UK Resilience Legislation & Guidance

 

The Civil Contingencies Act 2004

The Civil Contingencies Act, and accompanying non-legislative measures, delivers a single framework for civil protection in the UK. The Act is separated into two substantive parts: local arrangements for civil protection (Part 1); and emergency powers (Part 2).

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Part 1 of The CCA 2004

Part 1 of the Act, supporting regulations and statutory guidance ‘Emergency Preparedness’ establishes a clear set of roles and responsibilities for those involved in emergency preparation and response at the local level. The Act divides local responders into two categories, imposing a different set of duties on each.

Those in Category 1 are organisations at the core of the response to most emergencies (the emergency services, local authorities, NHS bodies). Category 1 responders are subject to the full set of civil protection duties. They will be required to:

• ASSESS the risk of emergencies occurring and use this to inform contingency planning
• put in place EMERGENCY PLANS
• put in place BUSINESS CONTINUITY MANAGEMENT arrangements
• put in place arrangements to make INFORMATION available to the public about civil protection matters and maintain arrangements to warn, inform and advise the public in the event of an emergency
• SHARE INFORNMATION with other local responders to enhance co-ordination
• CO-OPERATE with other local responders to enhance co-ordination and efficiency
• provide ADVICE & ASSISTENCE to businesses and voluntary organisations about business continuity management (local authorities only)

Category 2 organisations (the Health and Safety Executive, transport and utility companies) are ‘co-operating bodies’. They are less likely to be involved in the heart of planning work, but will be heavily involved in incidents that affect their own sector. Category 2 responders have a lesser set of duties - CO-OPERATING and SHARING INFORMATION with other Category 1 and 2 responders.

Category 1 and 2 organisations come together to form ‘local resilience forums’ (based on police areas) which will help co-ordination and co-operation between responders at the local level. For more on what LRFs do and contact details for each, see the guide on ‘Local resilience forums: contact details’.

The bulk of Part 1 of the Act was brought into force in November 2005 (the duty on local authorities to provide advice and assistance to business and voluntary organisations about business continuity management commenced in May 2006).

Part 2 of The CCA 2004

Part 2 of the Act updates the 1920 Emergency Powers Act to reflect the developments in the intervening years and the current and future risk profile. It allows for the making of temporary special legislation (emergency regulations) to help deal with the most serious of emergencies. The use of emergency powers is a last resort option and planning arrangements at the local level should not assume that emergency powers will be made available. Their use is subject to a robust set of safeguards - they can only be deployed in exceptional circumstances.

Part 2 of the Act was brought into force in December 2004.