Strategic guidance for a government department’s COVID-19 response
Strategic guidance for a government department’s COVID-19 response
Our client is a Whitehall department responsible for a critical sector of the UK economy.
The department needed insights to shape its medium-term response
The department recognised that COVID-19 would have significant medium- and long-term implications for its sector but lacked the scope to explore these implications fully while it managed the immediate crisis. It engaged Nous to provide strategic guidance.
Nous brought pace, insight and expertise. They worked well with my team, developing evidence based policy options. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them.
Director, UK Government department
Nous used data and research to rapidly produce insights
Nous worked closely with department staff over four weeks to provide key strategic resources. These included:
- a COVID-19 policy tracker that measures the UK’s major trading partners’ daily crisis severity and pandemic-related policies to determine the severity levels at which policies were implemented and their likely effects
- detailed threats and opportunities analysis to help the department understand how well equipped the sector’s industries are to maintain or expand market share in COVID-19’s aftermath
- concise action plans for supporting priority sub-sectors during the COVID-19 recovery phase and bolstering the UK’s world-leading position in this sector.
The department gained resources to shape its medium-term pandemic response
Nous’ analysis of strategic risks and opportunities helped the department respond to the longer-term COVID-19 effects and the resultant political imperatives while the government managed the peak of the pandemic in the UK. Our analysis and tools are an important resource the department will use to enable this sector to recover from the crisis and take advantage of new opportunities.
What you can learn from the department
- Preparedness for future phases helps recovery: think beyond the immediate effects of a crisis.
- Adjusting to the ‘new abnormal’ of the COVID-19 pandemic offers the opportunity to implement creative new policy ideas.
- Daily check-ins to test thinking facilitate ensure rapidly-developed recommendations are actionable and aligned with government priorities.
