The report said part of the blame for these failings lay with the groupthink that was prevalent in its planning.
The scientific advice received by ministers was too narrowly focussed and there was too little consideration given to the socio-economic impacts, it said.
The report said ministers did not do enough to challenge what they were being told and there was not sufficient freedom or autonomy in the way the various advisory groups were set up for dissenting voices to be heard.
The creation of an independent body drawing in expertise from science, economics and society would help rectify that, the report said.
It also said Brexit – or at least the planning for a no-deal Brexit – was also a factor in the failures.
In 2016, ministers carried out a major cross-government training exercise, called Exercise Cygnus, to see how officials would respond to an outbreak of a new influenza pandemic.
It identified worryingly large gaps in the response, and plans were put in place to update those by 2018.
But that did not happen, and by June 2020 just eight of the 22 recommendations made after that exercise had been completed.
One reason it cites for this “inaction” were the competing demands of “Operation Yellowhammer”, the UK government’s contingency planning for a no-deal Brexit.
But it also heard evidence from politicians that Brexit planning led to a better understanding of supply chains, meaning it could more quickly stockpile medicines in the pandemic.
And those officials said 15,000 extra staff had been recruited because of Operation Yellowhammer, who could then be redeployed when Covid hit.
