Eat Out to Help Out, the government's scheme to encourage the public to return to high street restaurants and cafes in summer 2020. The Department of Health and Social Care has been sitting on a 'lessons learnt' review of the pandemic for 18 months
|
PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo
Share via
URL copied to clipboard
The government is taking openDemocracy to court to resist having to publish its secret “lessons learnt” review of the Covid pandemic.
Chiefs at the Department of Health and Social Care only last month agreed to publish the document, following an 18-month Freedom of Information battle that ended with a disclosure order by the independent watchdog.
But we were told today that the department had lodged an appeal against the order by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). It means an information tribunal is likely to be held next year.
Layla Moran, the chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus, called it a “blatant attempt by the government to gloss over its cack-handed management of the pandemic” and “an insult to the British public”.
Get one whole story, direct to your inbox every weekday.
The news coincides with the launch and publication of former health secretary Matt Hancock’s pandemic diaries as a hardback book – and the same department’s refusal to hand over his official ministerial diaries covering the same period.
It is thought to be the work of civil servants in the DHSC conducting internal assessments of what went wrong to improve best practice.
An independent inquiry into the UK’s response to the pandemic is already under way. Officially launched in July, the inquiry will examine how well prepared the UK was for a pandemic, as well as the decisions taken by the UK government once Covid arrived.
We rely on the backing of our readers to keep going. If you think it's important that the government release documents like this, back our workhere.
From coronation budgets to secretive government units, journalists have used the Freedom of Information Act to expose corruption and incompetence in high places. Tony Blair regrets ever giving us this right. Today's UK government is giving fewer and fewer transparency responses, and doing it more slowly. But would better transparency give us better government? And how can we get it?
Join our experts for a free live discussion at 5pm UK time on 15 June.
Hear from:
Claire Miller Data journalism and FOI expert Martin Rosenbaum Author of ‘Freedom of Information: A Practical Guidebook’; former BBC political journalist Jenna Corderoy Investigative reporter at openDemocracy and visiting lecturer at City University, London Chair: Ramzy Alwakeel Head of news at openDemocracy
Comments
We encourage anyone to comment, please consult the oD commenting guidelines if you have any questions.