This post was originally published in October 2020.
The UK Government’s strategy for the management of COVID-19 is now being openly opposed, not least by the elected Mayor of Manchester. This is no surprise and is not due to differences of political ideology. The problem is that there is no clear over-arching government strategy. Because there is no substantive strategy, discussion focuses on single issues, important no doubt, but not of critical priority. Debate over an increasingly detailed framework of activity (rather than the strategy that should direct and inform it) has turned first to disagreement and now to disunity. Dysfunction threatens.
Catchphrases do not Provide Strategic Direction…
There are numerous models of how the virus is behaving and developing and numerous models of how to deal with its threat. There are also numerous opinions about how those models – or parts of them – should define actions to be taken in response. The position of the UK Government has done little to bring clarity to the breadth and depth of the crisis. Instead, it has produced a series of ‘bumper stickers’ and catchphrases which have lacked real substance and created confusion amongst the public. ‘Protect the NHS’ and ‘Stay Alert’ do not represent strategic design.
Whitehall’s Aversion to Strategy
In recent years there has been an implicit rejection of true strategic design in Whitehall. UK participation in Iraq and Afghanistan was famously and fatally handicapped by an absence of any approach to a real strategic framework (it took seven years after its first intervention for the government to develop a national strategy for Afghanistan). Blaming the shifting sands of ‘events, dear boy, events’ is insufficient response. There is something much more insidious and inexplicable in successive governments’ inability (and interest) to produce and then manage a coherent strategy, let alone an effective one. A fascinating if frustrating issue in itself, it can be dealt with elsewhere, but it this aversion to engaging with consistent strategic design is undoubtedly proving problematic for the Government’s response to the threat of COVID-19.
Strategy is Not a Plan
Strategy creates coherence. It should allow those who manage and implement it to understand why action is required. In turn that defines the actions that should be generated, and the resources required to conduct them. It is the source, the reference point, the handrail. It is not a plan. Words have meaning. The most recent Government document framing its approach to COVID-19 is entitled ‘Our Plan to Rebuild: the UK Government’s COVID-19 Recovery Strategy’. The contradiction is clear. Strategy is not a plan.
Plans of action can be – and should be – adjusted in light of changing circumstances, but they operate within the wider, more consistent context of the strategy that defines them. The plan provides the ‘What’ and the ‘How’. Strategy provides the (far more important) ‘Why’. If this seems like pedantry and semantics to some, that is unfortunate, for it lies at the heart of most if not all failing strategies in the public and private sector alike.
For the strategist, the current confusion and disagreement over the Government response perhaps highlights two fundamental aspects of strategy development (unfortunately amongst a considerable number of candidates for examination): the critical importance of the objective; and, the use of metrics and data to inform the development of planning during implementation.
The Importance of the Objective
The objective of a strategy is its over-arching and unifying purpose. Ideally, it should be sufficiently succinct to allow it to be carried in people’s heads and referred to as a compass in all subsequent decision making. At the same time it should be sufficiently embracing of what might be a number of critical areas of interest. This is not at all easy, but it is fundamental to an enduring and meaningful strategic framework.
The defined objective of any strategy should be derived from a full understanding of the problem set – at least its context and its challenge. Defining the problem set does not necessarily mean that one understands all the drivers and characteristics of the problem in detail. In fact, it is almost always the case that an organisation will not understand the causes and influences at play, but it must at least understand the context of the problem and the reasons why it is required to do anything at all. Overall, what is the strategy going to be designed to achieve? Why is intervention required? How will the situation have changed for the strategy to be declared successful?
As far as the UK Government’s response to COVID-19 is concerned, the objective has not been clearly defined. Perhaps it is obvious – defeat the virus – but. that is quite possibly unattainable. Anyway, no matter how obvious the strategic objective, if it is not clearly iterated, it is open to ambiguity and drift. Is it therefore to mitigate the effect of the virus? If so, to precisely what effect: on health, on the economy, on our social structures? And mitigate to what extent?
Initially the Government strategy appeared to be to preserve the capacity of the health services to cope with increased demand. Otherwise it was expressed as ‘Contain, Delay, and Mitigate’. However, the most recent plan/strategy (CP239 updated 24 Jul 20) states as its aim “…to save lives”. This is different and drives a different set of activities. It is laudable, of course, but as much a strategic aim as ‘make the company the market leader in Europe’. Such an aim is too generic and does not focus the strategy sufficiently, much like an inadequately framed essay title or thesis statement. More problematic for the published strategy is that, just a few lines later, the strategic aim is also defined as
“…return to life as close to normal as possible, for as many people as possible, as fast and fairly as possible…in a way that avoids a new epidemic, minimises lives lost and maximises health, economic and social outcomes”.
This more expansive stated aim is arguably more appropriate as a strategic objective, but it still lacks clarity and is too broadly based in listing components of interest rather than focusing and prioritising the approach to implementation. Critically, it also provides further contradiction of aims expressed elsewhere and will therefore drive activity in a different direction. Once again one is reminded of the UK intervention in Afghanistan, which was variously defined as seeking to counter terrorists, religious extremists, narcotics, international instability, and ‘to preserve the unity of the coalition’.
The objective of a strategy shouldn’t change unless the situation changes significantly and the requirement of intervention changes. By definition, that would require a new strategy, not just the change of an objective. A lack of precision and consistency in the use of a strategic objective provides for confusion, competition for resources, and compromise rather than coordination. Does that sound familiar?
