Transforming the UK Covid-19 Inquiry Site

The Challenge

In 2022 the UK Covid-19 Inquiry site was hosted on infrastructure managed by another agency. Our first challenge was to design a new AWS infrastructure, and get it deployed to the client’s AWS environment. All of the site application code, configuration and data also needed to be migrated across to the new infrastructure. What was the goal here? A seamless transition to ensure the re-architected site could go live - without any interruptions, of course!

The timescales were tight. We were asked to consider the project in September 2022 and the requirement was for the site to be fully migrated the following month.

Over time our involvement in the project grew, and over subsequent months we took on responsibilities in the following areas:

• Full Support of both the Covid-19 Inquiry WordPress application and its infrastructure, including application and infrastructure updates, 24/7/365 callout and service desk support (https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/)
• A Continual Improvements Programme for the Covid-19 Inquiry site. 
• Support for Every Story Matters - full support of the AWS infrastructure for this high profile initiative (https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/every-story-matters/) 
• Design, build and support of the infrastructure for the Tapestry sub-site:  (https://tapestry.covid19.public-inquiry.uk/)

Sensitive data is held on the site, particularly around the Every Story Matters submissions, announcements and reports which are for timed-based publication. It was critical that the infrastructure and application have security at their forefront and that the processes around data handling took this into consideration.

A big challenge indeed.. And that is what made it so rewarding. 

The Solution

The AWS infrastructure for the Covid-19 Inquiry site was designed, built and deployed on time, all while adhering to the GOV.UK Service Standard and the Technology Code of Practice. We worked closely with CO Digital technical architects on this and it was a really productive experience for all those involved. 

Once the infrastructure was ready, we then put it through extensive load, penetration and accessibility testing. The load testing was carried out using our own AWS distributed load testing solution, which we’ve used successfully on several projects in the past.

Infrastructure support Every Story Matters

Let’s talk about the infrastructure supporting Every Story Matters initiative. It's a bespoke setup that takes a serverless-first approach. Deploying updates for this infrastructure is quite complex, particularly around the DNS updates required. Because of this, we worked closely with the original developers to ensure that we could continue to support future developments and ensure that they could be deployed smoothly without any service interruptions.

Alongside the technical aspects of the solution, we also delivered on the project management and service desk side of the project. We ensured that the service owners could easily raise tickets and that they were responded to promptly. Because being kept up to date is key, isn’t it?

Key parts of the Covid-19 Inquiry site are its search and document/report handling capabilities and since taking on this project and its support and enhancements, these have been improved significantly. These enhancements have covered both performance and functionality, from an end-user and site administration perspective and were funded above and beyond the support and maintenance budget via CCNs and SoW. 

The Results

The UK Covid-19 Inquiry site is a high profile one, and has certainly received a significant amount of press coverage. With moments like Dominic Cummings giving evidence and discussions around the usage of WhatsApp messages within government, it’s been quite the journey. The site has been resilient throughout our support of it, which is particularly important given the legal requirements around the documents being kept available to the public.

The day the inquiry published its first report and recommendations, following its investigation into the UK's 'Resilience and preparedness (Module 1)' on Thursday 18 July 2024, was perhaps the most important day for the site so far. And you know what? The site performed faultlessly throughout. 

Our continual improvements programme of work has been an especially successful part of this project. We’ve been running this in an agile manner, working closely with service owners, prioritising work items and getting them scoped, designed, built and rolled-out to production. We’ve made sure the site is constantly evolving and meeting the needs of its users.