Policy paper

2010 to 2015 government policy: emergency response planning

Updated 8 May 2015

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

This is a copy of a document that stated a policy of the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government. The previous URL of this page was https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/improving-the-uks-ability-to-absorb-respond-to-and-recover-from-emergencies Current policies can be found at the GOV.UK policies list.

Issue

The government works with devolved administrations, emergency responders and other organisations to enhance the UK’s ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies.

Throughout the UK, we need to be ready and able to deal with potential emergencies and disruptive events; these can range from natural disasters like flooding or heavy snow to deliberate acts or attacks. Crises can happen suddenly (for example, a chemical plant explosion) or develop gradually (for example, a ‘flu epidemic or widespread industrial action).

Actions

Our work is based on 4 main actions:

• risk assessment
• preparation and planning
• response and recovery
• building a resilient society to ensure businesses and communities are better prepared for, and able to recover from, emergencies

Risk assessment

We aim to identify and assess risks. This involves assessing the likelihood and impact of particular events or situations which might threaten serious damage to human welfare, the environment or security of the UK.

We consider situations that might be important enough to be likely to disrupt the work of emergency responders, or which would require a special mobilisation of emergency response resources.

We do this by:

• working with scientists, statisticians and technicians to identify and assess major risks that affect the health, welfare, environment, or security of the nation
• sharing information with all organisations responsible for managing these risks nationally and locally, for example Local Resilience Forums, police forces, Ambulance Trusts etc, through the National Risk Assessment and supporting guidance

Preparation and planning

We make sure arrangements are in place at all levels of government to respond to civil emergencies.

We do this by:

• working in partnership with central and local government, devolved administrations, emergency responders, the private and voluntary sectors, and the EU and NATO
• making sure that, in advance of any emergency, agreed plans and resources are in place and ready for the response to any major emergency
• overseeing a programme of training, regular exercises and testing to ensure response plans are properly understood and will work in the event of an emergency

Response and recovery

We make sure that central government is ready to respond to emergencies and provide any support required by local emergency responders.

We do this by:

• working with other government departments and local emergency responders to put in place arrangements to address and respond to an emergency situation
• coordinating a central government response through the dedicated central government crisis management facilities at the Cabinet Office Briefing Room (COBR), where necessary
• providing guidance to deal with the immediate and longer-term effects of dealing with an emergency, including rebuilding, restoring and rehabilitating the community

Building a resilient society

We work to ensure society is better prepared for, and able to recover from, emergencies.

We do this by:

• working with organisations and individuals from across the UK, including local responders, business, the voluntary sector, communities and individuals to equip them with the necessary skills and knowledge to become better prepared for, more resilient to, and better placed to recover from emergencies
• providing opportunities to share news, ideas and good practice, publications and practical guides

Background

The government’s National Security Strategy sets out the objective of ensuring a secure and resilient UK: protecting our people, economy, infrastructure, territory and way of life from all major risks that can affect us directly.

The National Security Council is responsible for meeting this objective. It is chaired by the Prime Minister, and advised by the National Security Adviser.

The National Security Adviser is supported by a number of teams. The Civil Contingencies Secretariat (CCS) is responsible for work to improve the UK’s ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies. Its work concentrates on 4 main areas: risk assessment, preparation and planning, response and recovery, and building a resilient society.

Appendix 1: response and recovery

This was a supporting detail page of the main policy document.

Response

Local organisations are the main responders to an emergency and the government will not duplicate this role. In some instances, however, the scale or complexity of an emergency means that some degree of central government support or coordination is necessary.

A government department will be allocated as the lead for the overall management of the central government response. In more serious or complex cases this will be coordinated through the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms (COBR) and overseen by the National Security Council.

The Central Government Concept of Operations describes how the UK central government response will be organised, and the relationship between the central, sub-national and local arrangements in England, and the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Recovery

Recovery from the effects of an emergency can be a complex and long running process, which often costs more time and money than the response phase. The National Recovery Guidance provides a single point of reference for local responders dealing with the recovery from an emergency.

Appendix 2: building a resilient society

This was a supporting detail page of the main policy document.

Building a more resilient society will help ensure that we are better prepared for and able to recover from emergencies. This responsibility needs to be shared between central and local government and the emergency services, the private sector (particularly those providing essential services to the public), civil society and communities.

Our efforts to improve our ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies therefore go beyond those organisations with legal obligations in this area.

Community resilience

The government believes that individuals, community and voluntary sector groups and local businesses are better placed than government to understand and respond to the needs of the local community before, during and after an emergency.

