By Emily Caulkett-
The Cabinet Office has drafted in a specialist communications company to support the launch of the Covid-19 public inquiry.
Crest Advisory, which describes itself as the UK’s “only consultancy with a crime and justice focus”, is supplying media relations and strategic comms advice to the long-anticipated inquiry, which is set to start work in spring. It is also providing press office cover while an in-house communications team is being recruited.
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Crest Advisory has in the past provided support to a number of public inquiries, including those looking into the Grenfell Tower fire, the Manchester Arena bombing and the infected blood scandal.
The agency, which will be paid up to £50,000 for the two-month project, is providing three consultants: a strategic communications lead and project director, a media relations lead and a media and stakeholder analyst.
Baroness Heather Hallett(pictured) has already been named as its chair of the inquiry in December, which is set to take off this April. At the centre of the inquiry is whether the Uk government did enough to prepare for the pandemic, and ultimately prevent a lot of deaths arising from Covid. Some critics have criticized the government for acting too slowly to react to news the spreading virus, but against these claims are suggestions that the Boris Johnson’s government was not unreasonable to want to minimize the loss to the Uk economy by initially opting for herd immunity.
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Potentially complicating the inquiry will be calls from researchers and interested parties to insist on an investigation to discover the true number of Covid deaths in the UK arising from the pandemic , in order to put any issues associated with the inquiry into accurate perspective.
The UK government admitted late in 2020 that Covid deaths in the UK had been exaggerated, adding that people could have been killed in a motorbike crash and still had Covid written on their death certificate. The government later set up a new framework to have only those who had died within 28 days of a positive test, as having died from Covid-19.
Numerous people who died with Covid-19 had other underlying illnesses and complications, but in many cases, their death was hastened by the contraction of the virus which was spreading like wild fire in hospitals and care homes. The fact many patients were sent back to care homes after their release from hospitals was one of the major talking points during the height of the pandemic, and likely to feature in the spring inquiry about Covid.
The contract for the inquiry which runs from 21 December to the end of this month, consultants are providing advice on an upcoming consultation on the terms of reference for the inquiry.
Their goal is to ensure it reaches “key stakeholders” as well as a “broad representation of the UK population, including overcoming barriers to participation for hard to reach and underrepresented communities”, contract documents.
Last week, a campaign group representing people who had lost family members to Covid had called on the prime minister to commit to accepting the terms of reference put forward by Hallett once the consultation is completed.
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