The government’s chief scientist warned a former incumbent not to confuse the public during the Covid pandemic by naming an independent expert panel after the group convened to advise ministers on the crisis.
Sir Patrick Vallance revealed the clash in an interview at the Institute for Government on Friday, where he also said he would have told the former prime minister Boris Johnson that the Covid rules were meant to be followed by all.
Vallance chaired the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, or Sage, throughout the pandemic and fed assessments from the expert committee back to the prime minister and the rest of government.
In response to initial secrecy around Sage’s meetings and membership, Sir David King, who was the government’s chief scientist a decade earlier, created Independent Sage, a separate panel of experts that held its meetings in public.
Speaking at the event, Vallance said King called early in the crisis and declared his intention to set up the parallel group because of concerns around Sage’s lack of transparency. “I did ask him not to call it Sage, because I think that was very confusing,” Vallance said. “I think it’s a pity that that happened.”
At the time, several senior scientists criticised King for the move and warned that calling the group “Independent Sage” risked undermining Britain’s pandemic response and muddying the waters around crucial public health messages.
Sage’s membership was kept secret at the start of the pandemic, along with data and research papers the group discussed, and minutes of the meetings. Following an outcry over the lack of transparency, the committee became more open, publishing the names of members who were happy to be identified and releasing documents, though often several weeks after the event.
The delay in releasing documents led to widespread alarm in October 2020 when it emerged that Sage had warned ministers three weeks earlier that the country faced a “very large epidemic with catastrophic consequences” unless it took immediate action by imposing a “circuit breaker” lockdown. Instead, Boris Johnson introduced a three-tier Covid alert system.
Vallance, who steps down as chief scientific adviser next Friday, said that while government departments had “very good” science advisers, the civil service has lagged behind. When he took up the post in 2018, only 10% of entrants to the civil service fast stream held a science, technology, engineering or maths degree. A target has since been set to achieve 50%, he said.
Asked if the government’s chief scientist could ever be an artificial intelligence, Vallance admitted that he had asked ChatGPT to write a letter for the prime minister on a scientific issue to see what it would churn out. “The concept was a bit ropey, but the structure was quite good,” he said.
On the advice he would have given Johnson over the events that led to his grilling by the House of Commons’s privileges committee this week over Partygate, Vallance added: “I’ve been pretty clear: the advice was there for everybody and everybody should follow it.”
Dr Stephen Griffin, a co-chair of Independent Sage, said the group was set up in the early stages of the pandemic because the attendance and disclosure around Sage meetings was obscured. “It was in no way intended to be in opposition to Sage, and never has been – much of our work has been based upon, or in agreement with, recommendations later released in Sage minutes, plus several of our group are Sage members.
“Especially during the early years of the pandemic, Indie Sage certainly offered both scientific and science policy advice; several of our members are in fact experts on the latter. Sadly, certain critics confuse policy with politics, yet to offer scientifically informed statements on subjects such as supported isolation, or countering transmission, for example, in schools ought not to be controversial.”
