Coronavirus: Inside the UK government’s influential behavioural ‘nudge unit’

Former intelligence analyst specialised in China and cyber warfare has just joined key team

A commuter wears a face mask as he walks at Lambeth North station to a Bakerloo line train on the London Underground on 2 April (AFP/Getty)

A senior figure from the world of intelligence and defence, who specialised in China and cyber warfare, has been appointed to one of the top posts in the government’s “nudge unit”, which is involved in the campaign against the coronavirus outbreak.

Rachel Coyle, who has received an MBE for services to defence, is the new managing director of the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) helping to develop strategy for the pandemic at the Cabinet Office.

The work of the “nudge unit” was relatively little known until its role became more widely publicised over Covid-19, especially over the concept of “herd immunity“ to combat the virus and the effect this had on the timing of the eventual lockdown ordered by Boris Johnson.

Ms Coyle, who has a masters in Chinese studies from Cambridge, spent six years at the Ministry of Defence, where she started as analyst with Mandarin language skills before being promoted to policy advisor at the Permanent Joint Headquarters, then private secretary to the deputy chief of defence staff (military strategy & operations) General Sir Richard Barrons, and finally assistant head of cyber operations policy.

After receiving her MBE in 2013, Ms Coyle joined Salamanca, a business intelligence and investigations group, where she became head of corporate intelligence in charge of the company’s international offices.

Starting her job with the “nudge unit” at the end of last month, Ms Coyle stated in a social media post: “I’m really proud to have started a new role as managing director for the Behavioural Insights Team.”

General Barrons, who went on to become chief of joint forces command, said: “Rachel was one of the sharpest civil servants I have ever come across. I found her very impressive and she will no doubt do a very good job at a very difficult time.”

As deputy chief of defence staff, General Barrons was in charge of the military support for national resilience and security in natural or man-made disasters as well as conflicts.

He told The Independent: “The potential risk of global pandemic has been with us for a very long time. Questions have to be asked of the government, industry and civil society on the level of preparedness when this pandemic occurred.

“We can’t have been completely surprised. In the future we obviously need to be better prepared. But we must not make the mistake of thinking that it’s all just about pandemics. There will be a whole range of challenges ranging from climate change, the rise of China and the role of Russia. There needs to be a focus on strategy.”

The strategy of “nudging” is based on the premise of changing behaviour through coaxing and pointing out positive outcomes to actions rather than through coercion. It was set up 10 years ago by the Cameron government and ownership is shared between its staff, the Cabinet Office and the charity Nesta which deals with innovations.

David Halpern, BIT’s chief executive, and a member of the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) outlined to the BBC on 11 March the approach of shielding vulnerable people until enough of the country’s population had been infected with Covid-19, and immunity would be acquired to halt its spread.

“There’s going to be a point, assuming the epidemic flows and grows as it will do, where you want to cocoon, to protect those at-risk groups so they don’t catch the disease. By the time they come out of their cocooning, herd immunity has been achieved in the rest of the population,” he said.

On the same day Dominic Cummings, the chief advisor to Boris Johnson, is reported to have brought up the issue of herd immunity in a discussion with tech industry leaders. Two days later the government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, told BBC Radio 4 that one of the key things we need to do is to “build up some kind of herd immunity so more people are immune to this disease and we reduce the transmission”.

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, insisted a few days later that achieving herd immunity was not a stated policy. Instead, he said, “in the coming weeks” people over the age of 70 will be told to self-isolate.

Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the medical journal Lancet told the Commons Science and Technology Select Committee at the end of last month that SAGE, despite being chaired by the chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, and the chief scientific officer, Sir Patrick Vallance, had little input from public health doctors and medical officers. The dominant voices advising the government, he said, were mathematical modellers and behavioural scientists, including Dr Halpern.

“There is evidence on modelling and on behavioural science, but I don’t see the evidence from the public health community or from the clinical community,” he said.

“We thought we could have a controlled epidemic. We thought we could manage that epidemic over the course of March and April, push the curve to the right, build up herd immunity and that way we could protect people. The reason why that strategy was wrong is it didn’t recognise that 20 per cent of people infected would end up with severe critical illness. The evidence was there at the end of January.”

A senior Whitehall official involved with Covid-19 planning held, however, that Dr Halpern was explaining the theory of “herd immunity”, not advocating it. He said “a lot will come out in the future about what happened, not just the role of advisers, but politicians as well, I have no doubt that a lot of it very interesting for the public”.