Community resilience involves communities using local resources and knowledge to help themselves during an emergency in a way that complements the work of the local emergency services. To encourage community initiatives, government has supported the sharing of information about successful community activities in other areas and provided a range of public information tools.

Keeping the country running

The Infrastructure and Corporate Resilience Programme encourages public and private sector organisations of all sizes to build the resilience of their infrastructure, supply, and distribution systems to disruptions from all risks (hazards and threats).

The Keeping the Country Running: Natural Hazards and Infrastructure Guide gives advice to enable owners and operators of the UK’s infrastructure to improve the security and resilience of their assets, with support from relevant regulators.

Business continuity

‘Business continuity’ involves building resilience in a business, identifying its main products and services and the critical activities that are necessary to produce them, and devising strategies so that they can continue during a disruption and recover afterwards. The resilience of individual companies supports overall UK readiness to deal with emergencies. Businesses have a vital role to play in ensuring that communities can access everyday essentials during an emergency, and can help communities to recover after an emergency.

The government encourages all organisations to have a clear understanding of Business Continuity Management and has published the Business Continuity Guide for Dummies in association with the Business Continuity Institute and Emergency Planning Society.

The voluntary sector

Voluntary organisations play an important role locally and nationally in preparing for and responding to emergencies.

The Cabinet Office and the British Red Cross established the Voluntary Sector Civil Protection Forum in 2003. This includes representatives from the voluntary sector, central and local government, devolved administrations, statutory authorities and professional organisations.

The Voluntary Sector Civil Protection Forum helps voluntary organisations contribute to the UK’s resilience. It has helped to inform the development of national policy and increased local involvement and planning.

Appendix 3: risk assessment

This was a supporting detail page of the main policy document.

To protect our national security, we work to identify the most important risks to our security in order to monitor and address them. Our national security can be threatened by natural disasters, man-made accidents and by malicious attacks both by states and by non-state actors, such as terrorists and organised criminals.

The government monitors the most significant emergencies that the UK and its citizens could face in a number of ways.

Every 2 years, the National Security Risk Assessment looks ahead 20 years to assess and prioritise all major areas of known national security risk, both domestic and overseas. The assessment is used to inform the National Security Strategy.

To help us understand what emergencies we need to prepare for, the National Risk Assessment considers risks that may impact the UK over the next five years. This is a confidential assessment conducted annually, drawing on expertise from a wide range of departments and agencies of government and external experts. The National Risk Register is the public version of the National Risk Assessment.

The National Risk Register and National Risk Assessment are intended to capture the range of emergencies that would be of national concern and overwhelm local and sub-national resources. These events could result in significant harm to:

• human welfare in the UK (fatalities, casualties, damage to property, essential services and disruption to everyday life)
• the environment in the UK (contamination of air, land and/or water)
• and/or threaten our national security

The risks cover 3 broad categories: natural events, major accidents and malicious attacks.

As well as the national level risk assessments, local emergency response planners are required to produce a specific risk assessment that reflects the unique characteristics of each area.

The government provides guidance to emergency responders through their Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) on the likelihood and expected consequences of emergencies based on national assessments, along with guidance on how to locally interpret these.

Emergency responders also have a responsibility to maintain public Community Risk Registers, which are approved and published by Local Resilience Forums.

Further guidance is available on how risk assessment works.

Appendix 4: preparation and planning

This was a supporting detail page of the main policy document.

How emergency planning work is organised

In 2004, the Civil Contingencies Act was introduced. The Act and the regulations that support it provide a single framework for civil protection in the UK capable of meeting whatever challenges may face us.

The Act is separated into 2 parts:

• Part 1 covers local arrangements for civil protection, establishing roles and responsibilities for local responders (ie organisations at the core of emergency response, including the emergency services, local authorities, utilities companies)
• Part 2 covers emergency powers, establishing a modern framework for the use of special legislative measures that might be necessary to deal with the effects of the most serious emergencies

This legislation enables us to act on the lessons learned about the need to identify and prioritise risks and bring agencies together to coordinate emergency plans.

The government reviewed the legislation in 2012 to reflect lessons made in independent reviews of the response to national emergencies over the last 10 years, including:

• the Buncefield incident

• outbreaks of foot and mouth disease in 2001 and 2007

• the floods in 2007

• the 7/7 attacks

The main mechanism for local multi-agency cooperation is the Local Resilience Forum (LRF). LRFs are generally based on local police areas, and bring together all the organisations that have a duty to co-operate under the Civil Contingencies Act, along with others who would be involved in responding to an emergency.

