Emergency Planning

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Emergency planning is the general term for the work that the government, the emergency services, the health services and the council all do in preparing plans and procedures for dealing with any emergency that might affect large numbers of people.

All of the relevant organisations work together to ensure that any emergency response would be co-ordinated, that staff are trained and that practice exercises to test the plans and procedures are carried out.

Emergency planning’s priority within Local Authorities has increased since The Civil Contingencies Act came into force in 2004, in response to a series of high profile incidents, including flooding, foot and mouth and the national fuel crisis.

The Act placed new responsibilities upon local authorities and other ‘category 1 responders’, including the emergency services and NHS bodies, meaning that local councils must provide greater support during the response to an incident and take the lead in the recovery phase.

This legislation placed the following duties on local authorities:

• Assess the risk of emergencies occurring
• Emergency planning
• Put in place Business Continuity Management arrangements
• Make information available to the public about civil protection and too warn and inform the public
• Provision of business continuity advice and information to commercial bodies
• Co-operation with other local responders to enhance co-ordination and efficiency
• Information sharing with other local responders
• Provide advice and assistance to businesses and voluntary organisations about business continuity management (Local Authorities only).