the officer would issue the fixed penalty notice. That would be looked at in their force, where they would do some checks.

We then got to a position fairly quickly where ACRO were the ones that were bringing this all together. And they would do further checks and, as you say, if there were issues, they would send it back to the force.

That was definitely with England. We originally started it with the force that hosts ACRO, which is Hampshire police, but then we realised we needed to – this would make sense to bring it all in one place.

Wales came on board eventually, along with some of the other smaller forces, and I think Northern Ireland – my recollection is, I think, that Northern Ireland stayed separate but Scotland started to use that facility as well.

But this was not – this was not a mandatory process for the police forces, but it was a way that we were able, at the centre, collectively to bring things together and understand that we had at least a consistent process that was being applied to all of the issues.

Counsel Inquiry: Do you know when ACRO’s role expanded to cover the Welsh forces?

Mr Martin Hewitt: I don’t off the top of my head. I don’t know whether that – it might be in the statement. I can’t recall off the top of my head, but I don’t know the answer to that question.

Counsel Inquiry: Going back, then, to the process of the fixed penalty notice, once ACRO has sent the fixed penalty notice to the respondent, that person then had two options, didn’t they? They could either pay the fine and that would be the end of the matter?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: Or they could not pay the fine and the matter would then go to court?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Via the police, again –

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – who would charge it.

So if a person wanted to context a fixed penalty notice, they could simply refuse to pay and go to court? Was that one way of –

Mr Martin Hewitt: That was one anyway of doing it, yes. That would be the one way.

Counsel Inquiry: And another way of a person contesting a fixed penalty notice would be to go directly to the police force before they’d sent the form to ACRO. Was that an option?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Potentially. I’m not – I think that would be – I’m not sure how that would have worked. They would obviously know that they’d been issued with a fixed penalty notice but I’m not aware – and that clearly would have been a matter that the individual forces would have to deal with.

Counsel Inquiry: So turning then to what happened when the matter would go to court, now it’s right that in most normal, if I can put it that way, non-Covid-19 offences, when a criminal charge goes to court, it’s prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service in a public hearing before a judge or a bench of magistrates, and the defendant would appear in person. That’s the usual process, isn’t it?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Mm-hm, yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: But in relation to Covid-19 offences, I believe a different procedure was adopted called the Single Justice Procedure; is that correct?

Mr Martin Hewitt: That’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: Now, the Single Justice Procedure was a mechanism available to courts since 2015, I think, but it was widely used for the prosecution of Covid-19 offences; is that right?

Mr Martin Hewitt: I believe – yes, that it was certainly – it was certainly one that became – became one of the ways that things were dealt with it, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And what it meant, effectively, was that a single magistrate would look at the offence paperwork and the defendant wouldn’t need to go to court and nor would lawyers, but the defendant could submit written representations?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yeah, I think – I mean, that is the Single Justice Procedure process, but I mean, clearly, that is really more of an issue, I think, for HMCTS and then those processes.

I think one of the factors that was at play clearly during the pandemic was, pretty much at the outset of the pandemic, the courts were closed down, and so, you know – and we had started the pandemic in a situation where there were quite considerable backlogs in both, you know, magistrates’ and crown courts. So I can understand the logic of trying to speed up that process, but it, you know, clearly has its limitations.

Counsel Inquiry: Well, for those proceedings, police were, I think, designated by the Attorney General to be prosecuted rather than the Crown Prosecution Service; is that right?

Mr Martin Hewitt: That’s correct, yeah. And that would have been done individually within the forces, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Were you, as the NPCC, consulted at all as to whether the Single Justice Procedure should be used?

Mr Martin Hewitt: I wouldn’t probably describe it as “consulted”. I mean, through our criminal justice – so the way that NPCC operates is you have a number of portfolios headed by an individual chief constable, and our criminal justice portfolio were very involved throughout the process, as ideas like this, or how we were dealing with the fixed penalties, how we were managing the fixed penalty, they would have been directly involved in those discussions.

Whether that was consulted in the sense of being able to change the decision, I wasn’t party to any of those, but we would have definitely been part of the discussions that, in advance, I think it would be fair to say.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. Now if we turn back to the fixed penalty notices themselves and the amounts a person might be find which we touched on earlier.

If on screen, please, we could have INQ000587307, page 50 – thank you, yes.

I think you can see there a table which you’ve helpfully set out in your witness statement.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: This represents the fine levels as at 26 March 2020; is that correct?

Mr Martin Hewitt: If that’s what it says in the – yeah, I believe so.

Counsel Inquiry: And we can see at this stage, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all had a minimum fine of £60 reduced to £30 if paid within 14 days?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Mm-hm.

Counsel Inquiry: Then the final column is headed “Further Penalties”, that refers to repeat offenders, doesn’t it?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes, it does, yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: And so if a person is given a fine a second or third time, each time they’re given a fine, the amount doubles?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Now, in England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland we can see that the maximum level of fine was £960. But in Wales it was £120. Do you know, you may not and, if so, please say, why Wales had a different maximum fine?

Mr Martin Hewitt: I don’t know the answer to that. I think it’s fair to say from my perspective, so this is from, you know, a policing perspective, the way that all the forces across the UK work together, I think was pretty effective in terms of us being able to approach things in the same way. What was happening politically, clearly, were differences. There were occasions where I was involved in Cabinet meetings or government meetings in relation to how things were changing, where you would have the devolved administrations were present in those meetings online, and you could see that there were differences of view in terms of particularly around fines.

Now, these clearly were not a police matter to decide on the levels of fines and how that would move forward, but it certainly did become quite an issue for us, and there were periods with some of the different regulations where some very significant fines were being considered, and of course, the reality for that from a policing perspective is it’s a police officer, ultimately, that is engaging with the individual. So that, I think, led to some real challenges as the fines were considerably higher.

But why the difference between Wales in that particular set would have to be something that you’d need to ask to the administration there.

Counsel Inquiry: You in mentioned fines becoming progressively higher. And is it right that in May 2020, the minimum fine in England, and if it assists, this is at your paragraph 142, we don’t have it on screen but I think you have it in front of you – in May 2020, the minimum fine in England increased to £100 and the upper limit, the maximum, increased to £3,200.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: And then in September of 2020, the minimum fine that could be given to somebody breaching a Covid offence increased to £200.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: With a maximum of £6,400.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Mm-hm.

Counsel Inquiry: But in Wales the minimum remained at £60 but in May 2020, the maximum increased to £1,960.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: So somewhat less than the maximum in England.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And in Scotland the maximum fine –

Mr Martin Hewitt: Was reduced.

Counsel Inquiry: – was actually reduced to £480.

What difficulties, if any, were caused to the police force officers in enforcing offences with different fine values?

Mr Martin Hewitt: I think it was another later of the challenges that police officers had to face, because clearly this kind of information was being publicised and you can see there – my perception at the time was as things – as infection levels were rising, there would be more pressure from the government to be seen to be taking stronger action, and one of the mechanisms that repeatedly, as you’ve just read through in that point 142 was just a continual racking up.

It’s interesting, that last sentence, because clearly in Scotland, the legal establishment then obviously became part of that particular discussion.

From a police officer point of view, it was never our responsibility or any – we had no involvement in deciding fines, but the police officer has to interact with a member of the public. And that interaction is, by definition, can be confrontational, particularly if you’re at the point where a fixed penalty notice is being – is likely to be issued. And therefore, that makes that job, I think, considerably harder, where you’re talking about a situation there where, as you say, in the sort of maximum point there, you could have someone looking at potentially £6,400 as a fine.

And I recall particularly some of the fines for groups of people getting together, and this particularly became, I remember examples in relation to students when we were having a number of issues where groups of students were gathering (unclear) and you were having students and some of the fines there were in the tens of thousands of pounds that were – and so, therefore, from the policing perspective it’s the practical application that of the work that the officers were having to do against the backdrop of what, you know, seemed to be ever-increasing numbers.

Counsel Inquiry: Was there any difficulty caused to you as the NPCC in relation to operational briefings or the guidance that you could give to police forces?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Well, we – our operational briefings would have to reflect the change. So that, of course, is – becomes then quite confusing for the officers, that this is now changing again. And, of course, what you then get into is, particularly as we progressed through the pandemic, where there were, you know, well over 100 changes of one description or another, that then, I think, inevitably leads you to where regulations or actions are misapplied because the individual officer, because bearing in mind these officers are doing what the police are doing all the time, which is policing 24/7 and dealing with all the other things they’re dealing with, you know, that’s I think where you could get mistakes, because of the kind of frequency and the speed with which we were having to put new operational briefings that are saying this has now changed.

