UK Covid-19 Inquiry - Module 1 report: progress update - January 2026

5. Using Data and Research

Recommendation Five – Data and Research for future pandemics

Chair’s recommendation:

The UK Government, working with the devolved governments, should establish mechanisms for the timely collection, analysis, secure sharing and use of reliable data for informing emergency responses, in advance of future pandemics. Data systems should be tested in pandemic exercises.

The UK Government should also commission a wider range of research projects ready to commence in the event of a future pandemic. These could be ‘hibernated’ studies or existing studies that are designed to be rapidly adapted to a new outbreak. Better working with international partners should be encouraged. This should include projects to:

• Understand the prevalence of a new virus;
• Measure the effectiveness of a range of different public health measures; and
• Identify which groups of vulnerable people are hardest hit by the pandemic and why.

Implementation actions and timescales set out in our January 2025 response:

• The Scottish Government and partners will agree a framework setting out the processes for how analytical resource across the Scottish Government can be rapidly redeployed to respond to a future pandemic supporting the timely collection, analysis, sharing and use of required data and associated research and modelling by summer 2025.

Progress update as at January 2026:

• The Data and Analysis for Crisis Delivery Group has now developedthe Analytical Framework, in extensive collaboration with analysts from across the Scottish Government and key partners, to support us to plan, prepare and coordinate cross-government analytical work and improve how data and analysis can be used in future pandemics;
• During Exercise Pegasus we tested a number of analytical priorities. This included the Analytical Framework itself, covering how analysts support the cross-Scottish Government policy response as well as data availability, data sharing and flows, and access to scientific advice. The ‘Whole System Pressures dashboard’ was rapidly adapted to include new indicators allowing us to test data systems as part of Exercise Pegasus;
• The Memorandum of Understanding, which forms part of the Analytical Framework, outlining the mechanism to enable rapid sharing of data and analysis between UK Government and Scottish Government in a future crisis has now been signed by the Cabinet Office and the devolved governments, after agreement by Scottish Government Ministers; and
• The Analytical Framework remains an operational working document and will be reviewed and refined, incorporating lessons learned from the formal evaluation of Exercise Pegasus.