Emergency Planning
Background
The Government aims to ensure all organisations have effective,
well-practiced emergency plans in place. This section outlines what we mean
by emergency planning, different types of plans, the importance of
exercising them and training key staff, and the kind of factors which
planners should consider.
What is emergency planning?
Emergency planning should aim where possible to prevent emergencies
occurring, and when they do occur, good planning should reduce, control or
mitigate the effects of the emergency. It is a systematic and ongoing
process which should evolve as lessons are learnt and circumstances change.
Emergency planning should be viewed as part of a cycle of activities
beginning with establishing a risk profile to help determine what should be
the priorities for developing plans (see the Risk section) and
ending with review and revision, which then re-starts the whole cycle.
Plans should focus on at least three key groupings of people - the
vulnerable, victims (including survivors, family and friends) and responder
personnel.
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Vulnerable people may be less able to help themselves in
an emergency than self-reliant people. Those who are vulnerable will vary
depending on the nature of the emergency, but plans should consider:
those with mobility difficulties (e.g. those with physical disabilities
or pregnant women); those with mental health difficulties; and others who
are dependent, such as children.
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Victims of an emergency - which includes not only those
directly affected but also those who, as family and friends, suffer
bereavement or the anxiety of not knowing what has happened.
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Responder personnel should also be considered. Plans
sometimes place unrealistic expectations on management and personnel.
Organisations should ensure their plans give due consideration to the
welfare of their own personnel. For instance, the emergency services have
health and safety procedures which determine shift patterns and check for
levels of stress.
Organisations should aim to maintain plans which cover three different
areas:
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Plans for preventing an emergency - in some
circumstances there will be a short period before an emergency occurs
when it might be avoided by prompt or decisive action.
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Plans for reducing, controlling or mitigating the effects of an
emergency - the main bulk of planning should consider how to
minimise the effects of an emergency, starting with the impact of the
event (e.g. alerting procedures) and looking at remedial actions that can
be taken to reduce effects. For example, the emergency services may be
able to stem the emergency at source by fighting fires, combating the
release of toxic chemicals or the extent of floods. The evacuation of
people may be one direct intervention which can mitigate the effects of
some emergencies. Recovery plans should also be developed to reduce the
effects of the emergency and ensure long term recovery. The guidance
document Recovery: An
Emergency Management Guide [PDF, 25 pages, 120KB]
provides more detail on recovery issues.
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Plans for taking other action in connection with an
emergency - Not all actions to be taken in preparing for an
emergency are directly concerned with controlling, reducing or mitigating
its effects. Emergency planning should look beyond the immediate response
and long term recovery issues and look also at secondary impacts. For
example, the wave of reaction to an emergency can be quite overwhelming
in terms of media attention and public response. Plans may need to
consider how to handle this increased interest.
As obvious as it sounds, emergency plans should include procedures for
determining whether an emergency has occurred, and when to activate the
plan in response to an emergency. This should include identifying an
appropriately trained person who will take the decision, in consultation
with others, on when an emergency has occurred.
The maintenance of plans involves more than just their preparation. Once a
plan has been prepared, it must be maintained systematically to ensure it
remains up-to-date and fit for purpose at any time if an emergency occurs.
It may be that multiple organisations can develop a joint emergency plan
where the partners agree that, for a successful combined response, they
need a formal set of procedures governing them all. For example, in the
event that evacuation is required, the police would need carefully
pre-planned co-operation from various other organisations such as fire and
ambulance services and the local authority, as well as involvement of
others such as transport organisations.
Types of emergency plans
It may be important for an organisation to have more than one emergency
plan. It is often the case that organisations have generic
plans and specific plans.
Generic plans are the core plan which enables the
organisation to respond to, and recover from a wide range of possible
emergencies. They should hence include procedures which would be used in
all instances for e.g. ensuring the welfare of staff and the provision of
sufficient resources for responding to the emergency.
Specific plans relate either to a particular emergency or
kind of emergency, or to a specific site or location. Specific plans are a
detailed set of arrangements designed to go beyond the generic arrangements
when they are likely to prove insufficient in a particular case. A specific
plan usually relies on a generic plan. For example, organisations which
deal with hazardous materials may need specific plans for responding to a
chemical spillage. Some organisations may have specific plans for
conducting specific functions in response to an emergency. For instance,
the emergency services will have plans for mass evacuation of an urban area
and mass decontamination. Organisations should use their risk assessments
to decide whether specific plans are necessary or desirable.
Exercising plans and training staff
Organisations should test the effectiveness of their emergency plans by
carrying out exercises, and should ensure that key staff involved in the
planning for or response to an emergency receive appropriate training.
Training plans should also consider other people who have a role in the
emergency plans such as contractors and civil protection partners. The
plans themselves should explicitly identify the nature and frequency of
training and exercising required.
For more information on exercising, visit the Exercises
section.
Emergency Planning at the local level
Emergency planning is at the heart of the civil protection duty on Category
1 responders under the Civil Contingencies Act. The Act requires Category 1
responders to maintain plans for preventing emergencies; reducing,
controlling or mitigating the effects of emergencies; and taking other
action in the event of emergencies. These should draw on risk assessments
(see the Risk section for
more detail) and should have regard for the arrangements to warn, inform
and advise the public at the time of an emergency (see the section on Warning
and informing the public).
The Regulations require plans to contain a procedure for determining
whether an emergency has occurred; provision for training key staff; and
provision for exercising the plan to ensure it is effective. Procedures
should also be put in place to ensure that the plan is reviewed
periodically and kept up to date.
