Corporate report

The UK Government Resilience Action Plan: 2026 Implementation Report (HTML)

Published 14 July 2026

Foreword from the Security Minister

The last year has brought with it a more complex, novel and interconnected set of risks faced by the UK than ever before. In the short time since the publication of the Resilience Action Plan last July, we have experienced new conflict in the Middle East, a growing number of sub-threshold attacks from Russia, the unprecedented growth of new technology, several major cyber attacks, and increasingly severe weather. This has involved numerous cross-government responses to address these challenges, and will continue to do so as the world we live in becomes more dangerous and contested. 

Against this set of risks, our national security is more important than ever. We must continue to strengthen our economy, the resilience of our public services and infrastructure and the preparedness of individuals across the UK so that we can adapt to and absorb these threats as they evolve. This is exactly the approach the Resilience Action Plan sets out, taking action to ensure that we are prepared for all hazards. One year on from the publication of the Action Plan, we have already delivered on a range of commitments across government, and will continue this momentum into the second year of delivery to both build on these achievements and meet new goals.

We have a robust and agile approach to risk assessment, dynamically updating our range of risk products. We have published a refreshed National Risk Register to reflect these changes in the risk landscape, accompanied by new guidance to enable wider audiences and ensure that we are able to prepare across society.

Our risk assessment highlights not only the volatility of our current geopolitical landscape and the risk that this poses for citizens through the conflict in the Middle East, but also the dependency of our economic security on global supply chains. To counter these risks, we are accelerating our Home Defence Programme, adding a layer of defence, security, and resilience planning, to unite military and civilian efforts. Alongside this, as set out in the Strategic Defence Review, we will lead a national conversation with the public about the risks that we face to the homeland. In the Resilience Action Plan, we reinforced just how important it is that households across the UK are empowered to take the steps they need to strengthen their own resilience. We are now working in partnership with devolved and local governments, Local Resilience Forums, utilities providers, businesses, civil society organisations and other partners to design and deliver a national resilience public engagement campaign, anchored in GOV.UK/Prepare, launching later this year.

The actions that individuals, households, communities and businesses can take to strengthen their own preparedness is vital. We have taken decisive action to support businesses and the private sector in this endeavour, publishing a Transport Resilience Strategy and launching a Supply Chains Centre to protect public services and ensure that they are equipped for sustained growth.

The public sector resilience system forms the bedrock of our ability to respond to emergencies. Recognising the importance of hearing every voice, we have launched a call for views on the upcoming review of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, which provides a national framework for crisis response. 

The operational success of the resilience system relies on numerous front-line responders across the country, whose tireless efforts continued to keep the country safe during storms Chandra, Goretti and Ingrid. To continue to drive this strategic leadership, we have introduced five Chief Resilience Officers as part of the Stronger LRF Trailblazer programme.

In an increasingly complex world, no government can prevent every crisis. But together, we can ensure we are ready for them. When preparation becomes part of our culture, shared by every household, every business, and every emergency responder, the UK becomes unbreakable. We have built the plan, we will maintain this momentum and build a stronger, safer, and more resilient nation.

Introduction

1. The government’s first responsibility is to keep the country safe. Accordingly, domestic resilience is a fundamental element of our National Security Strategy. The risks that the UK faces are increasingly volatile, diverse and interconnected, ranging from non-malicious risks such as accidents or natural hazards to malicious threats from actors who seek to do us harm. Increasingly, international order is changing and geopolitical instability is playing an even greater role than before. Ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East are exposing the lives of many in the UK to new threats and hazards, and involving multiple cross-government crisis responses. Against this set of risks, it is more important than ever to make resilience front and centre in the UK’s approach to national security - without security and resilience at home, we cannot deliver economic growth, protect essential public services, or improve the lives of British people.

2. This approach is set out in the Resilience Action Plan (RAP), published in July 2025, which sets out the UK government’s strategic vision for a stronger and more resilient UK, and the steps being taken to deliver this. It is delivering against three objectives in this Parliament to continuously assess UK resilience, enable whole of society resilience, and strengthen the resilience system. At its core is a focus on vulnerable people, assessing and planning for those who may be disproportionately impacted by the consequences of different types of emergencies.

3. Risks are not confined to borders or boundaries. There are significant aspects of resilience that are wholly the responsibility of the devolved governments. As set out in the RAP, the UK government is committed to working collaboratively with the governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to align policies and facilitate closer cooperation for the benefit of all our citizens.

4. For the UK government, responsibility for the overarching resilience system is led by the COBR Directorate, formed in 2025, which brought together the Resilience Directorate, focused on our long-term resilience and capacity to respond to threats, and the COBR Unit, leading short-term crisis management and response. The establishment of the COBR Directorate supports a pivot to practical delivery of improved resilience and crisis response. We have reset our strategy, foundations and action plan for resilience, including in response to the findings of inquiries and exercises, reaffirming the UK’s reputation as a global leader in crisis management.

