Will more data really lead to better government decision-making?

Rishi Sunak doesn’t normally do regrets, but in a private meeting with business leaders, he admitted the absence of real-time data on the economy had hampered his response to coronavirus.

The chancellor, who has made 15 economic statements in the past year as he revamped his help for business and individuals, said: “The way we track information in government is probably not as up-to-date as you would imagine.” He conceded that getting support to the right people at the right time “sometimes during this crisis has been difficult, because I simply don’t have the information I need to make those decisions.”

The government is very keen to show us it has already learnt lessons; delaying the official inquiry into its handling of the pandemic gives it more time to convince us on this front, and potentially dilutes the investigation’s impact. Yesterday’s review of foreign policy announced the creation of a “situation centre” at the heart of government, aimed at “improving our use of data and our ability to anticipate and respond to future crises.” The centre will “provide live data and rapid analysis, supporting collaboration across government and informing crisis decision-making.” The government will ensure “all-source” assessments by marrying intelligence from the spooks with open-source information.

A prime minister can grab a headline by calling a meeting of the cross-departmental Cobra emergency committee. But ministers admit that Cabinet Office briefing room A (which gives Cobra its name) is a pale imitation of the hi-tech “situation room” in the White House, depicted in countless films and TV programmes. Boris Johnson has also aped Washington by spending £2.6m on a still-unused White House-style press briefing room at 9 Downing Street. 

The pandemic has thrown an unflattering searchlight on to the government machine and its woeful lack of preparedness for such a crisis. Ministers admit the lack of data at their disposal when it began meant they were “flying blind.”

Information is power but the government is reluctant to share it. This week the Commons Public Administration Select Committee warned that a lack of transparency in the past year had undermined the public’s trust and confidence in the government’s actions. It had received “a wealth of evidence” from local leaders that Whitehall’s refusal to hand over information on testing, lists of people shielding and socio-economic data had left them unable to respond quickly enough to the pandemic.  

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The MPs found it “deeply worrying” that ministers were unable to provide the data on which the decision to lift the first lockdown last year was based. This matters, as the decision might well have made the second wave worse.

The committee proposed that the code of conduct for ministers should oblige them to follow the UK Statistics Authority code of practice on presenting data. Johnson allies insist the government has got better on this front during the pandemic. But it might be skin-deep: although the prime minister told us his roadmap out of the current lockdown in England would be based on “data not dates”, it actually contains more dates than data.

It is true that we have learnt a lot from the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (Sage). But its minutes are published an average of 49 days after its meetings. Like ministers, the public could do with more real-time information. Ominously, ministers are thinking about reforming Sage when the crisis has passed. Perhaps some advisers are too committed to openness for ministers’ liking. 

Data is a powerful tool for holding a government to account. But it is ministers who decide whether to have any goalposts at all, as well as whether to move them, as they have done when deciding on coronavirus restrictions. Remarkably, no targets will be set to help the public judge whether the government has delivered on its flagship “levelling up” pledge. 

Better data is not a panacea; it helps, but does not guarantee better decisions. Ministers were better informed by last autumn, and no longer “flying blind”, and yet Johnson still hesitated about a second lockdown, with terrible consequences. The successful vaccination rollout should not mask that. When it finally gets underway, the inquiry might give Johnson the benefit of the doubt for his actions a year ago, but might be less forgiving about his failure to learn from his initial mistakes by last September.