PandemicCummings’s Evidence Reinforces the Impression that Ineptitude over COVID-19 Reflected Errors Made by Individual Ministers. That’s Only Part of the Story
Cummings’s evidence reinforces the impression that ineptitude over COVID-19 reflected errors made by individual ministers. That’s only part of the story. Insufficient attention has been paid to the inadequate public administration capability of British government as a factor in the COVID-19 response. the center of government lacks capacity, that its policymaking capacity is compromised, and that territorial conflict is growing as key systemic weaknesses that have compromised the UK’s ability to respond to such a crisis.
The former Number 10 Chief Strategist, Dominic Cummings’s testimony before a parliamentary select committee led to a series of extraordinary revelations, notably the claim that he did hear the Prime Minister say he would rather see ‘bodies piled high’ than go impose another lockdown in autumn 2020. Yet the evidence reinforces the impression that the UK’s ineptitude over COVID-19 reflected errors made by individual ministers and advisers, in part due to lack of technical expertise. His critique of British government is that the civil service is closed by default, ensuring clever people can never penetrate the Whitehall system. While there may be truth in that observation, the structural failings of the machinery of government and the systemic weaknesses of the British state during the crisis risk being ignored.
There are three fundamental problems. Firstly, the UK is a highly centralized state, but paradoxically the center of government lacks capacity. Secondly, the ‘public service bargain’ underlying ministerial/civil service relations was being altered, undermining policymaking capacity in the core executive. The third problem is the growth of territorial conflict with Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Consequently, there was a failure to co-ordinate governments across the UK when the pandemic struck.
Centralized state with a weak center
The UK state is highly centralized, but the Whitehall center itself is weak. This is a toxic combination. The center of government is under-powered. The British system is prime ministerial rather than presidential: 10 Downing Street is a relatively small operation by international comparison. Meanwhile, the core executive is less cohesive, having been ‘hollowed-out’ over the last 30 years. Whitehall departments have also become slimmer following the reforms of the late 1980s that shifted operational and delivery functions into agencies.
The 2016 simulation exercise, Cygnus, already exposed major weaknesses in government’s capacity. Public Health England (PHE) advised: ‘The UK’s preparedness and response, in terms of its plans, policies and capabilities, is currently not enough to cope with the extreme demands of a severe pandemic that will have a nationwide appeal across all sectors’. Moreover, center/local relations were undermined by the breakdown of professional linkages between Whitehall and local authorities.
