This session will be discussing:

1. The data journey. What did the journey look like at the start, and what changed through the pandemic? What drove any changes in public and private data availability and use?

2. Cross-government sharing. Did different public sector institutions – including central government, devolved governments, local government, health services – share and integrate data effectively across organisational boundaries? If not, what were the barriers? What effect did this have on communication with policy-makers, parliament and the public?

3. Definitions and communication. Were definitions and their caveats – for example, in how deaths or hospitalisations were defined – sufficiently consistent and clearly communicated? Were there any changes, and how were they managed?

4. Covid Infection Survey. What can we learn from the survey? Did it provide value for money, and were there alternatives? What should its future be?

5. Open data and transparency. How might greater transparency around data and research used in policy- and decision-making have improved outcomes? What could have been done to improve transparency?
 

Ed Humpherson, Office for Statistics Regulation
Adam Kucharski and Roz Eggo, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Scott Heald, Public Health Scotland
Barbara Bodinier, REACT
 

Simon Briscoe and Gavin Freeguard
for Royal Statistical Society Covid-19 taskforce

Event contact: Jonathan Everett