While it has been widely criticised, the strategy of the Swedish Government in managing the COVID-19 crisis has at least been clear and consistent: minimise the effect of COVID-19 on society. Such a short statement embraces the full context of the issue and is loaded with clear implications. Wrapped inside it is the requirement to balance the effect of the virus on health, the economy, and social structures. This is arguably more meaningful than seeking to ‘maximise health, economic, and social outcomes’. More importantly, it is easier for the public to understand.
In contrast, the emphasis of the UK Government on ‘saving lives’ is entirely understandable, but it suggests a strategic vision whilst lacking a strategic framework. Bluntly, it leaves too many questions about which lives, how many, and from what cause. It allows too many conflicting arguments and opinions about how the impact on the economy and social structures is equally of concern, and needlessly (and divertingly) focuses on the relative lethality of COVID-19. It invites discussion and incites disagreement.
This lack of precision has been exacerbated by the UK’s de-centralised approach to activity. It is at the heart of continuous and unhelpful disagreement about what should be done between London and Edinburgh (and Cardiff and Belfast) and is unfortunately easily exploited by political agendas. A clear, consistent, and meaningful strategic objective provides cohesion for distributed activity. Simply put, the UK Government has failed to provide such a unifying purpose and achieve that cohesion.
The Use of Metrics and Data
The use of metrics and data in any argument is always contentious, not least in the management of a strategy. ‘Lies, damn lies, and statistics’ is now a well-worn cliché. But the use of metrics around the COVID-19 crisis has been even more woeful than usual.
There is usually a problem about whether to measure what can be measured or to measure what needs to be measured. Again, many would say that this is a pedantic and sematic issue, but again it is crucial to the production of meaningful data to inform the management of a strategy. The effect of activity can be both tangible and intangible, and often effect is only perceived after considerable delay. A reliance on what can be measured easily often turns into a focus on the quality and quantity of whatever activity conducted rather than the effect of that activity.
In April the UK Government identified five ‘tests’ that would provide measurement of effect for its response strategy. These focused on (a) NHS capacity, (b) death rates, (c) infection rates (measured by the famous ‘R’ number), (d) ‘operational capability’ including testing and PPE, and (e) confidence that a ‘second peak’ would be avoided.
On first review these may not seem to be far from a reasonable collection of useful data. The problem is that for the most part they are passive indicators and to a large extent they are also of secondary importance. At their best, metrics should inform understanding of trends towards (or away from) effect, and not simply measure a position at any one moment in time. A measurement that informs understanding of overall effect is active and or primary importance (to some extent known as a ‘lead’ indicator); a measurement that captures a position at a moment in time is passive and of secondary importance (to some extent known as a ‘lag’ indicator). Strategic measurement should be expressed terms of trends, not position, and effect, not activity.
Nothing in the five tests covered learning more about the virus, its characteristics, and its behaviour. Ideally, metrics should drive learning, exploring the areas of the operating environment about which little or nothing is known. So many questions have remained entirely unanswered for too long, and there appears to have been scant determination to address them precisely enough. These have included the much debated topics of the effect of climate and the susceptibility of younger age groups.
The second problem is that the ‘tests’ are expressed only as areas of interest. It would be interesting to know if a set of meaningful metrics was ever produced to support data collection against these areas and if they have been and are being managed consistently so that trends appear by comparing apples with apples rather than whichever other fruit may be in season.
The NHS metric sought to ensure that ‘sufficient critical care and specialist treatment could be provided right across the UK’. Does that mean critical care and specialist treatment for COVID-19 or for all patients? This is important because the perceived emphasis on COVID-19 care has become contentious as it has emerged that patients in need of critical care with other medical problems may have been disadvantaged over the last few months.
Perhaps it would have been more effective and clearer if the metric had focused on the ability of the NHS to cope with the surge of critical COVID-19 patients whilst not affecting the capacity to treat other patients. The effect of this (perhaps perceived) emphasis is reported to have been extremely painful if not tragic for patients in need of critical care other than with COVID-19, but it has also allowed discussion to turn to disagreement about the weight of effort that has been afforded to the virus, and the degree of additional resourcing that is necessary to cope with the added burden of cases.
The areas of interest for measurement of effect set out in the Government’s five tests further reinforced understanding of the focus of Government strategy as the defeat of the virus, rather than managing its effect in proportion to the impact on health, the economy, and social structures. That has become another invitation for discussion, disagreement, and now dissent.
Conclusion: an Inconsistent and Inconclusive Strategic Approach
The objective and measurement of effect are only two of a number of important components of a meaningful strategy, but they are fundamental to understanding, interpretation, and cohesion. The UK Government strategy in response to the threat of COVID-19 – mostly defined in soundbites and catchphrases and most recently published only at the end of July – is at best an average ‘C’ Grade.
In addition to the two components covered above, there are others that matter, including the development of lines of engagement, packages of activity, the integration of a risk management approach, and the clear delegation of responsibility and authority for execution (made more problematic by the increasingly devolved nature of political control).
Altogether, the current strategy lacks authority, precision, and clarity, is insufficiently comprehensive, and has been inconsistently applied. It is not difficult to argue that the structure and presentation is flawed even before one starts to analyse the actual content. Evidence for this is presented not least by the space that has developed for opinion to inform discussion and disagreement.
Perhaps an academic appraisal misses the point that this is an incredibly difficult crisis to manage and that the stakes are incredibly high. Pedantic though an appeal for rigour in developing a meaningful strategy may be, nonetheless, the response to COVID-19 has shown once again that the formulation and iteration of strategy cannot be left to strength of personality and personal energy.
Strategy sets out a unifying purpose, and it does so through clearly defined components of a framework that together should provide cohesion of thought and activity, consistency of approach, and overall coordination of effort. The UK can do better than to simply ‘follow the science’. It needs a meaningful strategy.
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