5. The purpose of the COBR Directorate is to support the collective agreement of the government’s immediate preparation for, response to, and resilience against the most serious risks that the UK faces - domestic and international, malicious and non-malicious. The resilience landscape is extensive, and the UK’s system for identifying, preparing for, responding to and recovering from these risks is similarly complex and comprehensive. At its broadest, it comprises risk assessment and capabilities; enabling whole of society resilience, including essential services and critical national infrastructure (CNI), local responders, the voluntary, community and faith sector (VCFS), and the public; training, skills and standards; and biological security risks.

6. To provide a clear line of accountability, the UK operates a lead government department (LGD) model. LGDs that have a day-to-day responsibility for a specific issue or sector are tasked with leading the efforts to identify serious risks and guarantee that appropriate planning, response, and recovery arrangements are in place. This is an established way of working within the resilience system and ensures that those with the most relevant expertise, relationships and levers are leading the response, supported by other departments and organisations.

7. An important part of strengthening the way that we approach resilience is continuing to learn from past experience. The UK government is fully committed to this, and regularly reviews findings from previous emergencies, inquiries, national exercises and international best practice to drive continuous improvement in our strategic choices to build resilience. 

8. We have made significant improvements to our crisis response capabilities in line with recommendations made in the Covid-19 Inquiry. We have conducted the UK’s largest ever national pandemic exercise to test our pandemic preparedness, strengthened the Cabinet Office’s leadership role for whole-system emergencies and shared specific guidance to identify and address potential disproportionate impacts of emergencies on vulnerable people. We also recently outlined further improvements in our response to Module 2 of the Covid-19 Inquiry this March, and continue to engage with inquiries such as the recently launched review into the response to Storm Goretti, and the findings of the Grenfell Tower Phase 2 Inquiry, to ensure we are capturing the most relevant lessons. This is complemented by the Lessons Management Best Practice Guidance (2024), which informs, encourages and equips senior leaders, government departments and resilience professionals in the effective management of lessons; and the regularly published Lessons Digest, which synthesises and shares lessons learned from exercises and emergency responses.

9. Whilst the RAP takes an ‘all hazards’ approach to improve the general resilience to all risks, the UK government recognises the importance of biological security - a priority significantly underscored by the findings and subsequent learning from the Covid-19 pandemic. The 2023 Biological Security Strategy sets out the vision, mission and plans to ensure that by 2030 the UK is resilient to a spectrum of biological risks and a world leader in responsible innovation. To drive this forward, the UK government has published a new implementation report detailing our tangible progress, establishing our future commitments, and officially launching the new UK strategic approach to biosurveillance. 

10. Furthermore, to help mitigate risks to the British public and national security from international instability, the UK government has introduced its Home Defence Programme. This programme adds a layer of defence, security, and resilience planning, focused on alignment between military and civilian effort in a period of international hostilities affecting the UK. It enhances the nation’s ability to deter, respond to, and recover from disruption from crisis and conflict through closer integration across government, industry, and society, embedding resilience and a Whole of Society approach.

11. By embedding resilience into our foundations, these changes ensure that the UK is prepared as it can be for future crises. Together, the sum of these individual actions is larger than its parts, forming a vital component of a wider ecosystem that enables the UK to effectively absorb and respond to future shocks, whatever form they may take.

Risk Landscape

Risk Assessment 

12. The UK faces a volatile, diverse and interconnected risk landscape, driven by geopolitical instability and rapid technological change. As emphasised in the 2025 National Security Strategy, these risks may be non-malicious, such as accidents or natural hazards, or they may be malicious threats from malign actors who seek to do us harm. The UK government assesses the most serious risks to the country and overseas interests through the classified National Security Risk Assessment (NSRA). The National Risk Register (NRR), refreshed today alongside this implementation report, is the public-facing version of the NSRA.

13. Risks are identified for inclusion by consulting a range of experts from across the UK and devolved governments, the scientific community, independent experts and practitioners. Each risk is owned by an LGD, responsible for applying a rigorous, established methodology to assess the potential impact and likelihood of the risk occurring within the next two to five years. To ensure that the process is robust, risks are also reviewed by panels of technical and scientific experts, each led by an independent chairperson.

14. To prepare the UK for a broad range of scenarios, the NRR and NSRA set out a reasonable worst‐case scenario for each risk, produced in consultation with experts and data collected from a wide range of sources. These represent the worst plausible manifestation of that particular risk, to inform planning and preparedness. 

