Lesson 1: Political leadership that understands the risks
In the Homes for Ukraine Scheme, political leadership came from Lord Harrington and Michael Gove who had themselves been given a strong mandate from the Prime Minister.
Paul and his colleagues recognised the power of this mandate and used it to invite people into spaces where businesses, individuals and other non-state actors could make contributions to the scheme, cutting across traditional organisational silos and enabling cross-sector collaboration.
During the Homes for Ukraine Scheme the key risks that needed to be balanced were the risks of insufficient safeguarding against the risks of delay and a slower pace. It was crucial that this trade-off was understood by the politicians involved and that they were the ones to determine the approach accordingly.
The decision was made that the programme should have some minimal safeguarding checks on both hosts and guests prior to arrival in the UK but most could be conducted post-arrival, enabling relocation to take place as quickly as possible once the sponsor had come forward. This was based on a judgement that the risk of concluding all safeguarding checks pre-arrival would increase safeguarding in the UK but at the cost of leaving people longer in perilous circumstances in Europe.
Lesson for NHS
In the health and care sector, there is consensus from policy experts that over the last few decades we have consistently underinvested in prevention and primary care in favour of spending on hospitals and acute care.
Do politicians and decision makers sufficiently understand the risks and implications of this? Whilst political leaders frequently talk about the importance of primary care; their funding priorities and actions do not reflect this leading to continuous underinvestment.
It was important that the senior civil servants had the political cover and mandate to act and lead. This was provided by the senior politicians involved.