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Chemical, Biological, Radiological or Nuclear (CBRN)

Defra: Strategic National Guidance - The decontamination of the open environment exposed to CBRN substances or material

2. Roles and responsibilities

2.1. Local authorities will play a lead role recovering from the effects of a chemical, biological or radiological terrorist incident⁽³⁾. This will include organising and managing the decontamination of the affected area and restoring the environment as far as practicable to normal use. The timescales for environmental clean-up will depend upon the incident locations, the types of substance used, their persistence in the environment and the severity of contamination.

2.2. For some CBRN incidents, the affected area could be relatively localised. In other scenarios the affected area may be more widespread, e.g. in a populated urban city centre or in rural farmland. In either case Central Government would assist the local authority, in various ways, to develop and implement its recovery strategy.

2.3. Government has an important supporting role to play by:

(a) Providing technical advice on chemical and biological substances from centres of excellence such as the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl)⁽⁴⁾, and the Health Protection Agency (HPA).

(b) Providing technical advice on radiological substances from other centres of excellence including the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) and the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE).

(c) Providing assistance to local authority emergency response teams under Military Aid to the Civil Community (MACC) arrangements⁽⁵⁾.

(d) Co-ordinating the activities of individual Government Departments responding to the incident and providing a framework within which individual departments can discharge their specific responsibilities.⁽⁶⁾

(e) Co-ordinating the collection of information on the incident and its effects for the purposes of:

(i) providing information to the public and media at the national level;
(ii) briefing Ministers; and
(iii) informing Parliament.

(f) Acting as the focal point for communications with the local authority's Strategic Co-ordinating Group. In some cases the Regional Resilience Forums could be a conduit.

2.4. In the event of a CBRN terrorist incident in Great Britain, the Home Office would initially assume lead government department responsibility for dealing with the effects of the emergency. The Home Office would be supported by other departments including the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which also has the responsibility in England for co-ordinating the government's contribution to the decontamination and recovery phase of such incidents or emergencies in the open environment irrespective of the cause of the incident⁽⁷⁾.

At some point, to be determined on a case-by-case basis and once the crisis management phase is concluded, the lead department responsibility would be transferred to Defra although depending on the nature and location of the incident(s), for example where releases of CBRN materials occur primarily within buildings and infrastructure, other departments might take the lead. Consequence management for devolved functions following terrorism within Wales would fall to the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) and its own lead department arrangements.

2.5. In respect of CBRN incidents arising from non-terrorist causes, the civil contingencies Secretariat of the Cabinet Office (in consultation with the Home Office) would ensure that, dependent on the cause of the incident, a lead department was identified for both the crisis and consequence management phase. The Personnel, Management and Business Services Group of the WAG will take the immediate lead for any matters which are devolved and in which the lead role needs to be confirmed.

2.6. Other Government Departments also have important roles when responding to CBRN incidents. For example, the Department of Health (DoH) is responsible for managing any implications for the impact on public health that may arise from the release of CBRN substances; the Department for Transport (DfT) has strategic responsibility for transport security, including airports; and the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) is responsible for buildings and infrastructure. The proposed national decontamination and recovery service would, on request from the body co-ordinating the incident response, provide advice and support, including management of the decontamination process. The Government is examining possible arrangements with contractors for ensuring that suitable commercial decontamination services are available.

Box 1: Recovery from Crisis
The major long-term impact of a CBRN incident is principally the disruption it causes to normal life by denying access to the area affected by the release^(8),(9). A well-managed recovery strategy can significantly reduce the overall impact of the incident, especially where the critical national infrastructure is affected⁽¹⁰⁾. A great deal of information will have already been acquired during the crisis response to the incident. Centres of excellence such as Dstl, HPA, NRPB and AWE will have identified the type of CBRN substance dispersed and its hazards. Members of the public may have been relocated away from the hazard zone to a place of safety. The incident scene will have been stabilised by the emergency services and a cordon established to prevent any further spread of contamination. A mixture of publicly owned land, commercial land and private land may be affected by CBRN contamination. In most cases the key organisations leading the recovery process will be the local authority and its clean-up contractors, with continued advice and support from the Environment Agencies, the Food Standards Agency, the Police and the local water supplier and sewerage undertaker.