Category 1 responders should involve Category 2 responders - and
organisations which are not subject to the Act's requirements - as
appropriate throughout the planning process. Category 1 responders are
specifically required to have regard to the activities of relevant
voluntary organisations when developing plans. The Regulations permit
Category 1 responders to collaborate with other organisations in delivering
the emergency planning duty.
Category 1 responders also have a statutory duty to publish their emergency
plans, to the extent necessary or desirable for the purpose of dealing with
an emergency.
Emergency planning at the regional level
Planning at a regional level is different from planning at the local level.
It aims to ensure co-ordination between representatives of Category 1 and 2
responders and central government bodies. For more information on the
regional tier, go to the English
Regions section.
There are three types of regional plan:
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Generic Regional Response Plans ensure that, should it
be necessary, regional crisis management machinery can be activated as
smoothly as possible. These plans are owned by the Regional Resilience
Forum (RRF) and maintained by the Regional Resilience Team (RRT).
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Government Office Business Continuity Plan - The purpose
of this plan is to make sure that the Regional Government Office can
continue to operate its essential functions in an emergency, particularly
those which might be necessary for the response to the emergency. See the
Business
Continuity section for more information.
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Regional Capability Co-ordination Plans support local
planning, by ensuring that local plans can be scaled up in response to
wider impact events. It will do this by identifying the resources needed,
and developing capabilities on a regional basis to deal with emergencies
which overwhelm individual local areas.
As at the local level, plans are exercised regularly to test procedures and
systems and develop staff awareness and competencies.
Emergency planning in the Devolved Administrations
It is equally important that organisations within the Devolved
Administrations conduct effective emergency planning. The Devolved
Administrations section provides more detail on the extent to which the
Civil Contingencies Act duties apply in the Devolved Administrations, and
their individual emergency planning arrangements.
The Government works closely with the Scottish Executive, Welsh Assembly
Government (WAG) and Northern Ireland departments to promote effective
emergency planning that is, as far as possible, consistent with that of the
rest of the UK.
Emergency planning at the UK Government level
The UK Government Capabilities Programme is the core framework through
which the Government is seeking to build resilience across all parts of the
United Kingdom. The programme uses risk assessment over a five year period
to identify the generic capabilities that underpin the UK's resilience
to disruptive challenges, and ensures that each of these is developed.
These capabilities include dealing with mass casualties and fatalities,
response to chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear incidents,
provision of essential services and warning and informing the public. A
full list of the current capabilities can be found here.
The Government has in place a co-ordinated cross-governmental exercise
programme covering a comprehensive range of domestic disruptive challenges,
including accidents, natural disasters and acts of terrorism. The programme
is designed to test rigorously the concept of operations from the
coordinated central response through the range of Lead Government
Department responsibilities and the involvement of the Devolved
Administrations, to the regional tier and local responders. The Exercises
section provides more detail.
These national processes feed into the Devolved Administrations, regional
and local levels to ensure fully integrated emergency planning at all
levels throughout the UK.
The section on UK
Government provides more detail on emergency planning at the national
level.
The role of the voluntary sector in emergency planning and response
Where appropriate, organisations should consider at an early stage in
planning whether voluntary organisations may have capabilities which could
assist in responding to an emergency.
The voluntary sector can provide a wide range of skills and services in
responding to an emergency. These include: practical support (e.g. first
aid, transportation, provisions for responders); psycho-social support
(e.g. counselling, helplines); equipment (e.g. radios, medical equipment);
and information services (such as public training and communications).
Existing emergency planning duties
The Civil Contingencies Act Regulations identify three pieces of
legislation pre-dating this Act which were introduced separately in Britain
and Northern Ireland under sector-specific legislation operated by the
Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and HSE Northern Ireland. These relate to
major accident hazards at industrial establishments (Control of Major
Accident Hazards Regulations (COMAH)), to hazardous pipelines (Pipelines
Safety Regulations) and to radiation hazards (Radiation (Emergency
Preparation and Public Information) Regulations (REPPIR)). These
sector-specific Regulations have established multi-agency emergency
planning regimes in co-operation with the operators. To avoid duplication,
the Civil Contingencies Act Regulations provide that the duty to maintain
plans under the Act does not apply to emergencies which are dealt with by
these pieces of legislation.
Key Documents
You should refer to:
-
Emergency
Preparedness, Chapter 5: "Emergency
planning" [PDF, 27 pages, 130KB] (pp47-73)
-
Emergency
Preparedness, Chapter 7 "Communicating with the
public" [PDF, 16 pages, 84KB] (pp93-108) -
Contains further detail on communicating with the vulnerable and victims
in an emergency.
-
Emergency
Preparedness, Chapter 14: "The role of the voluntary
sector" [PDF, 6 pages, 38KB] (pp154-159)
-
Home Office document Recovery: An
Emergency Management Guide [PDF, 25 pages, 120KB]
-
Guidance document Communicating
Risk [PDF, 80 Pages 4.2MB]
-
A Guide to
Emergency Planning Arrangements in Northern
Ireland [External PDF, 148 pages, 1.56MB] -
Northern Ireland Central Emergency Planning Unit guidance document.
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London's
Strategic Emergency Plan [PDF, 47 pages, 1.7MB]
Key Links
Training
-
The Emergency Planning College
(EPC) [External website] is the leading provider
of training for emergency preparedness, attracting delegates with
responsibility for preventing, planning for, responding to or recovering
from a major incident. The EPC runs courses on emergency planning as well
as other aspects of civil protection:
Other Documents
You may also wish to refer to:
Other Links
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