15. The UK government uses the NSRA to develop plans to manage the most severe risks to the UK, including flooding, pandemics, terror attacks, and armed conflict. The most significant risk to materialise in the UK in recent years has been the Covid-19 pandemic. The reasonable worst case scenario for this had been based on influenza, however, since the Covid-19 pandemic lessons have been learned to strengthen our approach to include all five routes of transmission. 

Looking Back - Risks in 2025/26

16. Against the backdrop of the NSRA assessments, COBR Directorate continuously monitors the risk landscape and identifies risks to prioritise preparations for. This includes policy and operational interventions to mitigate/prevent risks, developing contingency plans for responding to them and coordinating LGDs as needed.

17. Over the last year, the government has responded to a number incidents through cross-government response structures supported by COBR including:

a. consistent above-average temperatures and dry conditions saw much of the UK under drought status, and heatwave conditions met in parts of central and eastern England in summer 2025 - COBR stood up the Severe Weather Resilience Network in response to periods of heat in June, July and August

b. the Manchester Synagogue Attack in October 2025

c. storms Chandra, Goretti and Ingrid caused severe disruptions and widespread utility failures in January 2026. The Cabinet Office also issued two emergency alerts to approximately 500,000 people across the Isle of Scilly and Cornwall on Thursday 8 January

d. extensive cross-government collaboration on the ongoing Middle East conflict. Response structures have supported both the direct operational response to the crisis whilst also considering the longer term domestic impacts caused by complex geopolitical threats

e. a Meningitis B outbreak, in Kent, which required a coordinated, multi-departmental public health response, including the rapid roll-out of immunisation and antibiotic distribution sessions at the local level, and the development of a one-off vaccination campaign to reduce further spread

f. the Golders Green Terror Attack

g. the MV Hondius Hantavirus outbreak in May 2026 required an extensive international and domestic response to safely evacuate over 20 British nationals back to the UK

h. record-breaking temperatures in June 2026, requiring the issuing of a RED heat weather warning, with temperatures reaching a maximum of 37.3oC in Suffolk

Snapshot of Risks in 2026 and Beyond

18. The UK government’s ability to build resilience and respond to challenges relies on our ability to continuously monitor emerging risks, and to integrate this alongside a timely and accurate assessment of the risks the UK faces in the longer term.

19. As we transition into summer we need to continue our focus on those risks which are heightened during the summer months such as heatwaves, wildfires, drought, certain animal diseases and the hurricane risk in the Atlantic. 

20. There is now high confidence that El Niño conditions will develop later in the year. Previous occurrences have increased the likelihood of mild, wet and windy weather in early winter, and drier, colder conditions in late winter in the UK. El Niño is just one of a number of climate drivers that can influence weather patterns in the UK, and any potential impacts will depend on how these drivers combine. We continue to assess this risk throughout the year as the forecasts evolve.

21. On energy security, global geopolitical instability, particularly the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, is driving uncertainty and volatility in crude oil, refined fuel and gas prices. Both the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and damage to energy infrastructure in the Middle East will result in ongoing higher energy costs which in turn are affecting the price of other critical goods produced by energy-intensive processes.

Longer Term Challenges Facing the United Kingdom

22. The risk landscape is ever-changing and shifting. Globally, this is a highly volatile period with complex international and domestic risks that threaten economic stability and national resilience. The threat to our UK supply chains remains high given the continued uncertainties of the geopolitical landscape. The UK possesses a smaller absolute economic size than major global peers and isn’t as deeply plugged into physical goods supply chains, leaving it vulnerable to geoeconomic shocks.

23. The UK’s security environment is evolving rapidly. Threats are increasing in frequency and becoming deeply interconnected, blurring the lines between domestic and international, online and offline, and states and their proxies. These threats increase the risk of escalation where the potential for miscalculation could be high. The government’s Home Defence Programme aims to ensure that the UK is equipped to deter these threats by strengthening national resilience and readiness through a coordinated, whole of government and whole of society approach. Building readiness is a shared national effort, through communities and industry in line with the national conversation about resilience and preparedness.

24. The rapid growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and new technology brings great opportunities as well as large, overlapping risks to the UK’s economy, jobs, and social trust. Digital threats are growing rapidly; serious cyberattacks on business supply chains are rising sharply, while highly realistic AI ‘deepfakes’ spread fake news faster than ever, threatening to divide communities and lower trust in public institutions. We continue to explore the challenges these evolving risks could present, building our resilience to ensure we remain ahead of the curve.

25. Published alongside the RAP in July 2025, the Chronic Risks Analysis (CRA) expands on the above challenges, identifying medium-to‐long‐term threats that gradually undermine our economy, security, and way of life. The CRA provides a comprehensive view of the nation’s evolving strategic risk profile, and, when used alongside the NSRA and NRR, allows government and practitioners to plan for both immediate crises and the underlying trends that shape future risks.