Counsel Inquiry: And we’ll certainly pick up that point in just a moment but just before we do, the final point on fines. Is it right that the numbers of fines issued for test, trace, and isolate related offences specifically were relatively low during the pandemic: 184 in England and 84 in Wales?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Extremely low.

Counsel Inquiry: And what, in your view, are the reasons for the low numbers of fines that were issued?

Mr Martin Hewitt: I think the – well, two points, really. One, the sort of complexity and the continuing changing nature of the regulation, but from a policing point of view, a very specific challenge was for the police to take action, we can only take action against the legislation, so we act – the officers can only act in accordance with the law. And if we are going to act in accordance with the law, you need to have the evidence trail that allows you to take the action that you take. And one of the challenges with test and trace throughout was that I don’t think we were ever in a situation where the continuity of all of the evidence was such that it would allow a police officer to take an action in relation to a regulation.

There were just too many inconsistencies, and as it says in the statement, this was an area where we had frequent engagements and meetings with the Department of Health and Social Care, but the system never got itself into a place where you could definitively be confident of it is that person with that test and positive test, and so on, and so therefore, I think that’s what led to that very small number of sanctions.

Counsel Inquiry: That’s helpful. I’d like to actually ask you a bit more about the challenges police officers on the ground particularly faced in relation to enforcement.

You’ve mentioned the number of changes made to Covid regulations. What sort of challenges specifically did that, for example, cause to the police officers on the ground?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Well – so apart from anything else, police officers are normal people. And also the other thing that I think was unique – I mean, I have been involved in a lot of critical incidents but the unique thing about this incident is, even though the police officers were there acting as police officers in a professional capacity, they were still being affected by Covid-19 in the same way that everybody else was affected, so it was really challenging for them as individuals to be keeping up with the changes to regulations, the – that we were then having to find a way to communicate in an understandable fashion, through our briefings, to allow the officers then to go and undertake the “explain” element of their role when they were engaging with a member of the public.

We often got the new regulations with very limited time before they actually were enacted. The worst example, I think, was a regulation that was due to be enacted at a minute past midnight and we got the signed-off regulation from the Secretary of State at quarter to midnight. And in that instance, we then still had a period of time – and depending on the number of changes and the complexity, it could take us, you know, certainly hours, and sometimes days, to actually arrive at a briefing, an operational briefing that we were satisfied with. It would be pulled together by the College of Policing, it would go through their legal teams, it would then go through our legal teams. It would then be signed off at the college and then signed off ultimately by me.

So that process was often slow, and often meant that we were then behind the cycle for when the regulation came in, because what would happen at that stage is you would then get whoever the government minister speaking on that day would be talking about this new regulation, and of course, confusion for our officers thinking: well, we’ve not seen the – we’ve not had the operational briefing yet.

So then that rolls into, you know, being able to explain that, being able to explain that to the public as well.

So I think that was one of the challenges.

And then of course you’ve then got the situation where, as the pandemic progressed, we would have different regulations in play in the same space of land in – you know, not unusual in – you know, after we started to get the localised regulations, the localised lockdowns, within the same police area. Or indeed, in some cases in the same city or town, you would have different regulations in play.

And what that led to was a real challenge. We worked very closely with the scientists, with the SPI-B scientists, throughout, and one of the phenomena that we talked with them about – because this is about how do you get compliance, how do you get, you know, maximum people complying with the regulations without having to be forced. And the concept there around othering was one that the scientists really brought out for us.

So therefore it’s really difficult for the police officer, when you’re engaging with someone who is breaching a regulation, and they know that the person, you know, three streets over there or the person in a different part of the country is not under this regulation, that then again raises the level of potential confrontation in that case engagement, which then – you know, which then makes it more difficult for the police officers.

Counsel Inquiry: And did government guidance assist you at all?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Sometimes government guidance hindered, if I’m perfectly honest. And one of the challenges was that when government would go out and talk in the media, the minister would offer – or the spokesperson, but normally a minister, would often confusion legislation – so regulation or legislation – and guidance, and that would confuse the public, because the public would then think: well, it’s unlawful to do that thing and not that thing or vice versa.

So that became a real challenge for us as well.

And indeed, I would often have to do a media round to try to basically clarify that what the person said this morning is not part of the law. So that was a particular issue.

And then the other issue, around both the regulations, but definitely the guidance, was the lack of specificity in what was being said, and using phrases such as “without reasonable cause”; well, what is reasonable to one person and to another? And there are a number of examples there.

Which then leads to confusion, legitimately leads to confusion in the minds of the members of the public, and then of course is hard for the officer to interpret, and then of course you then get back again into this confrontational scenario where the member of the public has rationalised that, you know, this is a reasonable cause, and the – and then the – you know, the police officer may feel otherwise, or we may have tried to find some clarity.

But we were constantly going back at the process with the government to say: we need to be clearer about what you’re saying here.

And you go back to the very early ones where you were allowed to, you know, for – whatever the phrase was – necessary for shopping or going out and exercising, well, it didn’t say you could only go out and exercise once. You could go out five times, potentially. Or what was a necessity.

And so all of that lack of specificity I think really caused us challenge.

Counsel Inquiry: Generally speaking, what was the response when you would take those concerns back to the government?

Mr Martin Hewitt: I mean, to be fair, we – you know, we had a good working relationship with the government. My team that were running all of this for me had a very close working relationship with the team within the Home Office, and my – I spoke very, very, very regularly with the Home Secretary, with the policing minister, and we met, you know, with other senior police leaders on a daily basis, to assess where we were.

So they would listen but it inevitably got caught with the politics of what was going on and the pressure that they were feeling to act in particular ways.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

Now I’d like to ask you about one particular challenge relevant to test, trace and isolate, if I may, and that’s in relation to the offence of failing to self-isolate. So is it right that in September 2020 it became an offence in England for someone who had tested positive to fail to self-isolate?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And I think in around November of that year Wales followed suit and there was a similar offence in Wales?

Mr Martin Hewitt: That’s my understanding, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Now could I please put on screen INQ000099806.

These are the minutes of a meeting of the Independent Ethics Committee about whom we heard earlier.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: We can see underneath the heading “Operation Talla Independent Ethics Committee” the date, 5 October 2020.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Mm-hm.

Counsel Inquiry: So that meeting took place after it became an offence in England to self-isolate but before it became an offence in Wales.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Mm-hm.

Counsel Inquiry: So if we could turn, please, to page 2. We see at the bottom of the page a heading “Self-Isolation Regulations”.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: And so this is the section of the meeting where the new self-isolation regulations were to be discussed.

Now, if we can turn, please, to page 3, we see that the committee was discussing – if I start with – yes, thank you.

The section:

“… included some difficulties encountered by Talla/NPCC as a result of not seeing any draft legislation for the self-isolation regulations and therefore the inability to influence key factors which policing would have to navigate as a result.”

Just pausing there, do you recall when you first became aware that self-isolation was to become a criminal offence?

Mr Martin Hewitt: I don’t recall off the top of my head, I don’t recall that, but I – you know, I do recognise that: that this appeared, and we hadn’t had the opportunity to be involved in that at the earlier stage. That’s definitely true.

Counsel Inquiry: Then the committee minutes go on to say:

“A practical example of the missing data sharing agreement was provided which would enable information regarding those that should be self-isolating to be shared to police forces and implement processes so that it could be understood.”

Now, could you just break that down for us? What was the missing data sharing agreement? What were they referring to?

Mr Martin Hewitt: So the concept that we came up with was to try and agree a sort of memorandum of understanding with the Department of Health and Social Care in relation to how we could – it goes back to the point that I made earlier in general terms about test, trace, and isolate. It was about us being in a position to have data, or data of sufficient quality that allows us to potentially identify that an offence had been committed, and we were never able to.

So we tried to pull together an MoU with the Department of Health and Social Care to try and agree how this would work, but I think that the data quality issues that persisted throughout meant that we never got to the point where we could deploy that MoU, and I suspect also that is part of what led to the numbers, the small numbers that we’ve already referred to in relation to test, trace, isolate –

Counsel Inquiry: So if I may, I’ll just break your answer down a little just so that we understand. The missing data to which you refer, or the problems with data, is that data as to whether somebody had tested positive? And so that element of the offence –

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes –

Counsel Inquiry: – or whether someone had failed to isolate?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yeah, I mean, primarily it’s linking the positive test definitively with the individual definitively, and then, of course, you know, then you need to add the data of where that person is. But it was really all about making sure that the system was – the data quality in the system, and linking the different pieces or the different pots of data to come to the conclusion that we would need if we were going to do something which is effectively taking a kind of legal course of action.

