Abstract
UK government ministers state that their COVID-19 policy is “guided by the science.” In practice they mean “our scientists,” and initial UK government policy was highly consistent with that advice. Ministers formed strong relationships with key scientific advisors, relied on evidence from their Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), and ignored or excluded many other sources. I explore two types of lesson from this experience. First, UK studies of interest groups help explain the politics of expert advice. They show that the minister-adviser relationship is conditional on the ways in which the UK government assigns status to particular sources of science advice, and the willingness of those advisers to follow the “rules of the game,” within a wider political and policymaking context. Second, documentary analysis of SAGE minutes and meeting papers, and analysis of oral evidence to key House of Commons committees, shows high consistency between SAGE advice and UK government policy in the run up to lockdown. Ministers relied on their advisers to define the policy problem and identify feasible solutions throughout this period, while their advisors supported government policy and the right of ministers to make it. This new experience reflects and reinforces longstanding evidence from policy community studies: some experts remain core insiders if they advise on policies that they do not necessarily support, while outsiders have the freedom to criticize the policy they were unable to influence.
Highlights
The new Frontiers Research Topic “Politics of Expertise” series asks: when did 1) governments listen to experts, and 2) expert advice have a major impact on Covid-19 policy? In the case of the UK government, the official answer is: always
The smaller group appears sensitive to informal rules of the game when giving public statements (Ferguson lost his Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) status after breaching other—social distancing—rules), but with more scope to express their opinions on COVID-19 policy if they describe them clearly as “personal views.”
Its meeting papers emphasized a delay in accurate figures (SPIM-O, 3.2.20a: 3), but its minutes suggest that: “Surveillance measures, which commenced this week, will provide actionable data to inform HMG efforts to contain and mitigate spread of Covid-19” . . . Public Health England (PHE)’s surveillance approach provides sufficient sensitivity to detect an outbreak in its early stages . . . increasing surveillance coverage beyond the current approach would not significantly improve our understanding of incidence” (SAGE 25.2.20: 1)
Summary
The new Frontiers Research Topic “Politics of Expertise” series asks: when did 1) governments listen to experts, and 2) expert advice have a major impact on Covid-19 policy? In the case of the UK government, the official answer is: always. These insights show that the minister-adviser relationship is conditional on how the UK government values particular sources of advice, the willingness of advisers to follow formal and informal rules, and the wider context of Westminster politics (in a liberal democracy) in which ministers combine evidence and values to make policy They help explain the range of scientific expert experiences, from core insiders to outsiders. Throughout, the rules of the game help determine the limits to the ability of advisors to criticize policy without losing their status This UK government experience highlights a stark contrast between two forms of expert advice strategy: 1) retain core insider status to make sure that policymakers draw routinely on science advice, while accepting an inevitable gap between advice and policy; or, 2) perform the role of outsider to criticize policy energetically when it is not informed by science advice. Identifying the status and strategies of core and specialist insiders allows us to identify what it takes to encourage the high consistency between their advice and UK government COVID-19 policy
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