Frontier Chairman, Gus O’Donnell has worked on a wellbeing framework analysing the costs and benefits of when to release the lockdown in the UK, as part of the Centre for Economics Performance Wellbeing Policy Group.

The framework explores benefits of relaxing the lockdown, including increasing people’s incomes now and in the future but also looks at the negative side of lifting the lockdown, such as the inevitable increase in the final number of deaths from Covid-19.

In order to compare the different results of releasing the lockdown, the Wellbeing Policy Group developed a common metric, the number of ‘Wellbeing years’. The Group has analysed the different effects of ending the lockdown at different times over the course of the next few months, taking into account a range of factors including: mental health, Covid-19 deaths, air quality and unemployment.

Gus O’Donnell notes:

“It is ultimately up to politicians to make these difficult decisions over the coming months. This framework and robust analysis has been developed to help them to make these tough calls and find a way to balance all of the effects of coming out of the lockdown, when we finally do.”.

You can read the full paper with details of the framework and analysis by clicking the link below.  Read more about Gus’ work on this framework in The Times, by clicking here.