Implementation Report

26. The RAP sets out the UK government’s strategic vision for a stronger and more resilient UK and the steps being taken to deliver this. This action plan articulates an ‘all hazards approach’ to build resilience across the increasingly volatile and varied risks we face. It sets out how the UK government is taking action to build our national resilience and how it will support the whole of society to build their own resilience.

27. The RAP is delivering against three objectives in this Parliament to:

a. continuously assess how resilient the UK is to target interventions and resources effectively

b. enable the whole of society to take action to increase their resilience

c. strengthen the core public sector resilience system

28. Recent emergencies have shown us that risks often disproportionately impact people with pre-existing vulnerabilities. To tackle this, assessing and planning for people who are vulnerable in different types of emergencies is core to our action plan. Vulnerability is not static; an individual may already be, or become, vulnerable during a prolonged power outage, but not during another type of emergency. Therefore, our strategy has focused on a range of improvements, including the dynamic assessment of hazard-specific vulnerabilities, considering approaches to strengthen partnership working with the VCFS, and supporting local resilience structures to improve how statutory responders support their communities.

29. Since the publication of the RAP, the UK government has already delivered a number of key milestones, including through:

a. reinforcing whole of society resilience through an updated National Risk Register alongside this implementation report, to reflect the latest developments in the risk landscape

b. announcing our Home Defence Programme, including the revitalisation of the UK government ‘War Books’, accelerated departmental planning, and intention to deliver a national exercise on Home Defence

c. publishing a Government Cyber Action Plan to outline specific measures for boosting our resilience and capitalising on the significant growth prospects within the cyber sector

d. rebuilding our readiness for future pandemics through a new Pandemic Preparedness Strategy, taking a whole of government and whole of society approach to prioritising the needs of the most disproportionately impacted groups

e. launching a new Supply Chain Centre in the Department for Business and Trade which will ensure that the UK has a secure supply of the inputs it needs and that businesses are equipped for sustained growth

30. To build upon this foundational progress and ensure the UK resilience system is evolving at the pace of the risk landscape, the UK government will:

a. publish new advice for households on preparing for disruption and emergencies, focusing on simple steps people can take to improve their resilience and supported by a multi-year campaign that reaches at-risk audiences and includes resources for schools and colleges

b. deliver an Energy Resilience Strategy in 2026 setting out the government’s strategic priorities for a secure and resilient energy system, working across the whole of society to deliver them

c. publish a Transport Resilience Strategy in 2026, setting out plans to strengthen the transport sector to current and future risks and outlining objectives to strengthen leadership, encourage more collaboration between transport operators and wider stakeholders, and ensure that resilience is a clear focus in future transport planning

d. publish a National Cyber Action Plan aiming to set out actions to understand and counter cyber threats, strengthen our resilience and harness cyber’s enormous growth opportunities.

31. The four UK nations share a common goal of protecting citizens from crises, with resilience covering both reserved and devolved matters. The RAP primarily focuses on actions for England, UK government departments and in areas where responsibilities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are reserved to the UK government. While devolved governments are responsible for significant aspects, the UK government will work in partnership to align policy and enhance cooperation. The UK government collaborates through a Four Nations Ministerial group to align resilience issues, also meeting outside of the forum to discuss the impacts of the Middle East conflict. 

32. Resilience arrangements differ across the four nations, and include a combination of devolved and reserved responsibilities:

a. Scottish Government is committed to continually improving resilience through whole-system preparedness, which includes developing a Scotland-specific risk assessment and coordinating cross-policy efforts via a Crisis Preparation Oversight Programme, and promoting societal resilience through resources like the Ready Scotland website. 

b. Welsh Government’s bespoke, classified risk register underpins improved risk management, as well as informing government policy and helps to set strategic priorities for resilience work both at the pan-Wales and local level. Developed with Wales’s four Local Resilience Fora (LRFs), it ensures the risks identified in the UK government’s NSRA are adapted to accurately reflect the specific risk context of Wales. 

c. Northern Ireland Executive Office co-ordinates via the Northern Ireland Civil Contingencies Framework: Building Resilience Together, which sets out the arrangements for effective emergency management by identifying the processes involved and structures required in preparing for, responding to and recovering from an emergency. The framework is currently undergoing a comprehensive review to ensure that the prepare, respond and recovery arrangements remain accurate, reflect recent learning and adhere to the core principles of collaboration, co-ordination and transparency. To complement this, The Executive Office will launch a ‘Be Ready NI’ campaign during the summer.

