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the World
Britain edited by Lily Hardcastle
Photo: GLYN KIRK/AFP via Getty Images, 2020.
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written by Lily Hardcastle
With the highest number of reported cases and deaths from coronavirus (over 46,000) in Europe, people are beginning to question the reason for Britain’s failures in handling the pandemic. The finger of blame has been pointed in every direction. But can we blame the set-up of our systems of governance?
The Institute for Public Policy Research says that power in the UK is the most centralised in the world. This means that power is sequestered in the centre, held by a minority of individuals, rather than dispersed throughout the system. In Britain, this concretely translates into a strong, powerful government in Westminster which works alone to determine and implement policies on a national scale, contrasted by weak local authorities in the periphery of the country.
Many think that Britain fared much worse during the coronavirus outbreak because of its overly centralised system of governance, which inhibited its response. Testing capabilities proved insufficient, as rather than using existing facilities, capable of carrying out testing on a large scale, such as universities, Public Health England (PHE) decided to centralise its response and only use its own infrastructure. When it needed to accelerate its pace, it decided to build its own testing facilities from scratch. Only when this was still not enough did it belatedly begin to use private laboratories by early April. Similarly, the government rejected requests for funding for existing contact-tracing apps as far back as March as it declared that it was in the process of developing its own.
These are some examples of the British government failing to utilise many existing resources, in order to keep its power centralised. The government committed an even larger mistake by ignoring local authorities. In the UK, each local council has a Director of Public Health (DPH), who has expertise in local contact tracing, having previously dealt with localised outbreaks of sexually transmitted diseases.
However, the government has neglected to use local “we do not have local government. We have councils experts to their full potential, instead opting for a cen- that [...] administer the policies of the central governtralised policy. This is reflected by blanket lockdowns ment”.Many failures also stem from the UK’s highly cenacross the entire country, as well as ‘one size fits all’ rules tralised healthcare system. Public health used to be orthat don’t reflect the reality on the ground of the pan- ganised locally, at least until 1974, when restructuring demic. moved DPH out of local government. In 2003, reforms Most concerningly, it has failed to share data and col- healthcare system further, splitting responsibility for laborate with local authorities. Nick Forbes, leader of public health between PHE and local authorities. It also Newcastle city council reports that rather than receiv- put DPH back into local authorities, but with funding ing a formal government briefing, he first heard of the cuts and diminished powers, grants for public health government’s change of message from ‘stay home’ to given to local authorities decreased by 1/5 in the years ‘stay alert’ on national television. following 2014.Experts warned at the time that these Similarly, Leicester’s mayor, Sir Peter Soulsby has reforms could be detrimental. DPH for county Durham, claimed that their recent outbreak was worsened by Anna Lynch, warned: “that the public will be less safe at government delays in passing on times of outbreak or pandemic”. Lynch data to local authorities. He al- worries that consequential funding leges that data is of poor quality, “It is unlikely that cuts and a lack of healthcare workers only identifying Covid-19 cases at a postcode level, and not spec- these changes will would leave us more exposed in times of crisis, as when Covid-19 broke out, ifying important details such as translate into in- PHE only had 290 people to track and addresses, workplaces, or ethnic- trace the disease. ity.Despite the government pro- creased powers for viding more data from mid-July, by breaking down data into local them in the future” Nevertheless, some have praised the areas of 5,000-15,000 people, this government for their centralisation, has been reported to be insuffi- claiming they want a strong, powerful cient. Andy Burnham, Mayor of government to guide us through hard Greater Manchester, feels like “a local detective being times. So, what could the alternative have been? Generasked to solve a crime without the names and address- ally, more decentralised countries have tended to fare es of witnesses or suspects”. better throughout the outbreak. Switzerland, Germany By ignoring the local councils, the private sector and and South Korea have been cited for having responded other organisations which had the means to provide successfully to Covid-19, and all have done so through concrete help, the government drastically damaged a decentralised approach. The most commonly cited Britain’s response to Covid-19. According to David Buck example is Germany. But, should the UK learn future of the Kings Trust think tank, “a lot of time had been lessons from the German response? wasted in not involving local government sooner”. It is by health secretary Andrew Lansley complicated the thought that if the UK had gone into lockdown just a week earlier, 20,000 lives could have been saved. Every second has been precious, and the government has wasted much time and failed to harness many resources in the pursuit of maintaining centralised power. Germany’s healthcare and public health systems are embedded in local government. In the crisis, the federal government provided extra funds and resources, but the response was mainly local. Instead of setting up large central labs from scratch, Germany predomHowever, centralised Britain is not anything new. Even inantly used a network of 150 existing labs across the before the pandemic, local councils were underfunded country and was able to maintain high levels of testing and underutilised. According to Rob Whiteman, of UK throughout the outbreak by utilising local health care Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, bodies with experience in infectious disease tracking.
Most importantly, local authorities had the power to take resources from areas that had been put on hold during lockdown, such as libraries, and re-allocate them towards healthcare. This is only possible in a decentralised system, which effectively makes the most of every resource that the state possesses. Rob Whiteman praises the German model, stating that “Germany has benefited from local public services that do not need to wait for permission” from the central government. Many think that this is the way forward. Guardian journalist John Harris states that “power needs to be taken from the centre and dispersed: the future needs to be founded on a huge boost to councils’ share of the tax take, the devolution of everything from health to trans port, and fully localised responses to any future emergencies”. However, a decentralised state may not be the defining factor for a good response to the crisis. The successes of Germany, Switzerland and Korea contrast the disasters seen in parts of the USA.
Regardless, there is already evidence that the crisis is changing the UK. The government, albeit belatedly, realised that the virus needed to be addressed locally. On the 18th July, the government handed power to local councils, enabling them to enforce “lightning lockdowns”, closing public spaces and cancelling events in the event of outbreaks. However, these changes do not give local councils much power or many resources. It is unlikely that these changes will translate into increased powers for them in the future.The firm Deloitte sees more evidence of changing attitudes already, believing that the pandemic has created a “high-pressure environment” in which government agencies, the public and private sectors have all come together in the public interest. However, it also acknowledges that amid the chaos, “there is a danger those ideas will be lost”.
According to Colin Talbot of Manchester University, now is the time to be seriously discussing changes that could be made to the British systems of government. He says that “Radically rebalancing the central and the local is now more needed than ever, and not just to deal with crises”. One asks, will this truly happen? This is certainly a large concern. Despite the acknowledgement of the failures of our centralised systems, it is highly likely that the British government will return
Photo: Boris Johnson at the final daily coronavirus briefing in Downing Street, Sky News, 2020.
to business as usual after the health-crisis. Talbot cites the world wars and the ‘temporary’ centralising measures that were put in place in the national interest, that have since become permanent, claiming that “the weakening of local government has gone on for over a century”. Howard Bernstein, former Chief executive of Manchester City Council, echoes this and thinks that we need to reorganise both national and local government, but does not see much proof of that happening.
The coronavirus pandemic has seriously exposed the faults of Britain’s centralised systems. It has caused deaths and strained the country to its brink. We can see what needs to be done, chiefly more power and resources for local councils and more collaboration between the government and private institutions, and yet it seems that the most centralised country in the world may be becoming even more so.