Counsel Inquiry: We see then in the remainder of that paragraph the committee say:

“Whilst these details were worked through, this led to frontline officers and staff unable to enforce the legislation even after the legislation was passed in law …”

So I think that reflects what you’ve just told us.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: And if we turn then, please, to page 3 of this document, and we go right to the bottom paragraph starting “The Chair provided a summary” which neatly encapsulates the conclusions of this meeting:

“The Chair provided a summary that the Committee felt was consistent to the discussion in that to maintain public trust and ensure the correct legal basis for enforcement, police should not enforce the legislation until [memorandum of understanding] and data sharing agreement were in place.”

So was it the case that you in fact provided guidance or advice to the police forces that police officers should not enforce this legislation until such time as you had a data sharing agreement?

Mr Martin Hewitt: We needed to be in a position where we were absolutely confident that we had, you know, we had the evidence provided in the way that we would need if we were going to take that action.

Counsel Inquiry: And did you in fact, then, you’ve touched on this, but did you, in fact, reach a data sharing agreement with the government?

Mr Martin Hewitt: We didn’t. That MoU never came into full being.

Counsel Inquiry: So during the period of the pandemic, was the offence of failing to self-isolate enforced by police forces?

Mr Martin Hewitt: I think, though I don’t know the exact numbers off the top of my head, but I think there was some but it really was the challenge of being satisfied that you have got all of the data necessary to actually take action.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. Now we can take that off screen. Thank you.

The final set of questions I’d like to ask you, please, under the topic of challenges to policing is in relation to how these challenges may have impacted the charging of offences at court.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: I think you’re aware that the Crown Prosecution Service, the CPS, conducted a review into all Covid-19 offences –

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – that made their way to court. That review took place between April 2020 and March 2022. It was an ongoing review; is that right?

Mr Martin Hewitt: As far as I – that’s my memory of it, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Could we look at the results of that review, please INQ000587469. Thank you.

Now, this is a bar chart illustrating the results of the CPS review. If we just look at it together we can see that there are six bars on the screen.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And the first three, if you see underneath them is the label “Health Protection (CR) Regulations”, so those three represent cases charged under the regulations.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And then the final three bars, the wording underneath them is “Coronavirus Act”?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: So can you see that those represent cases charged under the Act?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And the Y-axis on the left shows the percentage of legal cases represented by the bars, and then the bars are in two colours, blue represents cases correctly charged.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: And can you see that orange represents the cases that are incorrectly charged?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Mm-hm.

Counsel Inquiry: So if we turn, first, in fact, to the last three bars, the three orange bars, cases charged under the Coronavirus Act, and specifically could I ask you, please, to look at the first of the three orange bars, which is cases charged by the police under the Coronavirus Act. Can you see that?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And can you see that of 298 cases charged by police under the Act, all 298 were found to have been incorrectly charged?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And in fact, in fairness to you and the police, and looking over to the next bar, those cases charged by the CPS under the Act, we can see that all 13 cases they charged were also incorrectly charged?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Now, first of all, the Crown Prosecution Service have indicated in written evidence to the Inquiry that the reason for these results was that prosecutors and police were incorrectly charging offences under the Act when they should have been charged under the regulations. In other words, they were offences enacted by regulations rather than the Act.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Mm-hm.

Counsel Inquiry: Would you agree with that explanation?

Mr Martin Hewitt: I would, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And in your view, what are the reasons or reason for that error?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Well, I mean, in the first instance I think the Act, the nature of the legislation in the Act was incredibly imprecise and very difficult to imagine how that could have been used effectively in an operational sense by a police officer with the expectation of what that police officer would have been identifying in the person.

I think also you then had that this was at the very outset, obviously, when the legislation was first passed, and the pandemic commenced, and I think there will have been confusion, then, inevitably, and that has – that probably led to that. And then equally, when officers were dealing with things later, they will have made the mistake to, as you say, to charge under the Act as opposed to charging under one of the regulations.

But I think all of this was a symptom of the fact that (a) the thing was moving very quickly, there were lots of changes being made in a very rapid way, and that we were, you know, sitting at NPCC, were trying our best to deliver that information through the operational briefings out to officers to allow them to act, but it was a confusing landscape. And I suspect that’s largely the reason where officers have made the mistakes that are evident there on the screen.

Counsel Inquiry: Now if we turn to the first bar in the chart, please, it represents cases charged by police under the regulations. There we can see, I make it a total of 2,514 cases in total, and of those, 520 are represented by orange, so 520 were charged incorrectly.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Mm-hm.

Counsel Inquiry: And can you see that that represents about 20% –

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – of all cases charged under the regulations?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Now the CPS themselves haven’t offered an explanation as to those errors. His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service offered a written explanation in evidence to the Inquiry for that. We don’t need to put it on screen, but if I may read the explanation to you and see whether you agree. They listed the following reasons why these errors were made:

[As read] “1. The wording of the charge didn’t match the offence in the regulations.

“2. The evidents match the charge.

“3. There were charges of non-existent offences.

“4. Prosecutions under the regulations which hadn’t been specified.”

So it was the CPS’s duty to bring those charges rather than the police.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Mm-hm.

Counsel Inquiry: “5. Prosecutions for conduct which did not amount to a criminal offence on the date it was committed but which was subsequently criminalised.”

So charging offences before the days that the regulations came into force.

And finally:

“Prosecutions under the Welsh regulations in England, and the English regulations in Wales.”

Do you agree with those explanations for the errors that we see?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Well, they certainly sound to me like reasonable explanations. I mean, the one – I think it was the second or the third one – that would trouble me was that there wasn’t the evidence. But for the others I can see – and I think they are – they demonstrate the complexity for the police officers on the ground trying to deal with a situation where the nature of the offences is changing quite as rapidly as it was changing.

You know, which is – I know offences change all the time, but not in quite the way that we saw during that period. So I think some of that confusion is not surprising.

I think where there wasn’t evidence would be more concerning to me, but the others sound like credible reasons why this may be the case.

Counsel Inquiry: Were you aware at the time, so during the pandemic, of the errors in charging decisions?

Mr Martin Hewitt: We worked – obviously, as I said prior, or previously, our criminal justice – the criminal justice group under NPCC were working very closely with CPS colleagues, as they do, and Crown Prosecution – and HMCTS colleagues. So we would be aware as we were going through. But again, we have to take ourselves back to that period where – you know, so this was as a result of a review, and we did number of reviews as we were going along to try to understand, but we do have to go back to the situation at the time where this was fast moving, it was constantly changing, and the officers were having to try to deal with all of this as well as – you know, particularly once the initial lockdown – you’re back dealing again with all the other normal, you know, policing issues that you have to deal with.

Counsel Inquiry: Can you help us at all with any measures the NPCC took in order to try to address the errors, for example training or guidance or anything like that?

Mr Martin Hewitt: So we were constantly learning throughout the process, and we started – we ran a series of knowledge-sharing exercises. So as and when we identified an issue, that would go out through – not necessarily through the operational briefings that would go out in relation to a particular regulation, but we would put all colleague calls going out from chief constables.

So whenever we identified an issue that we were seeing starting to be persistent, we would share that across the forces. And then ultimately it was then for the forces to be disseminating that through their own processes.

But there was a constant process of trying to learn as we went along, and rectify where there were mistakes. But that, as I say, was running in parallel with this constant shifting of – changing where the regulations were going to be, what was going to be happening, and then all the issues that we faced, clearly, because we were doing this in four countries and, at some points in time, all four countries were working under different regulatory frameworks.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

Now just the final, if I can call it, large topic I’d like to turn to, please, is that of inequalities and equalities during the pandemic.

I’m right, aren’t I, that you commissioned, as the NPCC, an independent assessment, an external expert review –

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – of your own decision making through the pandemic?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And is it right that that led to two reports? The first looked at a short period of time between 27 March 2020 and 25 May 2020?

Mr Martin Hewitt: That’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: That report was published on 27 July 2020, on your website.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Mm-hm.

Counsel Inquiry: Now, you were asked about that report in some detail when you last gave evidence.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And in fact it’s not my intention to go through that report in some detail, but there was a second report, wasn’t there?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: That second report reflected a significantly longer period between 27 March 2020 and 31 May 2021?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes, that’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: Is that right? And effectively, then, it engulfed the period of time considered by the first report and went further?

Mr Martin Hewitt: The reason we commissioned the second one was because the first one was done by, effectively, government statisticians, which we’d wanted to get the information. We then saw that report, and then wanted to get a longer and an independent – a more independent report that was led by a group of academics, to just allow us to understand.

Because after the first report, we obviously took the learning from that first report. As you rightly say, it was published, and that was then shared with all the forces so that individually forces could look at not only the overall findings of the report but then those that were specific to their own force area, to identify any issues that were particularly prevalent there.

