How governments should use intelligence in a crisis

This post is written by Oliver Marsh, IPPO Research Fellow and founder of The Data Skills Consultancy.

• The problem: During Covid-19, governments showed strong capabilities for collecting intelligence, but were less effective at synthesising diverse forms of intelligence.
• Why it matters: Ineffective synthesis can lead to suboptimal weighing up and trading off between different forms of intelligence, and conflicts rather than holistic approaches.
• The solution: Governments should develop cross-cutting capabilities and trusted relationships to ensure effective synthesis of intelligence at all levels of government

The Covid-19 pandemic was the most all-encompassing crisis faced by governments worldwide in living memory. It was simultaneously a crisis of health, the economy, personal wellbeing, education and more. But every crisis crosses domains, and governments can learn from Covid-19 how to improve decision-making in such conditions.

Governments should develop roles and structures which break through traditional departmental and professional silos.

From our research, led by Sir Geoff Mulgan, with support from Anina Henggeler, we argue that governments need to ensure data, evidence and other forms of intelligence can be effectively synthesised into a holistic picture which covers the multiple aspects of a crisis. We believe governments should develop roles and structures which break through traditional departmental and professional silos, relationships both within and outside government which enable use of expertise, skills for synthesising intelligence effectively and an attitude of openness-by-default towards government data and decision-making.

During Covid-19, governments had to make decisions based on many different and ever-changing factors – scientific knowledge of the disease, attitudes and behaviour of citizens, economic analyses, different impacts felt by different groups and much more. To get this knowledge they needed – at high speed and under great pressure – to organise different forms of intelligence: data, evidence, models, tacit knowledge, foresight and creativity. This is true of all crises; but Covid-19 has provided valuable examples of how this was done in different ways across different countries, and some lessons on how to organise intelligence better for future crises.

How to respond better next time

At the International Public Policy Observatory (IPPO) hosted by University College London, we have been conducting numerous research projects relating to government and society’s responses to crises, in particular the learning from the recent Covid-19 crisis. To understand how these different forms of intelligence were used in the Covid-19 crisis, we interviewed over 30 senior officials, advisors and experts involved in government responses to Covid-19 from across the world. We were particularly interested in how different forms of intelligence were brought together and synthesised into decisions, and any capabilities and processes which could help this.

From our interviews, we found extraordinary innovation globally around the production, use, and sharing of intelligence. Sources including mobility data, financial transactions and wastewater were all used to understand the spread of the virus and its impacts on behaviour.

Across countries from the UK to South Korea, citizens’ lived experiences were collected through a combination of repurposing government hotlines and web forms, meetings with local representatives, and natural language processing technologies. Governments in Taiwan, Estonia, and elsewhere worked with private companies, NGOs and civic innovators to develop apps and technologies which supported both governments and citizens in a range of activities – from tracking mask supplies, to applying for financial support, to distributing vaccine passes. In many cases, capabilities from other domains were creatively deployed to address the crisis, for instance using the skills of horizon scanners to track developments across the world. Such creativity was often enabled through effective use of trusting and responsive relationships built up pre-crisis, whether within government or between government and external partners.

Plugging the gaps

However, there were also problems and gaps, many of which became increasingly apparent as the crisis became more long-term. Although centralised systems had various methods for gathering intelligence from across the country, final decision-making was too closely hoarded in the centre; in the UK, for example, the Covid-19 response sometimes seemed to be a battle between the Treasury and the Department for Health in Whitehall. On the other hand, federal systems sometimes struggled to effectively collaborate on intelligence-sharing and decision-making due to differing standards and systems, as well as political disputes.

Many countries which had developed an effective strategy for intelligence-gathering and decision-making in first waves of Covid-19 – in particular through extensively relying on intensive track, trace and quarantine – struggled to pivot when faced with the more infectious Omicron variant.

We cannot predict when the next major crisis will occur, or what form it will take. But we know that being able to flexibly, rigorously and efficiently mobilise intelligence in all its forms will be vital.

The most notable gap we observed was the absence of clear processes through which intelligence was synthesised for government action. Often final decisions were made by senior politicians or officials; although they may have been presented with a range of intelligence, it seems they ultimately weighed them up in personal and potentially idiosyncratic ways, perhaps drawing more on governmental and legal experience and with less confidence in using, for example, data or scientific evidence. In addition, numerous interviewees expressed concerns that health-related intelligence was often given prominence over other domains and disciplines. In other cases, different forms of intelligence were set up in opposition, rather than synthesised – health versus the economy, for example. This was not helped by the formal structures of many governments, which are often based on divisions between functions – such as health, economy, and education – overland with distinctions between specialisms – such as foresight, statistics, and science advice. This may have been necessary in the 20th century but given the availability of new technological tools is no longer always fit for purpose.

Finding a way forward

It is too soon to make definitive judgements on which strategies “succeeded” or “failed” at addressing Covid-19. China is a clear example that some governments are still struggling with Covid-19 in the immediate term, and the long-term impacts for governments across the world – particularly on education – are still to be seen. However, our research and interviewees pointed us to steps which governments can take to prepare for a wide variety of future crises:

• Creating roles at the heart of governments responsible for organising intelligence and strengthening the links between the creators and users of intelligence.
• Ensuring officials and politicians are prepared with the right skills and mindsets.
• Cultivating the relationships – particularly between different tiers of government – that become so vital in a crisis.
• Developing norms and methods for opening up intelligence in all its forms.

We strongly suggest that governments consider these questions, alongside other learnings from Covid-19, as quickly as possible, and firewall this valuable work from day-to-day firefighting.

Governments today operate in a world of constantly overlapping crises – whether economic, health or climate. We cannot predict when the next major crisis will occur, or what form it will take. But we know that being able to flexibly, rigorously and efficiently mobilise intelligence in all its forms will be vital.

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