Fact-checking the Inquiry

The Lockdown Inquiry gave me the chance to delve in great detail into some extremely interesting reports written by people who have experienced the profound repercussions of a year of economic and social restrictions. My job was to check that all the numbers, facts and data quoted in their essays were accurate and referenced, to ensure that the subjective claims in the report have been backed up by objective evidence.

In many cases the authors provided references to the academic papers, books and websites from which they derived the information, and these were usually straightforward to check. But where no references were provided for factual claims, even for ones that seemed to be common knowledge or uncontroversial, I tracked down the information myself to make sure it was indeed valid.

Wherever possible, I tried to find the original source of information. So, for example, where an author referenced a newspaper article, I would check the academic paper it quoted and, where this turned out to be a secondary source, the paper it quoted in turn. When authors rounded up or down certain figures for clarity, I checked the data to make sure the significance of the numbers had not been distorted. In a few cases, I found different information to that provided by the author and raised this with the editorial team to follow up.

Camilla Zingari

Post-graduate student, University of Buckingham

As project coordinator for the Inquiry, my responsibilities included reviewing and acting upon Camilla’s comments on the essays as they came in. This might mean logging additional references or amending them when she found better ones. Where Camilla raised questions, or where neither of us could track down the source of a claim, I went back to the authors. Without exception they were generous with their time and very willing to both point me in the right direction for information and resolve points of confusion. It was only in a very few cases that we needed to amend the text of an essay, which is a testament to the knowledge of the authors and the seriousness with which they treated this exercise.

All the references were recorded as hyperlinks (for web) or text (for print), to allow the report’s readers to check its claims for themselves. I also hope the references, as a complement to the essays, will be of enduring value to future researchers and historians hoping to understand this extraordinary moment in human history.

Harley Richardson

Project coordinator, Academy of Ideas