Objective 1 - Assess how resilient the UK is to target interventions and resources

33. As the UK risk landscape continuously evolves, often rapidly and driven by geopolitical instability and technological change, we must continuously assess our risks, vulnerabilities and capability to respond. Having a robust and dynamic understanding of these, informs how the UK government should prioritise and target interventions, enabling the continuous improvement of our approach and capabilities. 

34. The UK government has majorly transformed this area since the Covid-19 pandemic, utilising the breadth of the UK’s scientific and technical expertise to better understand our vulnerabilities to risks. By applying this knowledge to target interventions, we aim to reduce the burden of emergencies on the UK public and target spend-to-save investments to shield the economy. 

35. While the RAP set out our significant strengths in this area, we are committed to continuous improvement and have therefore:

a. published the NRR to reflect the latest developments in the risk landscape, including on digital resilience failure, national disruption to data infrastructure, disruption to the operation of the Criminal Justice System, accidental damage to the National Gas Transmission Network, interference in UK democratic process and cyber attacks on CNI. Further information has also been included on the common consequences of risks and on response capabilities. Additional detail is provided on the government’s understanding of the disproportionate impacts of emergencies on people, embedding learning from the guidance issued to LGDs on the impacts of crises on vulnerable people.

b. committed to convene a series of independent panels to scrutinise preparedness for UK whole-system risks. The Cabinet Office has developed an independent assurance programme, covering the highest impact whole-of-system crises, drawing on technical experts from across sectors outside government to ensure impartial, credible assurance of government’s plans and preparedness for whole-system risks, as well as setting out key recommendations to improve resilience against these risks. In December 2025, the Cabinet Office, working with the UK Resilience Academy (UKRA), delivered a pilot to help us further refine and strengthen our independent assurance processes ahead of launching the full programme. Lessons learnt from this will inform planning for future whole-system risks, as set out in the NSRA. 

c. published the annual implementation report for the Biological Security Strategy. The UK government has made progress across all 15 outcomes and 3 strategic enablers of the BSS and is on track to delivering all medium-term commitments by 2028. In this implementation report we have also set out the UK’s strategic approach to biosurveillance; It sets out key enablers for the most effective biosurveillance system – innovation, collaboration, and data sharing – and the actions we need to take to achieve it. 

Key progress over the period July 2025 - June 2026 on ‘continuously assessing how resilient the UK is, to target interventions and resources’

Subject	Details
Assessing risk	- NSRA: We continue to update risks in the NSRA on a rolling basis to ensure that it represents an up to date picture of the most significant risks facing the UK. Updated risks receive scrutiny and external challenge from our expert advisory programme. In November 2025, updated guidance was issued to LGDs on how to assess the impacts of crises on vulnerable people. The government is currently reviewing the methodology of the NSRA, to embed vulnerable people guidance, ensure analytical robustness and consider multiple risk-scenarios. Lessons identified through the methodology review will be implemented from 2027.  - Risk Vulnerability Tool (RVT): The RVT has been developed to estimate the number of people who are disproportionately impacted by select NSRA risks. The RVT was reviewed by the Vulnerable People Expert Group as part of the NSRA expert challenge panels and tested during the latest national pandemic exercise. - Global Ecosystems Assessment: The UK government has published the Nature Security Assessment on global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security. This cross-government strategic assessment was jointly informed by scientific evidence, structured expert judgement and national security analysis to identify credible risks to UK resilience from global biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. Since publication, the UK government has moved to capability-building, including commissioning a three-year Nature Security Research & Development Programme focused on indicators, early warning systems and improved understanding of how ecosystem degradation can translate into risks for UK security, resilience and prosperity.
Assuring our resilience system	- National Capabilities Assessment: For the first time, the UK government established a dedicated function to red-team the 2026 National Capabilities Assessment supported by the Government Office for Science. The National Capabilities Assessment is an internal assessment on government preparedness against the reasonable worst case scenarios set out in the National Resilience Planning Assumptions (NRPA). Following comprehensive sessions across all 23 response capabilities, the UK government is now actively addressing the systemic findings to strengthen and mature the nation’s emergency preparedness.  - Local Capabilities Assessment: Ministers previously agreed that the UK government should undertake a local capabilities assessment (LCA), to understand the preparedness of LRFs in the context of emergency response capabilities. The assessment commenced with a pilot in September 2024 assessing the following capabilities; Evacuation and Shelter, Community Resilience and Local Coordination. Throughout 2025 and 2026, Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government have conducted three further tranches of the LCA, covering Animal Disease, Fuel Disruption, Disruption to Transport, Gas and Electricity, Counter Terrorsim, Chemical, Biological and Radiological (CBR), Cyber, Telecoms, Disruption to Water Supply, Excess Deaths and Flood Response Capabilities. The insights have supported departments in identifying gaps between local and national level planning, identifying further areas for development, whilst also providing rich data regarding the state of UK preparedness. - LRF Peer Review: The UK government committed to developing and testing a peer review protocol for LRFs in response to Grenfell Inquiry Recommendation 47. The new peer review model will form a core aspect of the wider assurance framework. This aims to create a robust system for peer review that drives continuous improvement, helps identify strengths and areas for development, and offers valuable insights for both government and local partnerships. The UK government ran pilots in spring 2026, with full launch by autumn 2026.
Developing a comprehensive assessment of the UK’s resilience	- CNI Cyber Resilience Index: The CNI Cyber Resilience Index (CRI) will build on existing measures of cyber resilience to provide a more effective, holistic overview of cyber resilience for UK CNI to target resilience building efforts. It will allow us to monitor progress of interventions against cyber resilience across the CNI landscape, ensuring they keep pace with the evolving threat. The Cabinet Office is working closely with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and CNI LGDs to progress the CRI, and will be running a pilot scheme in 2026 to test policy options.

