Public inquiry: Records management

Baroness Hallet has offered an update on how the Inquiry will take shape : Baroness Hallett's Opening Statement - UK Covid-19 Inquiry (covid19.public-inquiry.uk)  a time frame has been provided for the first tranche of the Inquiry.

The inquiry will be separated into Modules. "The Inquiry’s first procedural hearings will begin in September and October for Modules 1 and 2.  Public hearings for Module 1 will begin in spring 2023 for Module 1 and summer for Module 2. More information on Module 3 timings will be available in the coming weeks." 

• Module 1 will cover Resilience + preparedness
• Module 2 will do the same for Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
• Module 3 will investigate the impact of Covid, and governmental and societal responses to it, on healthcare systems, including on patients, hospital and other healthcare workers and staff.

There will also be further modules as the Inquiry gathers pace.

There will be two further panel members appointed by the Prime Minister but Baroness Hallet has stated She doesn't want to delay the Inquiry awaiting these and so stated the start date of Module 1 was 21st July. The scope of Module 1 can be found here: Module 1 Outline of Scope (covid19.public-inquiry.uk)

The Baroness reiterated her intent to be rigorous and candid. The Inquiry will call upon expert witnesses from Scientific and Economic backgrounds. Baroness Hallet made it clear in Her statement that this is a fact finding Inquiry that will have no power to imprison or fine individuals.

Hearings will be based in London but with further bases in Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

The Records Management Team discussed the COVID-19 Inquiry at the Lancashire care providers forum on 9 June 2022. For more information please see the notes and presentation slides:

Local authorities will be called upon to produce evidence for the Public Inquiry in the form of physical and electronic records, which may include emails.

It is expected that the vast majority of information provided to the Public Inquiry will be digitally born.

It is important to remember that as employees of LCC we all have a personal responsibility for the data that we hold.

Whilst this project is to focus on organising our data so that we are in a robust position to respond to any requests from the Inquiry, we also have to hold the information for statutory retention periods.

How we manage our data generally will be the focus of other workstreams, but the same principles apply to all data as it does for Covid related information.

The current advice is that Covid 19 related records should be kept for 6 years and then reviewed although we expect some of the information will need to be kept longer and some will need archiving - archiving meaning long term preservation with no foreseeable destruction date.

For relevant records that are already subject to a retention period longer than 6 years, they will need to be retained for their statutory period as this supersedes the 6 year retention as the higher retention always wins out.

Our Covid-19 related records need to be managed and should be in an accessible and findable format. This not only meets our statutory duties and enables us to respond to the Inquiry, but it is an excellent historical resource.

It will enable members of the public and senior managers now, and in the future, to be able to look back at what has been achieved during this pandemic both individually and as an organisation. During this recent pandemic information concerning how the authority responded to the 1918 Spanish Flu was referenced by Senior Managers.

Covid 19 saw a vast change to how services and individuals functioned within the County Council, with fast-paced decisions being made to better respond to the changing needs of our residents. 

Teams and individuals will have created and used various documents relating to Covid and now is the time to start reviewing the information you are holding in readiness for the public inquiry.

We are going to approach this in three different workstreams:

• Emails
• Shared drive
• M365

For each of these workstreams, the goal is to make sure that relevant information is identified and managed as outlined above.

Records managers/Digital Services

We will:

• provide guidance on what type of email/document ought to be kept.
• give advice and guidance on naming conventions.
• attend team meetings and follow up with advice and determine what assistance each service may need.
• keep in contact with you at each stage of the Inquiry from a Records Management perspective.

CEO/executive director/director

• You may be called upon by the Public Inquiry to give evidence even if you have left LCC. You will be supported by LCC if called by the Inquiry.
• Ensure that heads of service are instructing their teams to undertake this work.
• The data you are holding is your responsibility.
• You must follow the guidance and have your Covid information in a findable and
  accessible format.

Head of service

• Give clear instruction to your teams about this piece of work.
• Follow up in meetings and ask for evidence the work is being undertaken.
• The data you are holding is your responsibility.
• You must follow the guidance and have your Covid information in a findable and accessible format.

Staff members

• The data you are holding is your responsibility.
• You must assess the records you hold for Covid.
• You must follow the guidance and have your Covid information in a findable and accessible format.

IG champions

• As all staff members
• Work with Records Management to offer support and guidance to teams around this particular project.

• Public Health
• Lancashire Resilience Forum
• Voluntary and private sector – what we did how did we do it? i.e. Care Capacity Tracker
• Adult social care
• Children – Social Care, Education attainment, Mental Health, child protection
• Ethnicity – impact from Covid
• Service Risk Assessments
• Contingency planning documents
• Changes to services as a result of Covid
• Recruitment specifically related to Covid to include both internal re-deployment and
  Agency Resourcing
• Procurement specifically, but not exclusively, about PPE, tendering and decisionmaking documents related to Covid projects and any related contracts awarded
• Financial – resources specifically for Covid purposes
• Central Government communications specific to Lancashire
• Documentation/correspondence generated by SLT in relation to Covid
• Any emails or correspondence received or sent by Elected Members relating to Covid from members of the public, MPs or businesses
• Temporary Morgue
• Testing/Vaccine programme
• Communications – Intranet and Internet
• Domestic abuse

Our Covid 19 Project Team is here to support as needed and will co-ordinate the responses. Each service has been asked to provide a key contact or contacts and we will contact them directly if evidence is needed from that service area.

If you are unsure about any requests, please contact the project team by email: recordsmanagementcovid19@lancashire.gov.uk

The Project Team are here to provide you with as much support as possible. If you are a lead contact and are unsure about what information you should be keeping for the Inquiry, please contact us on the email above.

If you are requested to attend the Inquiry, this will be at a senior officer grade, and whether a current or previous employee, you'll be supported by our Legal Team and Records Management Service.