UK Covid-19 Inquiry - Module 1 report: progress update - July 2025

7. Publication of findings and lessons

Recommendation Seven – Publication of findings and lessons from civil emergency exercises

Chair’s recommendation:

For all civil emergency exercises, the governments of the UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should each (unless there are reasons of national security for not doing so):

• Publish an exercise report summarising the findings, lessons and recommendations, within three months of the conclusion of the exercise
• Publish an action plan setting out the specific steps that will be taken in response to the report’s findings, and by which entity, within six months of the conclusion of the exercise and
• Keep exercise reports, action plans, and emergency plans and guidance from across the UK in a single, UK-wide online archive, accessible to all involved in emergency preparedness, resilience and response.

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

• We will reinvigorate the Scottish Exercise notification process and Scottish National Exercise Calendar by July 2025
• We will publish lessons learned reports and findings, to the extent possible, within six months of each exercise.

Progress update:

• The Scottish Government has consulted with Partners and we have now taken steps to reinvigorate and improve the Scottish Exercise notification process and the Scottish National Exercise Calendar.
• The Scottish Government has produced draft documents in support of this and will now collaborate with both internal and external Partners to ensure we build a process that works across all areas of the business, and will give a truly Scotland wide picture of all activity within the Exercise space.
• The Scottish Government will build on the work already done over the coming months and aim to have a robust process in place by the end of 2025.
• Scottish Government will consider the publication of the Scottish element of Tier 1 exercises. To support this, the Scottish Government is in the process of developing a new presence on Resilience Direct which will be the default publication point until and unless an alternative is presented or suggested. Resilience Direct is a Cabinet Office-owned web-based platform which provides government and categorised responders with a secure space to share information relating to planning, response and recovery from emergencies.