Objective 2 - Enable the whole of society to take action to increase their resilience

36. Improving domestic resilience is fundamental to UK national security, making the country a significantly harder target. A core aspect of this strategy is that resilience to crises cannot be managed by the government alone. When something goes wrong globally, disruption may reach our daily lives and the solutions to these challenges can be complex. While action by the UK government and public sector will always be vital, some of the most meaningful mitigations may be taken outwith government. It is essential that individuals, households, businesses, CNI sectors and the VCFS have the tools and information to strengthen their own resilience. 

37. In order for the whole of society to drive forward their own resilience, a profound cultural and behavioural change is required. This must be informed by robust social and behavioural science evidence.

38. Achieving a cultural shift towards proactive resilience, requires the whole of society to be empowered with the necessary information to make well-informed decisions before and during emergencies. To support this, the UK government has:

a. delivered the largest national exercise of a pandemic scenario in UK history, Exercise PEGASUS. Across three ‘core’ exercise days, PEGASUS brought together UK government departments, the devolved governments, arm’s-length bodies and LRFs, whilst also engaging with businesses, VCFS organisations, as well as academics and other external stakeholders. The initial findings informed the Pandemic Preparedness Strategy, published in March 2026, and a post-exercise report is aimed to be delivered in winter 2026. The Pandemic Preparedness Strategy outlines how the UK government will improve the UK’s pandemic preparedness capabilities between now and 2030, reinforcing the commitments made in the UK Biological Security Strategy. To strengthen whole of society preparedness, this strategic approach prioritises cross-government coordination through joint planning, integrated response frameworks, and clear governance structures. The goal is to ensure that we are positioned to take rapid, unified action to protect all communities and minimise disruption to people’s lives.

39. To further reinforce whole of society resilience, the UK government will:

a. launch new advice for households on preparing for disruption and emergencies, focusing on simple steps people can take to improve their resilience and supported by a multi-year campaign later this year, developed in collaboration with civil society organisations to reach at-risk audiences and includes resources for schools, colleges, and children and young people.

b. deliver an Energy Resilience Strategy in 2026 setting out the government’s strategic priorities for a secure and resilient energy system, now and in the future, and how we will work with industry, the regulator and wider society to deliver them. The strategy will also set out how the energy sector will support the resilience commitments in the RAP.

c. engage the public and private sectors through outreach events across the UK, explaining current threats and future trends through the National Conversation, highlighting the role wider society must play in the UK’s security and resilience, and the rationale for investing more in defence and security to strengthen resilience, reinforce deterrence and enable effective policy.

Key progress over the period July 2025 - June 2026 on ‘enabling the whole of society to take action to increase their resilience’