But then we wanted to get that independently – independent academic review of the longer period to see whether some of the themes that we’d seen in the first had persisted through into the – thereafter.

Counsel Inquiry: In fact, let’s have a look, then, at that report together. So if we can please put up INQ000187993 – that’s the front page of the report, on the screen now.

So the report was called “Policing the Pandemic in England and Wales”, and we can see there the dates, 27 March 2020 to 31 May 2021.

If we could turn, please, to page 12. Under the heading “Ethnicity”, if we turn, please, to the second bullet point. Can you see that it says:

“Over a quarter (27.0%) of FPN [fixed penalty notices] recipients in England were from an ethnic minority background which was around double their population share (13.7%).”

Then it goes on to discuss Wales:

“The equivalent figure for Wales was one in ten (10.7%), which was also double their population share.”

Then the fourth bullet point down, please:

“The ethnic disparity rate in England was highest for people from a black ethnic background, who were 3.2 times more likely to be issued with a [fixed penalty notice] than those from a white background. The equivalent figure for Wales was 2.9.”

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: We see from this page, don’t we, that ethnic minorities were disproportionately more likely to receive fixed penalty notices?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: Then if we can look, please, at page 15. If we turn to – excuse me, sorry – the seventh bullet point. So it starts:

“Fixed penalty notices issued to people from an ethnic minority background were more likely to be cancelled (5.9%) than those for white recipients … with people from a black ethnic background most likely to have a fine cancelled.”

So that means that people from an ethnic minority background were more likely to have been wrongly issued a fixed penalty notice; is that right?

Mr Martin Hewitt: That’s correct, yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: If we can turn to page 60, then, please. We can see, under the heading “Cancelled or [withdrawn fixed penalty notices]”, in the last three lines of the first paragraph:

“In the majority of cases, the cancellation or withdrawal of fines …”

It’s being highlighted for you.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: “… was due to lack of, or incorrect, information provided on the actual ticket; lack of sufficient evidence that an offence had been committed; or failure of officers to follow the 4Es.”

Just pausing there, where officers failed to follow the four Es, what did that look like in practice?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Well, I suspect what that is referring to is that rather than going through the first three Es, the officers have pretty much reverted immediately into the issuing of a fixed penalty ticked. That is how I understood that conclusion.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. Then page 65. The paragraph starting:

“The higher prevalence” – excuse me.

The top paragraph starting:

“The higher prevalence of cancellation amongst [fixed penalty notice] recipients from ethnic minority backgrounds was not simply because fines were issued at a higher overall rate for these groups. These findings indicate there was a genuinely higher likelihood that ethnic minority FPN recipients, in particular those from a black background, would have a fine cancelled, regardless of how many were issued”.

So we can’t explain the cancellation rate simply because there were more fixed penalty notices for ethnic minorities.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

And then finally, on this point, page 76, please. We’re looking then at the second full paragraph, the third paragraph down starting:

“Ethnic disproportionality within England and Wales is not uncommon, especially in relation to ‘street-based’ policing practices … therefore, given the significant focus on public policing during the pandemic, it might reasonably have been expected some ethnic disproportionality would have occurred.”

Then it goes on to say:

“Research with police officers has suggested that those from minority ethnic backgrounds were not necessarily more likely to break the rules, but may have been ‘more likely to do so in circumstances that make them visible to the police and thus available for intervention’.”

Can I ask you, what does the phrase “more likely to do so in circumstances that make them visible to the police and thus available for intervention” mean? Can you help us with that?

Mr Martin Hewitt: I’m guessing that means out and about on the street and out and about, you know, in places where the police are going to – you know, are obviously going to come across them. I think – and I suspect that – and I don’t know, I mean, I wasn’t one of the people in that research group, but I suspect some of that was the, you know, is that point that people will have broken rules quietly and other people will not – will have broken rules more overtly, and I think particularly once we started getting into the area during the pandemic which was in relation to the sort of, you know, the unauthorised music gatherings and so on, I suspect that is probably what that’s referring to, but I can’t say because I don’t know exactly where that information came from.

Counsel Inquiry: Okay.

Are you able to offer a view on reasons for the disproportionate enforcement in relation to ethnic minorities that we’ve seen?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Well, I mean, look, I have spent decades in policing, where the issue of the disproportionality in policing with minority communities, and particularly with black communities, has been a key feature and a key feature of concern. That was why we instigated both of these reports. I was concerned about this from the outset of the pandemic.

If, as I did, it’s accepted that this issue was an issue that was prevalent and had been prevalent for many, many years in policing, and particularly in some areas, but generally speaking an issue, it was absolutely clear to me that going into a pandemic scenario, where we were in highly unusual policing, where we were dealing with highly unusual restrictions on people’s movements and behaviour, that that was going to be a concern.

And that was precisely why, from the very outset, we instigated the first report, the statisticians’ report that you referred to, and then why we instigated or initiated the academic report, the McVie report that’s on screen at the moment, to get that – that broader perspective into what was actually going on, giving some views on some of the reasons behind that, and then also then allowing us then to be able to try to deal with those situations, those situations going forward.

Because the other thing that we have to bear in mind as well is in the middle of the pandemic, in the period in – you know, through the – from the sort of summer point in 2020, after we had everything that followed the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the subsequent Black Lives Matter issues – and then that put the whole policing context, which was already a challenging policing context, into really stark focus.

So this was an area that I was very conscious of, it’s an area I’ve always had concern about in all the things I’ve done in policing, and that’s why we commissioned these reports: to understand.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. We can take that document off screen.

Thank you.

Just one very small and final point in relation to inequalities before we conclude, it was found in the report wasn’t it – and I’ll just read this section out to you from page 14 of the report:

“Repeat [fixed penalty notice] recipients in England were 1.7 times more likely than single recipients to be living in one of the top 10% deprived …”

They’ve used the term “LOSAs”, but effectively areas.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: “In Wales, the difference was narrower at 1.3 but still statistically significant.”

So is it right that effectively those who received fixed penalty notices were far more likely to be living in areas that were ranked as deprived?

Mr Martin Hewitt: I – sorry, did you want –

Counsel Inquiry: I –

Mr Martin Hewitt: – I would agree with that. And look, the simple reality is, if you take it from the beginning, with all the various restrictions, everybody in the UK did not experience the same Covid restrictions, because if you live in a – you know, in a large house, with private open spaces and lots of room, then you have one experience when you were locked down in Covid. If you lift in a small flat in a block of flats with no private open spaces, you lived in a very different Covid experience. And I think that is something that was always a concern from our perspective, because clearly what that then does is put certain people into a much more – they’re much more likely to be in a position where they are, in one way or another, either deliberately or with, quite frankly, no option, breaching a regulation.

And I think that point that came through from that report was not one that surprised me at all. And I think that needs to be, you know, really carefully considered when you’re thinking about what a restriction means to individuals rather than a sort of mass group.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And then, just finally, again, you’ve previously set out lessons to be learned and recommendations for us at the Inquiry. Just – you’ve had time to reflect, are there any other specific lessons or anything you’d wish to add to those that you’ve already given us?

Mr Martin Hewitt: No, I mean, I guess in a sense it’s probably reinforcement that, you know – and I’ve made the point a number of times – it’s, first of all, were we in a similar situation again, it’s not seeing this as an enforcement exercise; it’s an exercise as to how, collectively, people can, you know, be brought to a place where they are respecting what needs to be done to prevent the further infection rate.

The clarity of legislation, and I get that this was happening at speed, but it had been moving for quite a while towards the UK. So I think really clarity about the legislation, and, within legislation, specificity about things that were not allowed, things that were allowed.

Similarly, the point about the difference between a law and guidance being absolutely clear in the way that things are communicated, because that caused a great deal of confusion to people.

Then I think, from a purely policing point of view, finding a mechanism to be involved at an earlier stage in getting to the detail of what the different regulations would be I think would be helpful.

We had a good working relationship with the Home Office. We were able – but of course the Home Office were only working – were working with us vicariously. Most of this was happening in the Department of Health and Social Care, where we struggled to get the relationships that we wanted there, because we were, to some extent, kept on the outside.

So I think how you bring the whole system together, and that specificity and, really, clarity of message, is what will allow people to comply more readily and more easily.

Ms Nagesh: Thank you, Mr Hewitt.

My Lady, those are all my questions.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much, Ms Nagesh.

Mr Dayle, are you asking the questions today?

Mr Dayle: I am indeed.

Lady Hallett: Mr Hewitt, can you hear Mr Dayle?

Would you like to say something?

The Witness: Not if he’s speaking now.