2.7. Government Departments will begin to scale down their involvement in the response to a CBRN incident only when Ministers are satisfied that it is prudent to do so, e.g. when the consequences of the incident have been contained, the conditions at the affected area properly dealt with and central assistance is no longer required. The following decision-making criteria would be likely to be applied by Ministers:

(a) is there no longer a widespread threat to public health⁽¹¹⁾ or the environment;

(b) have the consequences of the incident been successfully reduced to the extent that local authorities consider themselves to have adequate resources to maintain public confidence and deal with the situation; and

(c) has a recovery strategy been prepared by the local authority and relevant organisations (see Box 1).

2.8. Different organisations and organisational arrangements may be involved in the recovery process in comparison with the crisis phase, as the balance of risk may shift away from members of the general public towards a much smaller group of professional local authority staff and civilian contractors implementing the clean-up process.

2.9. The role of the local authority will be to:

(a) Develop a phased recovery strategy (see Box 2) in conjunction with advice from Defra, regulatory authorities such as the Environment Agency, and technical centres of excellence;

(b) Organise and manage the decontamination of the affected area and restore the environment to normal use, invoking mutual aid arrangements with neighbouring authorities and contractors as appropriate⁽¹²⁾;

(c) Manage risks to the health and safety of workers undertaking decontamination of the environment and processing hazardous wastes; and

(d) Where waste disposal routes are not immediately available, develop interim strategies for safely storing hazardous waste packages in an environmentally acceptable and responsible way.

2.10. Local Authority Environmental Health Departments will have a major input during the recovery process as they have most of the responsibility in legislation and operational experience. The local authorities will also have a vital role in local, public and media communication. Contingency planning is addressed in the Civil Contingencies Bill, which had its second reading on the 19th of January 2004 and is now in the committee phase. The purpose of the Civil Contingencies Bill, and the accompanying non-legislative measures, is to deliver a single framework for civil protection in the United Kingdom. The Bill includes a duty for local authorities to promote business continuity management.

2.11. The role of central government in the regions will be to:

(a) Help co-ordinate response recovery efforts through the Regional Resilience Forums⁽¹³⁾ and the Regional Civil Contingency Committees (RCCCs), especially in the event of multiple incidents; and

(b) Liaise with other regions and with central government when sharing of resources is needed across regional boundaries.

2.12. The role of clean-up contractors will be to:

(a) Safely implement the phased recovery strategy under the direction of the local authority;

(b) Provide and operate decontamination technology and train and equip their workforce with suitable personal protective equipment;

(c) Liaise with the local sewerage undertaker and the Environment Agency to protect watercourses by intercepting water used in decontamination and directing it to containment areas for appropriate treatment; and

(d) Manage solid hazardous waste streams in an environmentally acceptable and responsible way, minimising risks to the health and safety of workers, the public and the environment.

2.13. The role of the Environment Agency will be to:

(a) Advise the local authority on the appropriate storage, transport and disposal of hazardous wastes and the treatment of liquid effluents;

(b) Continue to identify risks to the environment and people during each separate phase of the decontamination process and adjust the recovery strategy to protect vulnerable environmental pathways and sensitive receptors; and

(c) Ensure that its regulatory role continues to function appropriately.

2.14. The role of the Police will be to:

(a) Control access and continue to protect the security of the cordon surrounding the area affected by CBRN contamination⁽¹⁴⁾.

2.15. The role of the Food Standards Agency will be to:

(a) Ensure that food contaminated to unacceptable levels does not enter the food chain;

(b) Provide advice and information on food safety issues; and

(c) Ensure, in conjunction with the Environment Agency, safe disposal of contaminated food.