Subject	Details
Asking and supporting the public to take action	- Public Risk Preparedness Survey: The first annual UK Public Survey of Risk Perception, Resilience and Preparedness was published in July 2025. The findings of the second survey are due to be published in summer 2026. - Public Preparedness Information: The UK government continues to update GOV.UK/Prepare with the most recent preparedness information and advice. The Prepare website will be further updated in line with the launch of the new public campaign.
Better integrating the offer from voluntary, community and faith services	- Public Consultation on strengthening partnership working with the VCFS during emergencies: The UK government launched a consultation in July 2025 to explore the impacts of an enhanced statutory duty on Category 1 responders to “establish and maintain” partnerships with the VCFS. The government response was published in December 2025, and committed to undertake further analysis of the data collected and consider alternative non-statutory options to strengthen partnership working. - VCFS Skills and Support Guidance: guidance has been developed by the VCFS (PDF, 657KB) in collaboration with the UK government, to support government departments to work more closely with VCFS organisations in emergencies. - Civil Society Resilience Infrastructure Fund: The Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) are awarding a funding package of up to £2.5 million to support civil society infrastructure in England, aligning with the whole of society Resilience Action Plan commitments, and the 2025 Civil Society Covenant. This funding will be delivered by the selected organisation between October 2026 and March 2029.  - VCFS Guidance: DCMS are developing a Civil Society Response Protocol, to set expectations on how departments should work with the VCFS in emergencies, with input from the Ministry of Housing, Community and Local Government. This will be published in summer 2026.
Providing the right tools to the private sector on resilience	- Economic Security Advisory Service (ESAS): Based in DBT, ESAS will work with organisations focused on economic security, including the National Protective Security Authority, the NCSC, the Supply Chains Centre and the Geopolitical Impact Unit in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). ESAS will provide businesses with accessible guidance on identifying, understanding, and mitigating economic security risks; such as investment in new markets; protecting intellectual property; or building resilient supply chains. ESAS is piloting sector-specific support to the 8 Industrial Strategy priority sectors. - Critical Minerals Strategy: The strategy sets the UK’s long-term ambition for securing the critical minerals needed to power the Industrial Strategy’s growth sectors. For the first time, the strategy sets out ambitious success features to build domestic resilience and diversify global supply chains: meeting 10% of UK demand from domestic production, 20% from recycling and no more than 60% of any critical mineral from a single country. We will achieve this vision by harnessing our competitive advantage in recycling and innovative midstream processing, leveraging the UK’s distinct pockets of mineral wealth and deep mining history, and working with international partners to build more resilient global supply chains. - Energy Sector Cyber Security Strategy (ESCSS): In June 2026, the UK government published the ESCSS. A joint partnership between the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), Ofgem, National Energy System Operator (NESO) and the NCSC – the strategy sets out an ambitious four-year roadmap on how government intends to work alongside industry to strengthen understanding of cyber threats to the energy sector, enhance resilience to those threats, and improve preparedness, response, and recovery from cyber incidents. - North Hyde Implementation Plan: In November 2025, government published its response to NESO’s report on the North Hyde Substation outage, setting out clear actions to improve GB resilience. Several of these actions will help improve power resilience across sectors, supporting both energy and other critical infrastructure in preparedness and response efforts. The Energy Resilience Strategy will build on these actions by setting out clear, long-term policy ambitions to further strengthen resilience across the energy system and its interdependencies with wider critical sectors.
Training, exercising and governance to bring together organisations across society	- UK Resilience Academy (UKRA): The UKRA continues to expand its resilience training and education offer across multiple sectors and levels of society, including the devolved governments, the public, the private sector and the VCFS. The UKRA have developed new career pathways to ensure high-quality, inclusive training and education.  - Crisis Management Excellence Programme (CMEP): The Cabinet Office has now run CMEP since 2023, training over 4,500 civil servants, including over 155 Permanent Secretaries and Directors General, and UK government ministers from across multiple departments. - UK Resilience Forum: The UK government will hold the inaugural meeting of this strategic resilience forum in autumn 2026. This will include stakeholders from across the whole of society, including the UK government, the local tier, the VCFS, CNI and businesses. - Four Nations Ministerial Group: The UK government convened the first session of this intergovernmental forum to facilitate closer cooperation between the four nations, ensuring that strategic resilience priorities are aligned and delivered effectively across the whole of the UK.

Objective 3 - Strengthen the public sector resilience system

40. The UK’s public sector resilience system relies on numerous front-line individuals and organisations across the country for crisis management, these are often the first on the scene when a crisis occurs. The operational success of the resilience system is borne by the tireless commitment of these responders, who continuously step into the most challenging moments to protect their communities. This is underpinned by a model of subsidiarity, which delegates the responsibility and oversight for risk response to the lowest appropriate level, ensuring it sits with those who possess the best understanding, networks, and capabilities to act.

41. These organisations and individuals must function as a cohesive system to maximise their impact. This requires each to have clear roles and responsibilities, be well-connected across local, regional and national resilience networks, and be equipped with the necessary tools, training and technology to respond effectively. Ultimately, building this robust, interconnected resilience network does more than just protect communities, it forms the foundations of national security, ensuring security to external shocks or threats.