Mr Dayle: Can you hear me? [Microphone not on]

Are you able to hear me?

The Witness: I can hear you now. I can hear you now, Mr Dayle.

Questions From Mr Dayle

Mr Dayle: Very well, thank you.

Thank you, my Lady.

Mr Hewitt, I ask questions on behalf of the Federation of Ethnic Minority Healthcare Organisations, or FEMHO. I have a few questions.

So you referred to the NPCC liaising with government in relation to various policing issues.

Firstly, can I invite your comment on an issue broadly. Did the NPCC ever liaise with government about the potential unequal impact of new Covid legislation, and particularly enforcement on ethnic minority groups?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes. So, yes, we did. And as I said earlier, I had very regular meetings with the Home Secretary and with the policing minister, and I raised, as did they, to be fair, from the very beginning, which is – I go back to what I’ve just said, which is: I entered the pandemic – or my role in the pandemic I entered in the full knowledge of the challenge that policing has in its relationship with minority communities, and particularly the black community, and so therefore, we were very attuned to that, and that was something that I was constantly liaising with government and with – at official level but also at ministerial level, and hence why we commissioned the two reports that have just been referred to by counsel.

Mr Dayle: Thank you for that. And can I get a little bit more granular and invite your comments on some rather more specific scenarios.

Was any particular consideration given to young people and/or people from ethnic minority groups where English was not their first language, and who might have been less able to articulate a reasonable excuse they had to leave their house, for example?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes. I mean, I was very concerned, again, at the outset about the impact on young people, on a whole different range of levels, but particularly – you know, I think in the first lockdown it was pretty much comprehensive, but as the lockdowns started to be gradually released, I was very focused on young people because I would recognise that young people would be much more inclined to want to be out and doing the things they would do normally.

So we did focus around that and our NPCC lead for youth was very engaged around that.

Your point about language is absolutely key, and of course, in certain communities there will be a whole range of languages. So that was really about focusing in that – as I’ve already said, the “engage” and the “explain” point was really taking the – expecting the officers to take the time to explain to someone who might not immediately, you know, be able to understand the regulation and what that requirement means.

And that was really what we were trying to achieve with the approach we were taking about, you know, engaging and then explaining, and then trying to encourage the person to follow whatever that particular regulation was.

Mr Dayle: Can you say how the perception of and trust in policing might have impacted on the response of the individual stopped.

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yes, I think it absolutely would impact. And that really was the point that I was making. Because we started the pandemic with the challenges that I’ve referred to in the relationship between policing and minority but particularly the black community, that is inevitably going to impact any engagement and any encounter, you know, the work that everybody will be familiar with around “stop and search” more generally.

So this is an encounter between a police officer and a black member of the public, particularly if it’s a younger black person. So I’m very – we were very alive to the fact that that engagement will already start with, if you like, the history that is there in the minds of both the police officer and the young person, or the individual.

Mr Dayle: Very well. And can I invite your comment on another issue that you might have been alive to: the fact that those from ethnic minority households would be more visible to police as statistically they were less likely to have – have had private space available to them, and were therefore more likely to socialise outside of their homes?

Mr Martin Hewitt: Yeah, I think – and I think I, sort of, alluded to that in my answer to the last question around the deprivation indicator. I think there is – it is a fact that in lots of the communities that are the, if you like, the most deprived communities, there will be a high incidence of minority communities there, and therefore the fact, as I’ve just said there, if you are in a – if you are in a building where you do not have private open space, where you do not have, you know, a lot of ability to do, you know, to have the – to live in the Covid under the restrictions then that is going to mean that people are going to want to be able to get outside and, you know, go outside and then, of course, as you allude, then that therefore means that they are out there, you know, in the public space in a way that perhaps others would not have had that necessity to do that, and therefore, that then leads to the engagement and the encounter and potentially, obviously, some enforcement, if that’s where that leads.

Mr Dayle: Yes. And finally, can you say whether there were any steps to assess, address, or mitigate the foreseeable impact that you speak of, of race discrimination, when Covid regulations were made?

Mr Martin Hewitt: So we were – the police service always operates under the guidance that it does, and the way that we have to deal with all communities, but I think what we did, we were very – and in – in where we were talking and in all the meetings that we were holding and in all the information we were putting out, it was very, very clear that we needed to be doing this in exactly the same standard that we would do anything and we needed to be absolutely clear around that. But it was also talking in the sense of understanding that for some communities, that was going to be a more challenging, you know, the Covid with any communities was highly unusual and out of the ordinary, but where we started with communities, and in that case I would say certainly, particularly black communities, we knew that we started in a position where the police-community relationships were not where we would want them to be.

So there was a real focus around that.

As I say, policing was delivered by the police forces so in every police force area, they will always – there will always be community working that’s going on there, and they will know their communities so there was clearly a reliance around that.

But also in terms of learning and going forward, which was really important for me as well, one of the things that I, not directly Covid-related, that I instigated in the summer of 2020 was – and it still exists now and is a full-time programme – is the Police Race Action Plan Programme that I started in the position that I was in at that point which then brought all forces together and the communities together to look at all of the issues that we have in relation to police and black/minority community relations, but particularly was using the evidence and the further evidence that we were getting from what we were seeing, as we’ve just seen through the reports during the Covid period.

Mr Dayle: Thank you.

Thank you, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Thank you, Mr Dayle.

Mr Hewitt, that completes the questions we have for you. Did somebody tell me you have a flight to catch?

The Witness: I’m just about to (…redacted…) in about half an hour’s time.

Lady Hallett: We would never have guessed that you were in a rush. Thank you very much for your help and for your very measured and sensible responses. Thank you again, for contributing to the Inquiry.

The Witness: Thank you, my Lady. Thank you.

Lady Hallett: Very well. I shall return at 3.40 pm.

(3.25 pm)

(A short break)

(3.40 pm)

Lady Hallett: Ms Nice.

Ms Nice: My Lady, can the next witness, Dr Emran Mian, be please be affirmed.

Dr Emran Mian

DR EMRAN MIAN (affirmed).

Lady Hallett: Dr Mian, I hope you were warned you’d be last on today.

The Witness: I have been, yes, thank you.

Questions From Counsel to the Inquiry

Ms Nice: Thank you.

Can you confirm your name, please.

Dr Emran Mian: Yes, my name is Emran Mian.

Counsel Inquiry: Dr Mian, you’ve provided a witness statement dated 17 April 2025, you have a copy, are you familiar with it?

Dr Emran Mian: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Page 31 is your signature and statement of truth. Can you please confirm the contents of it are true to the best of your knowledge and belief?

Dr Emran Mian: Yes, I can confirm.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you for attending today and assisting the Inquiry. By way of your professional background, can you also please confirm that you are a former Senior Responsible Officer for Disproportionately Impacted Groups, a position you held between August 2020 and December 2021, and it’s this role you’ll be giving evidence about today?

Dr Emran Mian: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Between 2020 and July 2023, you were Director General for Decentralisation and Local Growth at the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, now the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government?

Dr Emran Mian: Yes, that’s right.

Counsel Inquiry: And you are currently Director General for Digital Technologies and Telecoms at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology?

Dr Emran Mian: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And in relation to that role, you provided a statement for Module 4 which was dated 30 July 2024, but that statement is not relevant for the purposes of today.

Dr Emran Mian: Understood.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

Thank you very much for your very helpful statement. What I’d like to do today is begin briefly with the context of your appointment as SRO and then look at the work of the group, and your recommendations?

Just in terms of the context, you were appointed in August 2020, and it’s right that at that time over the spring and summer, PHE and other bodies had already been reporting on the unequal impact of the pandemic: Covid mortality rates, significantly higher for minority ethnic groups, who are also more likely to work in occupations with higher risk, exposure to Covid, and the numbers were higher for older people and disabled people, and that was established by then.

Are you able to comment on why your appointment was only made towards the end of August and not earlier?

Dr Emran Mian: As to why it was not earlier, I’m afraid I’m not really able to comment. I think what I was noticing and some other colleagues, Civil Service colleagues were noticing was that there was a gap in this space and that while we had the data reports that Public Health England had produced, we hadn’t then proceeded to take specific policy actions or even take propositions to ministers about specific policy actions other than in relation to the shielding of clinically vulnerable individuals.

So, kind of, my view was that we did need to start taking such propositions to ministers. That was a view that other colleagues held as well. And so from my recollection, it was in the run-up to a Cabinet Secretary-chaired meeting of officials that I then – well, slightly volunteered, was slightly asked to play this role, in addition to the role that I was already playing in MHCLG itself.

Counsel Inquiry: Okay, thank you, that’s very helpful. And in terms of the language and the term “disproportionately impacted groups”, shortened to DIGs, I think?

