Government ordered to release Covid lockdown impact assessments.

[MercyBooth]

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/covid-lockdown-impact-assessments-foi-b1956743.html

Government ordered to release Covid lockdown impact assessments after refusing to make documents public
Exclusive: DHSC attempted to keep documents secret and claimed release was ‘not in the public interest’

Lizzie Dearden
@lizziedearden
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5h
Replying to
@lizziedearden
Liberty requested the equality impact assessments under FOI, but was refused and told releasing them would “not be in the public interest”

The Information Commissioner has now ordered publication and rejected govt arguments they should be witheld to “protect the policy process”
Lizzie Dearden
@lizziedearden
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5h
The ICO acknowledged "massive restrictions imposed by Health Protection Regulations" and said "the impact on those with protected characteristics cannot be ignore"

It said govt was obliged to ensure there was no "disproportionate impact on particular sections of the population”
Lizzie Dearden
@lizziedearden
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5h
The decision means that equality impact assessments for every one of the 70+ versions of the Health Protection Regulations, which enforced lockdowns and other restrictions, and the Coronavirus Act must be made public by 30 November

Liberty accused the govt of "evading scrutiny"

Lizzie Dearden
@lizziedearden
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5h
Liberty said there was no proper scrutiny of the laws, brought in using emergency powers:

“Arguing that it was against the public interest to release what it knew about these powers is an insult to all of us affected by them. It's high time govt accepted it is not above the law"

.

I suppose because of the emergency legislation in place.
And with the minimising and near total absence of mandating proper restrictions when every other western country was doing so, together with the whole "people are going to die, what can you do" approach, the govt's "experts" may well be found ultimately to have gone against any sensible proposal of legislation. Leading obviously to a far worse economic crisis than countries which did impose restrictive legislation but for a much shorter length of time and whose economies are generally speaking on the up.
There's been a lot in both the Economist and the New Statesman (but, for balance, also the Spectator) about how one shitshow because the govt genuinely had the superior smugness to think it didn't need to do anything led ultimately (and continues to have) devasting effects on the economy. Mix in the lack of foresight over Brexit and the money EU residents paid in to the pot and the country is fucked until at least 2024 whereas most western democracies who took a different approach are looking to emerge (economically) from the doldrums by the middle of 2022 onwards.

It will also be very interesting if the JCVI ever get forced to release the minutes they are so far refusing to. What with the leaks about Dingwall and Hart, Craig, Yeadon, Jones etc. (yet people still cite their "findings" as something to be listened to. )Anti-vaxxers, anti-mask, Us4Them bods and a homeopath. And that's just those I mentioned! It's going to be a fun day when the truth comes out about their meetings!

The emergency legislation will cover them not releasing the actual govt minutes etc but the JCVI stuff should ultimately get published. Hopefully.

(sorry, missed out Dingwall retweeting the Hart people- not that they were also on the JCVI- too early in the morning!)

Well the lockdowns had to happen, they got flack for not doing it soon enough. Now they will get flack for the impact from it.
No wonder no decent human being wants to be a politician, they literally cannot win!

Good

I don't see how it can be not in the public interest to demonstrate that a wide range of options were considered before making a very important decision.

Unless, of course, the option chosen was one of those shown to have big downsides....

@puppeteer

I don't see how it can be not in the public interest to demonstrate that a wide range of options were considered before making a very important decision.

Unless, of course, the option chosen was one of those shown to have big downsides....

Exactly. It'll definitely be in the public interest but whether that equates to proof that the govt took the decisions with the best interests of the public in mind I fear will be something quite different.

DHSC attempted to keep documents secret and claimed release was ‘not in the public interest’

The article's behind a paywall, but did anyone really expect anything different?

I guess they'd better get onto rewriting it / losing things / redacting bits ...

Shocking that it took this long, really, but we're living in clown world.

I reckon their shredders will be as busy as the ones after Grenfell were.

Thanks for sharing @MercyBooth .
I don't really believe a full impact assessment was carried out. Definitely not for the first one which is understandable but not for subsequent ones either.

I agree @Taswama They have been buying time to try and create one.