Pat McFadden has said he will lead a review of national resilience in a statement responding to the first report of the Covid Inquiry.
The Cabinet Office minister said he will chair a cabinet committee on resilience to oversee the review and will also work with devolved governments, regional mayors and local leaders to develop it.
On Tuesday, Baroness Hallett published the inquiry's report on its first module, which examined the UK's resilience and preparedness for a pandemic between 2009 and early 2020.
The report called for “fundamental reform” to how government prepares for civil emergencies, finding citizens were “failed” by the processes, planning and policies that were in place in 2020. It said ministers should set up a single, independent statutory body responsible for whole-system preparedness and response.
McFadden said the government will consider the findings and recommendations from the Covid Inquiry module one report, plus “any from the Grenfell inquiry that also have a bearing on resilience planning”, and respond in full within six months.
He said the review will take a “long-term approach” to strengthening national resilience.
The announcement follows a commitment in Labour’s manifesto to “improve resilience and preparation across central government, local authorities, local communities, and emergency services”.
As part of the review, the government will analyse changes made by the previous administration and whether to keep or alter them, McFadden said.
He said Rishi Sunak's government had made some improvements to “operational effectiveness” and made efforts to improve preparedness. These included changes in the way that the government accesses, analyses and shares data, alterations to the risk assessment processes and reforms to the way the centre of government works to prepare for and respond to crises, McFadden said.
“As an incoming government, in office for just two weeks, we will look at those efforts in the coming months as we develop our own approach,” McFadden said. “Where things are good, they should be kept; where they are not good enough, they should be changed.”
Last year, Sunak’s government appointed a head of resilience, Mary Jones, to head up the Resilience Directorate in the Cabinet Office, which was created to help establish a more strategic approach to national resilience and coordinate efforts across government to strengthen it.
The appointment was made as part of the refreshed UK Government Resilience Framework, published in December 2022. This followed a commitment in the 2021 Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy to strengthen the government’s approach to resilience.
The role aims to complement that of the national security adviser and support the broader goal to avoid a repeat of the Covid pandemic, where “treating [it] as a health emergency meant that there was limited planning outside of the healthcare sector”.
Since the integrated review was published, the Cabinet Office has also established a dedicated COBR unit to continue to lead the government’s response to emergencies. The unit is led by Roger Hargreaves, who is also director of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat.
The COBR unit deals with short-term issues, while the head of resilience is responsible for ensuring the government does not lose sight of longer-term challenges.