Dr Emran Mian: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Conceptually that’s a term that allows quite a wide lens. Is that why it was adopted?

Dr Emran Mian: Yes, that’s right. Yeah. I think while quite a lot of, both the evidence at that point and some of the public discourse focused on either disabled people or people from minority ethnic backgrounds, I think my view and, sort of, our view was that we needed to look at this set of issues. There would be benefit in looking at this set of issues together and that’s why we sort of landed on this way of thinking about it as a set of disproportionately impacted groups.

Counsel Inquiry: And so as a term, would you recommend that as a term going forward because it allows that wide lens?

Dr Emran Mian: Yes, I think that’s the benefit of it.

Counsel Inquiry: And just on that also, would you agree that it’s probably preferable to other terms such as “hard to reach” which tends to turn the problem on those who are impacted rather than the gaps in policies, for example?

Dr Emran Mian: Yes, I think that’s right.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. Just briefly then, again, in terms of the formalities of the group, you didn’t have a dedicated team so you were drawing on people in the Covid-19 Taskforce, and the relevant minister was Kemi Badenoch; is that right?

Dr Emran Mian: I was drawing on team members from the Covid taskforce, that’s right. I think ministerially, I would say that it was a combination of the minister who was responsible for equalities, so Kemi Badenoch, but then also in some sense, because the propositions we were taking from ministers to make decisions were to the Covid-O, it was the chair of the Covid-O who, in a sense, was the other sort of key ministerial customer.

Counsel Inquiry: Okay, thank you.

All right, turning then to the work of the group. Your witness statement explains that you commissioned all departments to provide recommendations and you then proposed a paper – sorry, you then drafted a paper on the proposed remit.

Could we look, please, at INQ000090046.

This is the September preparatory paper.

Just page 1 please.

Paragraph 1 deals with the context that we’ve just identified, and the statistics and data that’s applicable. You see at the end:

“Urgent action is needed to prevent the same issues being replicated that we are facing in the second wave of infections.”

If we can move down to paragraph 2, please. And the second sentence:

“… shows that young people, women, ethnic minorities and single parents are disproportionately likely to suffer long-term adverse impacts from the measures taken to control COVID …”

It then goes on that:

“Government data shows … ethnic minorities … issued with fixed penalty notices at a rate of 1.6 times higher than white people … we must recognise that as Police engagement and enforcement will often be directed towards the most impacted communities, there may be a disproportionate impact on those groups.”

We know, though, from an email, which we don’t need to see, but an email confirming that the Secretary of State wanted to keep this separate from enforcement because it had a different focus, and it was a much more – it was deemed a much more public health education set of interventions than compliance interventions, that’s correct indeed, isn’t it?

Dr Emran Mian: Yes, though I think the context of that email was different. The context of that email was there was a proposal before Covid-O around improving enforcement of social distancing rules.

Counsel Inquiry: Okay.

Dr Emran Mian: And equally there is a proposal in front of Covid-O around appointing Community Champions, and they were quite different proposals in nature, and so the reason – well, that was the view I was expressing in that email.

Counsel Inquiry: I see.

Dr Emran Mian: And that was the view that I had discussed with the Secretary of State at that time for MHCLG.

Counsel Inquiry: But the focus of the DIGs work was away from enforcement and on health interventions?

Dr Emran Mian: That’s right.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes, okay, thank you.

The paper then goes on to set out some proposals in relation to health interventions to reduce mortality and transmission, and we have the minutes of decisions of the September meeting fully set out in your statement. And they focused on improving communications in data gathering – this is for the purposes of TTI – and improving trust in NHS Test and Trace. Can I just ask, for the benefit of anybody following, the important of trust in NHS Test and Trace is because greater take-up leads to greater numbers of test, people isolating, and that then leads to lower transmission.

And the focus on data at that point – I pause there to say the Inquiry has heard a lot about data but, in this context, there were – would it be right to say there were two focuses: one, gathering data on who was impacted and who formed the disproportionately impacted groups; and secondly, then, data to track the progress of interventions?

Dr Emran Mian: That’s right.

Counsel Inquiry: Okay, that’s helpful.

So moving on, then, to October, please. Can we have INQ000531409.

In your statement you explain that the Prime Minister had invited more ambitious proposals, and this is an email that you sent on 8 October to various officials involved in the group, and we see in paragraph 1 reference to the steep rises of Covid and the numbers of ethnic minority groups affected.

Then down to the second paragraph, the Prime Minister asking for a more ambitious approach demonstrating greater ambition.

Then down again, please, you’re noting there that the proposals so far had not been specific enough.

Can I ask, please, that we focus on the second and third bullet of that email. Thank you.

These are suggestions, I think, that you were making in that email about ways that the work could be taken forward; is that right?

Dr Emran Mian: Yes, that’s right. I mean, if I may, just to sort of provide a bit of context around that, I think what we were finding was, in terms of the specific proposals coming forward from departments, they were not at a high level of ambition to deal with the underlying issues. And I think that was for a combination of reasons. Some of it was due to simply lack of, you know, there was lots of other things that people were having to focus on. I think people were struggling for funding to be able to pursue further interventions, and then I think there was also a widespread view that these are systemic health inequalities and solving them in the middle of a pandemic is an incredibly challenging thing to do.

So what I was trying to do with this note and other notes like it and some of the discussions was to make some proposals to colleagues, and inevitably these were inexpert proposals because we were ranging across the work of many departments and many areas but with colleagues I was able to draw on from the taskforce, what we were trying to do was to seed some ideas with departments and see which of these ideas were ideas that departments might be able to do something with.

So it was one of the techniques we were using to try to elicit both a more specific set of proposals and a more ambitious set of proposals.

Counsel Inquiry: And can you help us in relation to the two that we have on the screen, with anything further in terms of who fed into them the impacts identified in the anticipated outcomes, bearing in mind the focus of this module is on testing, tracing, and isolation?

Dr Emran Mian: Yeah, so in relation to the first bullet point that’s highlighted, the second bullet point in the list, I think the reason for flagging this as an issue for further consideration was simply because we did, of course, have guidance already on self-isolation and shielding of clinically vulnerable individuals, but where they were living in multi-generational homes, you might have a child who was going to school and therefore at risk of exposure; you might have a working-age adult who’s going to a workplace where there’s risk of exposure.

So those isolation elements were not able to be as successful as if that person were living on their own, as it were, or living in a household with only other people of the same generation where they would be exposed to some of the same behavioural factors or same risks. So we were trying to think of some of the ways in which you can tackle that.

And I think kind of, you know, this would have been a very, very difficult thing to implement and that’s the way that it proved because the immediate advice we got back is: we do not have sources of alternative accommodation where you would take people who live in multi-generational homes and have them be – care homes, of course, didn’t have capacity at that time. We didn’t think there were other sources of alternative accommodation.

In any event, even if I think we had located such, I think there would have been some real challenges about implementing a policy like this, some of the very same communities in which you might have a higher prevalence of multi-generational households, their willingness or desire to comply with a policy like this even if the alternative accommodation was available, might be very low.

And so we thought it was important to test those arguments, which was the reason for putting it in the email. But in the end this didn’t really go anywhere, I’m afraid.

Counsel Inquiry: So you’re talking only there about the second bullet down, the first one that’s highlighted, the multi-generational homes. Yeah, okay.

And then in relation to the second highlighted bullet, supplementing self-isolation payments, can you talk a little bit about that and –

Dr Emran Mian: So, again, trying to tackle the same problem but just thinking about a sort of different approach to it, so rather than the government, as it were, whether central or local, providing the alternative accommodation, you provide an additional payment to the individual who then sources that accommodation themselves.

But again, given the challenges we were facing during the pandemic even in relation to private rented accommodation, the restrictions that were in place on hotels also, I think in the end we reached a very similar judgement, that this didn’t really pass the feasibility test.

Counsel Inquiry: Do you remember whether, in relation to that proposal, that was directed towards only people who were dealing immediately with a Covid infection and needing to isolate, or it was also intended to be directed to people suffering in direct difficulties, people living with violence at home and so on?

Dr Emran Mian: I think it was primarily in the context of this specific communication intended to cover the former, not the latter.

Counsel Inquiry: So what happened with these two proposals, if you remember?

Dr Emran Mian: Neither of these departments gave us proposals that we could then take to Covid-O.

Counsel Inquiry: Okay, thank you.

All right, thank you, if we can please go over the page, and can we please highlight the third and fourth bullets on that page. These are testing-related suggestions, and again, if you can help us with how the ideas were developed and what happened with them that would be very helpful, please.

The first one is the specific commitments in relation to boosting access to testing.

