The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) is a British Government body that advises central government in emergencies. It is usually chaired by the United Kingdom's Chief Scientific Adviser. Specialists from academia and industry, along with experts from within government, make up the participation, which will vary depending on the emergency. SAGE gained public prominence for its role in the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom.
History
In the aftermath of the United Kingdom BSE outbreak, "the then Government Chief Scientific Adviser (Lord May) published Guidelines on the Use of Scientific Advice in Policy-Making; these have subsequently been revised, most recently in June 2010... The Government [later] developed the Principles of Scientific Advice to Government, which 'set out the rules of engagement between Government and those who provide independent scientific and engineering advice.' The Principles apply to 'Ministers and Government departments, all members of Scientific Advisory Committees and Councils [...] and other independent scientific and engineering advice to Government.' They detail principles related to roles and responsibilities, independence and transparency and openness." The May advice was updated in May 2011 in a document entitled Code of Practice for Scientific Advisory Committees (CoPSAC 2011).
"In an emergency where scientific or technical advice is required to aid the emergency response, the Government may decide that a" SAGE "is required; this decision can either be made by the Lead Government Department (LGD) or the Cabinet Office in consultation with the Government Office for Science. SAGE is usually chaired by the Government Chief Scientific Adviser... Each SAGE is emergency-specific. The swine flu pandemic was the first emergency where the SAGE mechanism was used; volcanic ash was the second."
SAGE has advised the government on a number of events, including: the 2009 flu pandemic the 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident the 2013–14 United Kingdom winter floods (3 meetings) the 2014 Ebola outbreak (3 meetings) the 2015 Nepal earthquake (1 meeting) the 2015–16 Zika virus epidemic (5 meetings) the 2018-9 Ebola outbreak (3 meetings) the potential catastrophic breach of Toddbrook Reservoir in 2019 (1 meeting) the COVID-19 pandemic (at least 105 meetings)
Structure and function
SAGE was reported in July 2020 to consist of around 20 participants at any one given time. Participants are drawn from both academia and practice, and the participants of a particular meeting are decided upon by the British Government Chief Scientific Adviser and the Chief Medical Officer for England, depending on the expertise required. They are not generally employed by government. They do not operate under government instruction. In addition to these participants, SAGE is also attended by officials from relevant parts of government and arm's-length bodies who may contribute to discussions with relevant expertise, for instance, the UK Health Security Agency and the Chief Scientific Advisers to government departments.
The government does not have to act upon the conclusions of SAGE, and other bodies, including other sources of scientific advice, feed in to government's decisions. Only the Chief Scientific Adviser and Chief Medical Officer may speak on behalf of SAGE.
In 2020, the UK Government carried out a review of SAGE's structure in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sub-committees can be delegated by SAGE to study particular issues. During the COVID-19 pandemic, these were: Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B) Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) and its the Operational sub-group (SPI-M-O); the sub-group was awarded the Weldon Memorial Prize in 2022 for its work in the COVID-19 pandemic PHE Serology Working Group COVID-19 Clinical Information Network (CO-CIN) Environmental Modelling Group (EMG) Children’s Task and Finish Working Group (TFC) Hospital Onset COVID-19 Working Group (HOCI) Ethnicity Subgroup Social Care Working Group (SCWG)
COVID-19
The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has seen an expanded role for and greater attention paid to SAGE.
Although not prohibited, until the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, it is believed that political advisors had never attended SAGE meetings in any capacity nor is there evidence for 10 Downing Street officials attending these meetings too. It was reported that Dominic Cummings and Ben Warner had attended COVID-19 meetings. Their attendance and participation was widely criticised, in particular by other attendees "shocked, concerned and worried for the impartiality of advice".