Some co-operation and co-ordination takes place between organised groups of LRFs. In England, this brings together representatives of local response organisations, supported by resilience advisers from the Department for Communities and Local Government. These groups work together on larger-scale civil protection issues.

Similar arrangements are in place in the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

In London, emergency responders from all the boroughs work together to coordinate activity through a single London Resilience Forum which is supported by the London Resilience Team at the Greater London Authority. Further information can be found at http://www.london.gov.uk/priorities/london-prepared/home.

How we work to improve our preparedness – the National Resilience Capabilities Programme

Through the National Resilience Capabilities Programme (NRCP), we aim to make sure that the UK has the capabilities in place to deal rapidly, effectively and flexibly with the potentially wide-ranging consequences of civil emergencies identified by the National Risk Assessment.

The Civil Contingencies Secretariat works with government departments to identify, challenge and monitor the current levels of capability in their areas of responsibility.

The government also puts specific plans and capabilities in place to deal with the top priority risks that we face. The top 3 civil emergency risks are:

• terrorist attacks using unconventional materials
• major tidal or coastal flooding
• a severe influenza pandemic

Emergency Planning College

Training staff who are involved in emergency planning and response is fundamental to an organisation’s ability to handle any new type of emergency. Training raises the awareness of staff about what they may face in an emergency and ensures they have a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities and how they fit into the wider picture. Without training, staff will quickly become overwhelmed by an emergency, unable to handle its impacts and recover from them.

The Civil Contingencies Secretariat facilitates training for all those involved in planning for emergencies and disruptive challenges. The Emergency Planning College trains more than 6,000 people each year. Students come from a range of organisations in the public and private sectors, including, local, sub-national and central government, the emergency services, utilities, transport authorities and voluntary organisations.

The courses give attendees the opportunity to meet with people from different organisations who are partners in civil protection work. All daily operations at the college are carried out by SERCO, while Cabinet Office staff are responsible for assuring the quality of all training products.

Resilient communications

Access to reliable and resilient telecommunications is critical to emergency responders and people affected in an emergency. We provide advice on enhancing the resilience of telecommunications and information about additional resilient telecommunications capability, such as the High Integrity Telecommunications System (HITS), ResilienceDirect and the Mobile Telecoms Privileged Access Scheme (MTPAS).

Appendix 5: working internationally on emergencies

This was a supporting detail page of the main policy document.

To help the UK prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies, we work with international partners bilaterally and through intergovernmental organisations. We aim to facilitate mutual aid between countries in the event of a disaster, and share good practice to better prevent or mitigate the consequences.

EU Civil Protection Mechanism

The Civil Protection Mechanism (CPM) provides a legal framework for participating states to help each other and also other countries when disasters happen. Participating states include the 28 EU member states, Norway, Iceland and the Republic of Macedonia.

The CPM includes the Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC), formerly known as the Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC). The ERCC is a 24 hour, 7 days per week response centre within the EU Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (DG ECHO). The ERCC shares information about requests for assistance and responses.

The CPM also provides funding for research, projects, exercises and training. In some circumstances it can help get assistance to where it is needed.

EU civil protection funding opportunities

The European Commission issues annual calls for multinational proposals for large scale exercises and projects on prevention and preparedness. The calls are issued in February or March, with a deadline 2 to 3 months later. Once they have evaluated the proposals, the Commission normally announce the successful applications in September.

View the latest calls for proposals.

EU civil protection training courses

The EU funds training courses to prepare national experts working in small assessment or coordination teams to assist in disaster response. Find out more about training for experts.

EU Exchange of Experts Programme

The Exchange of Experts programme funds individuals or groups with expertise in particular areas of civil protection to visit another participating country. This supports the mutual exchange of knowledge, expertise and best practice.

NATO Civil Emergency Planning

NATO Civil Emergency Planning (NATO CEP) provides civilian expertise and capabilities to help Allies and Partners prepare for, and deal with, the consequences of emergencies.

NATO coordinates disaster relief efforts in member and partner countries through the Euro Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC).

UN Hyogo Framework for Action 2005 to 2015

The UK and over 100 other countries signed the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005 to 2015 (HFA) at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in January 2005. It commits those who signed to reduce vulnerability to natural hazards (floods, droughts, earthquakes, etc.).

The UK was the first country to be peer reviewed on how it implemented the HFA. Read the May 2013 UK peer review report.

Our work with the framework contributes to the UK’s ability to deal with disasters and to helping developing countries deal with humanitarian emergencies.