Dr Emran Mian: So this was I think responding to what was well understood at that time, that we were seeing higher prevalence among some disproportionately impacted groups. So we were trying to think about how do we, sort of, get ahead of that, as well as – as best we can, by having enhanced testing in place.

I think, in the end, what we did was have boosted access to testing in specific parts of the country where there were higher rates, rather than with people of specific demographic characteristics.

Counsel Inquiry: So it was taken through by way of looking at numbers and then boosting access that way?

Dr Emran Mian: That’s right.

Counsel Inquiry: And using the data?

Dr Emran Mian: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes, okay. Then, in relation to the one below that, “[including] ethnicity as a risk factor in the testing system”, can you unpack that a little.

Dr Emran Mian: Yes, and exactly the same thoughts: that where we’re making decisions about where to focus testing infrastructure and testing capacity, should ethnicity be one of the factors that we’re using to guide where in the country that goes? And I think in the end the judgement we reached is you sort of, in one sense, don’t have to use ethnicity, you can simply go by case rates, and focus your testing on the areas with higher case rates.

Counsel Inquiry: So was that focused on in-person testing as opposed to adding something to online booking –

Dr Emran Mian: I think that’s right. I think, yes, the boosting will have been in relation to in-person testing.

Counsel Inquiry: Not ordering tests or anything like that?

Dr Emran Mian: I think that’s right.

Counsel Inquiry: Okay. Can you help us again then: how far did those get in terms of reaching the next meeting and the approval thereafter?

Dr Emran Mian: I think those proposals were taken forward not via Covid-O discussion on disproportionately impacted groups specifically but in relation to Covid-O, discussions about the rollout of testing.

Counsel Inquiry: Okay, thank you.

Thank you, that can come down now, please.

Moving on to the late November, December meetings, these were focused on disability, and the preparatory paper recorded the urgency of addressing the disability, noting the death rate of people with disability still much higher and that disabled people still much more likely to be impacted by the indirect impact of Covid, such as unemployment and financial instability.

The recommendations are fairly extensive, they start at page 16 of your statement, and some of the recommendations were approved.

Before I ask you about which those were, can I ask you – you’ve seen the statement of Kamran Mallick made on behalf of the Disabled People’s Organisations, and he makes a number of points in his statement about what he says are the deficiencies of TTI which contributed to disproportionate numbers of deaths of disabled people. And those included: lack of access to testing centres; digital exclusion (which is more likely to affect disabled people), and obviously relates to online booking and so on; inaccessible communications; and concerns about the adequacy of financial and practical support for people isolating.

And that these issues were raised from about June onwards.

Can you help us, please, with the degree to which those issues and TTI were addressed in that specific meeting – or I should say in the meeting that was specifically focusing on disability, if you recall.

Dr Emran Mian: Yeah, I mean, I hope, as the – kind of, the summary of the conclusions from the meeting makes clear, we were trying to cover that set of issues. I think the categories we used were a little different to the categories in Mr Mallick’s statement, but the categories are laid out on – kind of, in my witness statement, I think, from paragraph – in paragraph 20.

So we used a slightly different set of categories, but I think all of the issues that you went through were issues that we had proposals on, including, for example, helping disabled people access and use digital technology, providing support for the parents of disabled children.

Now I think while those were the actions that were agreed by Covid-O, in what followed, quite a few of these proposals were then not in fact taken forward, through a combination of lack of funding for them but also a lack of capacity to implement them.

So, as an example, I think the proposals around ensuring more disabled young people have the technology that they need to … that was kind of put to DCMS as something that they might take forward, and my memory is that they weren’t able to take that forward because they didn’t have access to the funding that they would need to be able to take it forward.

Counsel Inquiry: In relation to, then, to – this is going backwards a couple of pages to page 16, the measures set out under “Reducing mortality and morbidity”, there was regular testing proposed there, would they – and then details of regular testing in care homes and to care settings and support workers, I think.

Were they taken forward by the group?

Dr Emran Mian: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: I ask because the outcome says some of the recommendations were taken forward, but it’s quite a concise note that came out of the meeting.

Dr Emran Mian: Yes. My recollection is that these proposals – that those specific proposals in that section of the paper were taken forward, and I note that all of them are listed. Where there’s proposals that were unfunded, we say that in the paper. Each of these proposals, we not only state the lead department, which was DHSC, but we also say that they were funded.

Counsel Inquiry: All right, thank you.

Is there anything else you can add to help us on the way disability was approached by the group with a particular reference to TTI?

Dr Emran Mian: I don’t think there’s – I’ve got more to add beyond what is in my statement on that issue.

Counsel Inquiry: All right. Thank you. All right, moving on then, the work continued into 2021, and, as you say in your statement, in January you invited a range of officials from across Whitehall to join a new steering group, and that was to progress existing programmes to drive forward action and accountability?

The preparatory documents for that meeting stressed that the patterns of wave 1 were being repeated in wave 2, in terms of ethnic minority case rates and deaths and that testing take-up was still lower in those communities. Is that fair?

Dr Emran Mian: That’s right.

Counsel Inquiry: And those papers refer to future interventions as being community, workplace testing and further support for isolation. You note in your statement that by February you were concerned, leading up, sorry, to the February meeting, that DIGs was not being adequately covered on the existing work on the roadmap out of lockdown – that’s paragraph 26 of your statement. Do you have any views as to why that was at that point? Because obviously, by then, we’re seven months after your appointment and the facts were well established by then.

Dr Emran Mian: Yeah. That’s right. So look, I mean, I can unpack slightly the statement that I made then. It was that in the conversations that were beginning to take place around that roadmap and the agreement of the roadmap and the issues that needed to be tackled to make the roadmap a success, consideration of disproportionately impacted groups had sort of slightly dropped out of the picture again. And I think kind of both formally through this process and through a number of informal conversations, what I and other colleagues were trying to do was to look for the places whereas we implemented that roadmap, where did we need to bring back in consideration of disproportionately impacted groups?

And this – I’m kind of, you know, sadly it was a little bit of a pattern as we moved through the different phases of the Covid response, is we would get to a better place, in terms of people recognising what the data told them and things that we ought to consider doing for disproportionately impacted groups, and then the pandemic would sort of, you know, we’d move into a new phase of the pandemic and a new phase of the response, and partly because people were having to respond very quickly, but partly also because these issues were not getting the right systematic attention, we’d then slightly drop back down again in terms of our base of ensuring that these issues were being considered, and this was another one of those occasions where, as we were looking at the roadmap, that had happened again. And so what we were trying to do here was to bring it back up into the order of prominence.

Counsel Inquiry: So just so we understand, do you mean with the ebb and flow of – the sort of intensity of work needed, that there was an ebb and flow of interest in addressing this issue?

Dr Emran Mian: Yes, I think that’s right.

Counsel Inquiry: Okay, thanks. All right, then, after February, we move on to March. Can we please display INQ000593765. We’ll go to slide 10, please.

This was quite a substantial slide pack that was prepared for the March meeting and this was a meeting that was considering place-based equalities and drawing attention to factors of deprivation as drivers of enduring transmission.

So clearly by then a link was being made to a need to support people isolate, and transmission. This is a slide – on the right, one can see that the data is showing that self-isolation on symptom onset is the most effective way of reducing the R number on the top right – thank you – a 10% improvement in self-isolation estimated to reduce R by somewhere between 7 and 11% overall.

And then the graphs on the left, the top one showing people in low income brackets less likely to request a test. And the columns on the left correlate to never requesting a test.

And then the bottom graph, people in low income brackets less likely to self-isolate when they’re told they’ve been in contact with someone with symptoms.

There’s also a slide later on, this is slide 26, if we can have it up on the screen, but that shows the link between financial insecurity and not downloading or using the contact tracing app.

Can I ask – those can come down now, thank you.

The slides note at the end that the lack of financial support and security for affected groups was resulting in non-compliance or non-adherence, and plainly that links to transmission.

Do you – was it agreed by that stage that lack of support was having a very pressing impact on the ability of disproportionately impacted groups to adhere to TTI?

Dr Emran Mian: Yes. So I think the direct answer to that is yes. I think, when I reflect on those slides, I think they were probably slightly overconfident in putting all of it down to financial insecurity. I think for groups in – for individuals in those lower income groups there’s probably some other things going on, as well, about why they were engaging less, and some of that might be down to trust in terms of public authorities. There might be other factors too, but it might not just be financial insecurity. But I fundamentally don’t quibble at all with your characterisation of it. I think we understood those charts showed that financial insecurity was a big part of what was going on here.

Now, self-isolation payments were in effect at that point. We did, then, I think keep – we then added a pot of funding that was given to local areas each time there were locally-based restrictions, which allowed local areas then to do further targeting of financial support. I think, from my recollection, that’s – that was the extent of the financial support measures that we were – that we took.