Box 2: Phased Remediation
The recovery phase⁽¹⁵⁾ of a major incident is the process of restoring and rebuilding the community in the aftermath of an emergency. Recovery involves decontamination of the environment. This will involve applying the same basic principles that apply more generally to the environmental remediation⁽¹⁶⁾ of contaminated land; making inspections and keeping under review the condition of the land; preventing, minimising and mitigating the effects of contamination; and restoring the land to its former state where practicable. However it is important to ensure that a remediation strategy will result in an overall net environmental improvement because remedial activities may have the potential to damage the environment, e.g. when excavating large amounts of contaminated material or disposing of toxic waste streams⁽¹⁷⁾. It is essential that these adverse impacts are properly managed and controlled by the local authority, drawing on advice from central government and others as appropriate. The overall process of remediation may require a phased approach with different remedial actions being carried out in sequence. The phasing of remediation is likely to follow a progression from impact assessment actions through to successive remedial treatment actions and then finally monitoring actions to confirm successful clean up.

⁽³⁾ The local authority would normally lead rehabilitation of the community following a major incident. See 'Recovery: An Emergency Management Guide' [PDF].

⁽⁴⁾ The Ministry of Defence's (MOD) approach to managing CBRN risks is explained in 'Defending Against the Threat from Biological and Chemical Weapons', published July 1999. MOD will not take the lead in responding to civil CBRN emergencies but can provide expert advice and support, which would be funded by local authorities. See Hansard, 30 Apr 2003, column 391w [External website]

⁽⁵⁾ Arrangements for Military Aid to the Civil Community (MACC) are described in the Cabinet Office Publication, 'Dealing with Disaster, Revised 3rd Edition', published June 2003.

⁽⁶⁾ For further information on lead Government Department responsibilities during CBRN incidents see 'The role of Lead Government Departments in Planning for and Managing Crises'. [PDF]

⁽⁷⁾ Defra's role would be taken in the Devolved Administrations by the relevant responsible departments.

⁽⁸⁾ A useful article on demystifying CBRN threats was published in the World Magazine (15 March 2003) and also in the 'Washington Post' Washington Post [External website]

⁽⁹⁾ See also Chapter 2 - Grounding the threat in reality - of Stimson Center Report No 35 'Ataxia: The Chemical and Biological Terrorism Threat and the US Response' published on the Stimson web site: Ataxia: The Chemical and Biological Terrorism Threat and the US Response [External website]

⁽¹⁰⁾ The Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) are those parts of the United Kingdom's infrastructure for which continuity is so important to national life that loss, significant interruption, or degradation of service would have life-threatening serious economic or other grave consequences for the community. Home Office website: Critical National Infrastructure [External website]

⁽¹¹⁾ For information on managing the risks to health from CB substances see the 'Deliberate Release of Biological and Chemical Agents: Guidance to Help Plan the Health Service Response', published August 2002 on the Department of Health's emergency planning and co-ordination unit web site. [External website]

⁽¹²⁾ Local authority arrangements for mutual aid are described in the Cabinet Office Publication, 'Dealing with Disaster, Revised 3rd Edition', published June 2003.

⁽¹³⁾ These forums have no formal role in response but the RCCCs when convened can be utilised to co-ordinate resources and will have a similar membership to the forums.

⁽¹⁴⁾ Local authorities have responsibility for managing the recovery process including securing the scene of the incident and controlling access to the recovery site, with advice and support from the Police Service. The generic roles and responsibilities of the Police are explained in 'The Decontamination of People Exposed to CBRN Substances: Strategic National Guidance' [PDF 45 pages 396KB], published February 2003.

⁽¹⁵⁾ The meaning of recovery is explained in 'Recovery: An Emergency Management Guide' published on the Cabinet Office's UK Resilience website 'Recovery: An Emergency Management Guide' [PDF]

⁽¹⁶⁾ Basic legal requirements for remediation are explained in Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Statutory guidance to local authorities on the remediation of contaminated land is published on the Scottish Executive website www.scotland.gov.uk/library3/environment/clc-13.asp [External website]

⁽¹⁷⁾ See also Annex 16.3 'Interim Guidance from the Environment Agencies on the Disposal of Radioactive Waste Arising from a Nuclear Accident', which forms part of Chapter 16 of the Department of Trade and Industry's Nuclear Emergency Planning Liaison Group (NEPLG) Guidance at Department of Trade and Industry's Nuclear Emergency Planning Liaison Group (NEPLG) Guidance [External website]