Civil Contingencies Secretariat

Civil Contingencies Secretariat
Agency overview
Formed July 2001 (2001-07)
Employees 75[1]
Annual budget £10 million[1]
Agency executive
  • Katharine Hammond, Director
Parent agency Cabinet Office
Website www.gov.uk/government/policies/emergency-planning

The Civil Contingencies Secretariat (CCS), created in July 2001, is the department of the British Cabinet Office responsible for emergency planning in the UK. The role of the secretariat is to ensure the United Kingdom’s resilience against disruptive challenge, and to do this by working with others to anticipate, assess, prevent, prepare, respond and recover. Until its creation in 2001, emergency planning in Britain was the responsibility of the Home Office. The CCS also supports the COBRA committee.

Formation

When compared to other countries, the UK is not particularly prone to disasters, but in the aftermath of the Y2K bug scare, the fuel protests of 2000, flooding in autumn 2000, and the foot and mouth epidemic of 2001 the UK government felt that the existing emergency management policies and structures were inadequate to deal with natural or man-made disasters, and formed the Civil Contingencies Secretariat in July 2001, located in the Cabinet Office.[2][3][4] Soon after the 9/11 attacks the remit of the CCS was expanded to include mitigating the consequences of a large scale terrorist attack.[5]

Remit and reporting

In 2002 David Blunkett, then Home Secretary, stated, in a written reply to a parliamentary question:

The remit of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat is to make the United Kingdom more effective in planning for, dealing with, and learning lessons from emergencies and disasters.

— David Blunkett, [6]

He went on to state:

The Secretariat services the Civil Contingencies Committee, which I chair and in addition as part of the Cabinet Office reports to my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister (Mr. Blair) through the Cabinet Secretary (Sir Richard Wilson).

— David Blunkett, [6]

The Civil Contingencies Committee, often informally referred to as COBRA from the name of the room used, is a forum for ministers and senior officials to discuss and manage serious (level 2) and catastrophic (level 3) emergencies.[7][8]

Structure

The secretariat is led by a director and initially comprised five divisions dealing with:[9]

Assessment
assessing known risks and scanning for future potential risks
Capability Management
working with departments facing potential disruption, and advising on how to prevent or manage crisis
Communication and Learning
including the News Co-ordination Centre in the Cabinet Office and the Emergency Planning College
National Resilience Framework
developing partnerships between governmental agencies, voluntary agencies, local communities and private sector groups
Programme Co-ordination
providing secretariat support for the Civil Contingencies Committee

In 2012 the CCS still had five sections, with a slightly different emphasis:[10]

  • Capabilities
  • Local Response Capabilities
  • Emergency Planning College
  • Horizon Scanning & Response
  • Natural Hazards Team

Director of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat

Until 2001 the Home Office carried out emergency preparedness planning through its Emergency Planning Division, which in turn replaced the Home Defence and Emergency Services Division. From 1935 to 1971 a separate department, called the Civil Defence Department (in the early years the Air Raids Precautions Department, Ministry of Home Security), existed.

Documents issued

The CCS has produced the following documents:

  • Emergency Response and Recovery which provides non-statutory guidance to accompany the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. First published in November 2005, it was last updated in October 2013.[16][17]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Gummer, Ben (21 December 2016). "Civil Contingencies Secretariat: Written question 57940". parliament.uk. Retrieved 13 August 2018.
  2. ↑ Cornish 2007, pp. 10, 15.
  3. 1 2 Sylvester 2001.
  4. ↑ Tesh 2012.
  5. ↑ Cornish 2007, p. 10.
  6. 1 2 Hansard 2002.
  7. ↑ BBC News 2006.
  8. ↑ UK Parliament 2011.
  9. ↑ Select Committee on Defence 2002.
  10. ↑ Barber 2012.
  11. ↑ UKIESF 2016.
  12. ↑ NIHR.
  13. ↑ Foreign & Commonwealth Office.
  14. ↑ Revill 2007.
  15. ↑ BiP Contracts.
  16. ↑ Cornish 2007, pp. 16.
  17. ↑ gov.uk Publications.

  • Cornish, Dr Paul (June 2007). Domestic Security, Civil Contingencies and Resilience in the United Kingdom (Report). Chatham House. Retrieved 6 October 2016.
  • "Blair forms emergency unit after debacles". Daily Telegraph. 11 July 2001. Retrieved 6 October 2016.
  • Tesh, John (26 October 2012). "The making of a National Risk Register". University of Cambridge Research. Retrieved 7 October 2016.
  • David Blunkett, Home Secretary (21 June 2002). "Civil Contingency Secretariat". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). United Kingdom: House of Commons.
  • "Cobra: The UK's emergencies team". BBC News. 6 April 2006. Retrieved 7 October 2016.
  • "3 Government structures". www.parliament.uk. UK Parliament. 2 March 2011. Retrieved 7 October 2016.
  • "Memorandum from the Civil Contingencies Secretariat (9 January 2002)". UK Parliament. 7 March 2002. Retrieved 8 October 2016.
  • Barber, Mat (2012). "Risk Assessment and UK Resilience". Cabinet Office. Civil Contingencies Secretariat Organogram. Retrieved 7 October 2016.
  • "New Head of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat". BiP Contracts. 5 November 2002. Retrieved 6 October 2016.
  • Revill, Jo (29 July 2007). "The mandarins planning how we would cope again". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
  • "Change of Governor of Anguilla" (Press release). Foreign & Commonwealth Office. 23 October 2012. Retrieved 6 October 2016.
  • "Independent Advisory Group: Biographies". National Institute for Health Research. 2014. Campbell McCafferty. Retrieved 6 October 2016.
  • "Publications - Guidance: Emergency response and recovery". Gov.uk. Retrieved 6 October 2016.
  • "The Innovative Emergency Services Forum". UK Innovative Emergency Services Forum. Archived from the original on 10 October 2016. Retrieved 8 October 2016.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.