Counsel Inquiry: Do you remember whether the group at that stage discussed the success rate of people applying for the support grant, because although the grant was available, the take-up numbers were relatively low?

Dr Emran Mian: I don’t think we did discuss that at that particular meeting.

Counsel Inquiry: Okay. And do you think that there was an understanding that failure to support people to isolate was itself then having a disproportionate impact? So in a sense exacerbating the already then existing disproportionate impact?

Dr Emran Mian: Yes, and that’s – yes. And that was the reason for, sort of, that part of the slide pack, was to zero in on exactly that issue.

Counsel Inquiry: Can you help us with any reflections that you may have on why support for isolation was perhaps not seen as more pressing or urgent earlier on, in relation to these groups?

Dr Emran Mian: So I’m not certain how to answer that, whether I should answer it now, but, kind of, one thing I’ve been reflecting on is – in terms of, kind of, the lessons learned is, kind of, in my witness statement I talk about some of those lessons learned.

I think the thing that we didn’t say at the time, but which I’ve reflected on since, is we didn’t, at any point, have a pot of funding dedicated to funding interventions for disproportionately impacted groups. And so each time we were making a proposal for what to do to mitigate the impact on disproportionately impacted groups, we were not only trying to generate proposals but, in a sense, those proposals were competing for funding against other things that needed to be done both in relation to the pandemic but also things the departments were doing in the other course of their business.

And that was a kind of regular challenge and a regular trade-off that departments were having to make about funding.

And I do wonder now whether if, at some point in the pandemic, we had made the decision to have a point of funding dedicated to interventions for disproportionately impacted groups, similar in a way to what we did do at the beginning about shielding and kind of providing specific support there, whether that would then have allowed us to have more confidently develop proposals that helped disproportionately impacted groups, and to know that we had a funding route for them.

Whereas in fact the way we did things, we, sort of, had two barriers that we had to get over: first, we had to be able to develop a sort of proposal that was deliverable, and then we had to be able to identify funding for it.

Counsel Inquiry: Given what you say, and the repeated issue of getting funding for proposals that had started at the beginning of the work in September or thereabouts, with the benefit of hindsight, can you reflect on why that suggestion wasn’t perhaps brought forward or suggested by somebody in the group or a minister or so on before then or at any point?

Dr Emran Mian: I think some of it was simply due to there were so many things competing for funding at that time. I think that was probably a large part of it. I think another part of it was – and you’ll see it in the structure of the papers, where we talk about the lead department and whether it was a funded or non-funded proposal, is the classic way in which we do this in government is the accountability for delivery of something and the accountability for the funding is through the departmental line. And so the approach that I was describing would have been a very significant exception to that way of doing things.

And you could call that a lack of imagination, but it was also simply due to the fact that, sort of, typically the way you do things is you run them through an individual department and then you have a clear line of accountability on delivery of that and the value for money of what’s being done.

Counsel Inquiry: So bearing in mind, then, what you’ve just said, might it be a recommendation going forwards that it’s something to consider at any rate, having a separate fund?

Dr Emran Mian: Yeah. And I think as part of considering it then you’d want to be very clear on who holds the accountability for that money and for ensuring that that money is being well spent and is delivering value for money.

So, you know, you would, in the end, I think, have to pick a department and a secretary of state who is accountable for that.

Counsel Inquiry: That’s very helpful. Moving on, then, to recommendations. These start at page 28 of your statement.

The last meeting was held on 8 December 2021, and you undertook a lessons learned exercise, and it’s right to say that all the recommendations from the lessons learned document are faithfully reproduced in your statement.

Can I ask, first, how many people contributed to that exercise, whether by attending the meeting or contributing to the paper, or thereafter?

Dr Emran Mian: I’m afraid I can’t give you a precise count but I think it would have been dozens of people. We did try to consult widely with colleagues who’d been involved in the work at any point, and that included colleagues across the range of departments but also colleagues in the Public Health England.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you, that’s helpful. It’s important to reflect on what had gone well, and that included, didn’t it, having a dedicated team, a steering group, and you in a role that was clear and visible, so there was an obvious point of contact for knowledge on the issues as they arose; is that fair?

Dr Emran Mian: I hope that’s fair.

Counsel Inquiry: Anything to add by way of future recommendations?

Dr Emran Mian: No, I think apart from the one that I’ve talked about in terms of money, which, you know, we didn’t land on in this list but it’s something I’ve reflected on since.

I think the other one I would really pull out is – it was around the – sort of the way we characterise it in our lessons learned was there’s a web of responsibility, where I think that’s the recommendation I would really emphasise: having a minister who feels accountable for this set of issues, and for showing progress against this set of issues, having as senior an official as possible supporting that minister in doing that, and for that to be quite a formal role, potentially somebody’s – you know, the only thing that they’re doing.

Whereas I, as I observed right at the beginning of my testimony here today, I was doing this in addition to a full job, as it were. And the reason for stepping in to doing it was that we didn’t have this role, and I think that vacancy was holding us back. But I think what would have been even better is to have a senior official, you know, possibly up to permanent secretary level, but it could be done at a very level, who was responsible for driving this work.

Counsel Inquiry: Because one of the identified lessons under what’s not gone well was that there was insufficient focus on people from DIGs at the start of the pandemic response and, I think, as you’ve just reflected, limited remit and lack of ministerial interest or engagement. And that all ties together, I think, does it, with what you’ve just said?

Dr Emran Mian: Yes. And as you began by observing, you know, we had some of the data about disproportionate impact starting from May onwards, but it was August/September before we properly had arrayed anything in terms of responding to that data.

Counsel Inquiry: Is what you’re saying that by May this work could have been started, but either way, in terms of future recommendations, have someone in post at the beginning?

Dr Emran Mian: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes, okay.

Can I also, just finally, then ask on the recommendations which are on page 29, you also refer to the importance of:

“Embedding equality considerations of disproportionate impact in crisis response from the outset of policy making – not retrofitting equalities impacts/writing of PSEDs.”

And then an example, of:

“… consistent impact reporting and all advice to Ministers [across Whitehall].”

In relation to quality impact assessments generally and then specifically in relation to TTI, was it your impression or the impression of those feeding into the lessons learned that they were or had been retrofitted during the pandemic?

Dr Emran Mian: Yeah, I think too often the fairest characterisation to say would be the public sector equality duty considerations were coming at the back end of a policy making process or a programme decision process rather than being the set of considerations that was guiding the design of that from the very beginning.

There are exceptions to that of course, such as the work on shielding, but I think it’s still uncomfortably often that the public sector equality considerations come toward the back end of the process. And so that’s what we were trying to draw out here.

Counsel Inquiry: And on that point, would it be fair to say that if it’s done at the beginning, not only is the policy going to address those issues or potential problems from the outset, but if it’s done visibly, you can bring people along with government decision making, you build trust and social cohesion in the way the decisions are made?

Dr Emran Mian: Yes, I agree with that characterisation.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

That brings me to the end of my questions. Is there anything else you’d wish to add to your evidence about how the DIGs issues were or should have been addressed in relation to TTI in particular?

Dr Emran Mian: I don’t have anything else to add.

Ms Nice: Thank you. I’ve no further questions.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much, Ms Nice.

Thank you very much indeed, Dr Mian, and thank you for trying to do what you did. There was obviously a gap and you did your very best to fill it, but I can imagine it wasn’t easy.

The Witness: Thank you.

Lady Hallett: Thank you for all you did.

I gather there’s an application from Ms Cartwright, who is standing behind you.

Ms Cartwright: Yes, please, my Lady. I hope you can hear me. My Lady –

Lady Hallett: Wait a minute. You need the microphone.

Ms Cartwright: Sorry to delay you but, very briefly, could I make an application, please, for a restriction order pursuant to Section 19(1)(b) of the Inquiries Act. My Lady, it’s simply to restrict publication in the transcript and from broadcast on any of the YouTube or on the website of, essentially, the last answer that was given to your wishing Mr Hewitt well, it’s simply the timing of 15:25:20 to 15:25:26, and my Lady, I don’t want to go into the –

Lady Hallett: I know the detail, thank you.

Ms Cartwright: I’m very grateful. Thank you very much, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: The application is granted.

Sorry, it has nothing to do with your evidence, Dr Mian, it’s an entirely different matter. Somebody was a little free with their information.

Thank you very much indeed. That completes the evidence for today. 10.00 am tomorrow.

Ms Cartwright: Thank you, my Lady. Good afternoon.

(4.20 pm)

(The hearing adjourned until 10.00 am the following day)