42. In order to strengthen the public sector resilience system, the UK government has:

a. committed to deliver a national home defence exercise in 2027, involving participation from local responders up to ministers, as part of the government’s Home Defence Programme. It is expected to involve hundreds of officials, including Crisis Operations teams, Home Defence and Resilience planning teams from across government. Home Defence is the additional layer of defence, security and resilience planning, focused on alignment between military and civilian effort in a period of international hostilities affecting the UK. As part of this programme, the UK government will accelerate departmental planning and oversee work across government to update central crisis protocols, traditionally known as ‘War Books’, to set out how departments would respond to conflict and threats against the UK mainland. 

b. introduced five Chief Resilience Officers, as part of the Stronger LRF Trailblazers programme, providing dedicated strategic leadership, with recruitment to the final post underway. Alongside this, Trailblazer areas have established structures bringing elected leaders more clearly into the resilience system. strengthening oversight and setting strategic direction. These approaches are already benefiting participating areas and generating practical learning for wider adoption across England.

c. committed to launch a Transport Resilience Strategy in 2026, aiming to set out a clear, coordinated, UK-wide approach to strengthening resilience at every stage: from assessing risks, to preparing for, responding to, and recovering from disruption. It will include commitments to strengthen training, improve collaboration across the transport sector and deliver more integrated planning and preparatory activity to improve resilience.

Key progress over the period July 2025 - June 2026 on ‘strengthening the public sector resilience system’

Subject	Details
Clarity of roles and responsibilities in the public sector resilience system	- LGD Expectations: A refreshed set of LGD expectations will be published in autumn 2026. This will provide further guidance on how LGDs are expected to discharge their national resilience responsibilities, and provide further detail on the roles of other government departments and the Cabinet Office in supporting them. - Standards: The UKRA is leading on the revision and expansion of National Occupational Standards. These have had a demonstrable multi-sector impact at a local level, including case studies from Newcastle City Council, Northumbria LRF, and an NHS Trust. The second consultation on the National Occupational Standards closed in May and four new standards will be published in July 2026. The UK government is updating the National Resilience Standards for LRFs, to be published in autumn 2026. - Civil Contingencies Act (CCA): The CCA is the legislative framework for national emergency preparedness, outlining the roles and responsibilities of local responders and provides emergency powers to make emergency regulations in the most serious emergencies. As part of the CCA Post-Implementation Review - due to report in March 2027 - the UK government has launched a public ‘call for views’ to gather evidence from the resilience community. This will be followed by targeted engagement in the autumn to help identify targeted changes to strengthen the legislative framework.  - Strategic Authorities and Mayors: The UK government has committed to formalising the role of Strategic Authorities and Mayors in the resilience system, recognising the visible leadership, public assurance and challenge they can provide on preparedness and recovery, alongside the statutory responsibilities and operational expertise of local authorities, emergency services and LRFs. We are working with Strategic Authority officials and will use the CCA Post-Implementation Review to help shape this role, including consideration of responder status.
Better connecting the public sector resilience system	- Risk and Insights Navigator (RaIN): RaIN is a digital platform that provides information contained within the NSRA in a digital format, making it easier to engage with and identify the impacts of concurrent risks. The RaIN platform’s functional and stability testing phase is nearing completion, with first cross-government users scheduled to begin onboarding in July. - Joint Emergency Service Interoperability Principles (JESIP): JESIP has relaunched the Joint Organisational Learning (JOL) platform on ResilienceDirect, providing a single, streamlined, and user-friendly system for capturing and sharing multi-agency learning. The upgraded system brings together lessons, notable practice and Action Notes, strengthens governance and quality assurance, and supports Category 1 and 2 responders and partners to better share and implement operational learning across the UK. - Accessible Resilience Guidance: To make the government’s resilience guidance more accessible for practitioners, we have launched a new GOV.UK page to collate all relevant guidance, aiming to make the information simpler to find and use. This page includes a collection of the legislation, policy, and supporting guidance which underpin the UK’s approach to resilience. It provides an easy-to-navigate source of key information to help resilience practitioners fulfil their roles effectively.
Improving the quality of work in the public sector resilience system	- Resilient Voice System (RVS): The UK government is upgrading our resilient telecommunications capabilities, covering a total of 47 sites. We anticipate a further 5 sites to be uplifted including in the devolved governments by the end of FY 26/27. - Stronger LRF Trailblazer Programme: This Stronger LRF Trailblazers programme will help embed best practice in resilience whilst being tailored to the priorities and needs of local areas. MHCLG is investing in the programme in Northumbria, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Suffolk and London, initially launched in April 2025 with a further £3.5m of funding for 2026/27. Through this the UK government will strengthen strategic leadership for multi-agency resilience activity, support clear democratic accountability to elected local leaders, and ensure resilience is fully integrated into wider local policy making and service delivery. - Floods Resilience Taskforce: Established in September 2024, the taskforce has met seven times during this reporting period and continues to meet regularly to strengthen connections across our resilience system. It brings together whole of society representatives from national, regional, local, and devolved governments, alongside the emergency services - including the National Fire Chiefs Council and the Fire Brigades Union as standing members. LRFs are also represented on a rotating basis, providing vital regional perspectives, including those from Fire and Rescue Services.