Nina Jörden discusses research conducted with Daniel Sage and Chris Zebrowski, that examines the UK's pandemic response and reveals key weaknesses in its emergency framework. She highlights how an overreliance on technology, data secrecy, and marginalising local responders fractured collaboration, and argues that future emergency management must address not only technical and logistical challenges but also systemic, political, and emotional factors to build a more resilient and effective framework for crisis response.
At the start of 2021, the UK faced a grim record: one of the highest reported death rates from COVID-19 in the world at that time. This harsh reality stood in stark contrast to the UK’s pre-pandemic reputation as one of the best prepared nations for a crisis of this magnitude. In 2019, the Global Health Security Index ranked the UK second in the world for pandemic preparedness. The contrast between its praised preparedness and actual performance raises a pressing question: how could a nation deemed highly ready for a crisis fail so profoundly?
From decentralisation to disconnection: how the UK’s crisis response framework faded
Over the past two decades, UK Civil Contingencies policy has evolved towards a decentralised model, designed to empower local responders through improved information-sharing and collaboration. Platforms like ResilienceDirect were developed to underpin this vision, providing tools for real-time data sharing and coordination across agencies. The principle of subsidiarity, which emphasises decision-making at the lowest appropriate level, was positioned as a cornerstone of this strategy.
However, as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, this vision of decentralised resilience gave way to a revival of centralised, top-down decision-making. Local responders reported being side-lined, denied access to critical data, and forced to rely on public sources or improvised solutions. Decisions that should have been informed by local insights were instead announced via press conferences or social media posts, leaving local agencies scrambling to react.
This troubling dynamic underscores the challenges of moving from policy to practice in emergency preparedness. The failures of the UK’s COVID-19 response were not solely technological; they were deeply political. Distrust, information hoarding, and hierarchical control undermined the very principles of collaboration and subsidiarity that the system was designed to uphold. As the UK COVID-19 Inquiry progresses, it offers a vital opportunity to reflect on these failures and rethink how crises can be managed in the future.
Beyond the dashboard: rethinking crisis collaboration for the future
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are frequently at the heart of emergency preparedness, response and recovery. They are praised for their capability to collect, collate and disseminate vast amounts of data, supposedly bridging gaps between agencies and creating a common operational picture or “single truth”. For instance, live updates from the scene of a disaster can be shared in real-time with all responding organisations, ensuring everyone has the latest information on hazards, resource availability, and evacuation progress.
However, the experience of using ResilienceDirect during COVID-19 demonstrates the complexities of achieving these theoretical benefits in practice. Designed to enhance “shared situational awareness” issues like inconsistent adoption, insufficient user training, and lack of integration with widely used tools such as Microsoft Teams hindered its effectiveness during the pandemic. Though useful for document storage, users reported that its inability to support real-time updates fragmented operations and emphasised the need for ICT systems that are both robust and aligned with responders’ workflows.
Beyond technical shortcomings, the key challenge with ICT systems like ResilienceDirect is their inability to account for socio-political factors such as mistrust, centralised power, and entrenched command-and-control ideologies, which can undermine even the best-designed and well-supported platforms.
These challenges were clearly illustrated during the COVID-19 response. Local responders were denied access to critical “reasonable worst-case scenarios”—data on infection rates, hospitalisations, and fatalities essential for planning hospital capacity, managing excess deaths, and organising mortuaries. A chief constable described the situation:
“We desperately needed [data] that was withheld… How many body bags do we need to order? Yet, I can’t be told how many dead bodies there might be when I’m chairing a meeting supposed to decide what the bloody hell we are going to do with them.”
Instead of transparent sharing, central government delayed or tightly controlled this information out of fear it might be leaked to the media. Local responders were left scrambling, often resorting to using public sources like Google or relying on limited modelling of their own to fill the void. One local government responder recounted:
“We had a very long period of no information on what we should be planning for… We’ve missed not having clear guidance from government… to the point we had to come up with our own modelling.”
This breakdown was rooted in rigid, top-down decision-making processes that significantly hampered local responders’ effectiveness. Centralised systems withheld essential data, sharing it only within government departments rather than with the agencies directly managing the crisis.
The exclusion of local expertise fuelled frustration and despair among responders on the ground, highlighting systemic flaws in the COVID-19 response. Withholding critical information eroded trust between central and local authorities, stifling collaboration and exposing weaknesses in the crisis management framework.
Thus, effective emergency response goes beyond technical or logistical challenges; it is an emotional and political effort rooted in trust. Trust must be actively cultivated through openness and accountability. Even negative emotions like frustration and anger can act as powerful catalysts for meaningful reform and critical reflection. Rather than being dismissed, they should be recognised as opportunities to expose systemic weaknesses and inspire lasting improvements.
Policymakers must confront the structural and emotional barriers that undermine our ability to respond to crises—because if these issues are not tackled with urgency and commitment, no dashboard, chatbot, or AI-powered warning system will save us when the next disaster strikes. This requires more than just technological upgrades; it demands a fundamental shift toward strengthening local expertise, fostering open and transparent communication, and building systems that put trust at the heart of emergency management. By taking these steps, we can create a truly resilient and inclusive framework—one that empowers responders to act swiftly and decisively when every second counts.
Read the report: ResilienceDirect during Covid-19: understanding and enhancing digital collaboration on Loughborough University’s website.
The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the Bennett Institute for Public Policy.
