We shielded the vulnerable from Covid – we can shield them from the cost of living crisis, too

Our best response to times of national emergency must be collectivism and innovation

Two years ago, we watched Covid approach without any idea of how completely it would turn our lives over. As we now watch the indicators for fuel prices, food prices, inflation and energy all turn red, we must recognise that a pandemic of poverty is approaching that will require us again to build an urgent national response.

Waiting for the government to work out the cost of capping energy prices won’t do it. We need to work out what the equivalent of shielding is, and we need to start doing it right now.

The cost of living crisis is every bit as serious as Covid in terms of its threat to people’s lives. In May this year, the Inequalities in Health Alliance, convened by the Royal College of Physicians, published polling showing that already more than half of British people felt their health had been negatively affected by the rising cost of living.

Eighty four per cent said this was due to increased heating costs, and over three quarters – 78 per cent – as a result of the rising cost of food. Our health is shaped by our environment, and our environment – already weakened by the pandemic and a decade of austerity – is deteriorating.

Covid taught us some vital lessons about how to save lives. We were able to design a response that kept us all safe by protecting the most vulnerable among us. Here’s what we learned then, and what we could and should be applying right now.

Firstly, a national emergency requires emergency response teams. If I was leading a local council right now, I would be standing up what’s known as “Gold command” emergency arrangements: the same teams who met and co-ordinated every day of the Covid pandemic to keep people safe.

Building a local government command structure to do that immediately breaks down professional silos, so that every department comes together and communicates regularly. This sounds obvious, but it often doesn’t happen. Making it happen is a priority.

Secondly, the cost of living crisis, like Covid, requires fast intelligence gathering. In order to tackle a threat, we need to know as much as we can about the threat and who is most threatened. Gathering intelligence is vital to work out the key risk factors for a cost of living threat.

We can collect data, use data already available and analyse that information to pinpoint exactly who is most at risk, using predictive tools. Age, underlying health conditions and ethnicity were the key risk factors for Covid. We already have data at our fingertips that can tell us which households are experiencing fuel poverty now, and we can predict which ones will in the future. We can combine that data with other risk factors such as level of indebtedness and whether the household is in the private renting sector to build a very accurate picture, right down to individual household level, of who is at risk.

When we know the risk profile, we can build data systems to identify people in our communities who have those characteristics – exactly as we did with Covid.

Thirdly, Covid also taught us that this kind of crisis requires quick decision making and decisive action to keep ahead of and mitigate its impact on society. We can build the data systems we need overnight, once we have the risk profile. And then our emergency response teams can get out there and shield the people identified by them, and in so doing, protect thousands of lives.

Shielding in this instance might be, for example, a mix of financial relief, debt advice and access to food. But each local emergency team will need to deliver specific and subtly different packages according to their communities. This leads to my next point.

Fourthly, our response to Covid was most effective when we were led by our communities. We need community action and the knowledge of local leaders, organisers, volunteers and activists to be at the forefront of shaping and delivering our response.

To keep up to speed with all the latest opinions and comment, sign up to our free weekly Voices Dispatches newsletter by clicking here

Crucially, we already know the conclusion to this next challenge we face. We knew it before Covid and we knew it even more clearly after Covid. We need a functioning public sector more than ever.

Both Covid and the cost of living crisis converged on a population living with changes to our economy and society that have not been adequately addressed in public policy or service design since the 1940s. We need services to work with people on tackling the root causes of what is happening to them, rather than treating individual issues or symptoms. Instead of always asking how much the latest crisis will cost, we need to overhaul services by asking: what do they need to do, in order to resolve problems before they become serious?

Both Covid and the cost of living crisis have shown us that our best response to crisis must be collectivism and innovation. We have to hold our nerve and remember that our impact is greatest when we design for the furthest first. We have to get out of an austerity mindset and into ambitious reform of public services with all the people who understand them best.

Chris Naylor is a director of public service reform consultancy Inner Circle and a former chief executive of Birmingham City Council and Barking and Dagenham Council