Emergency Planning is at the heart of civil protection. ...

Emergency Planning is at the heart of civil protection.
.in the case of a disaster many agencies have a part to play in dealing with these emergencies and their aftermath.  Emergency Planning is the process whereby such agencies prepare to deal with major emergencies and incidents and assist in the welfare and recovery of the community.  The aim of Emergency Planning is to maintain appropriate arrangements and procedures that enable appropriate agencies to respond to and manage major incidents and 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. Today much of the emergency planning stems from civil contingencies.
Emergency is defined in Part 1 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 as:
"An event or situation which threatens serious damage to human welfare in a place in the UK, the environment of a place in the UK or war or terrorism which threatens serious damage to the security of the UK."
Prior to the end of the cold war most of the emergency planning and civil contingencies centred on the threat of a possible nuclear strike from the former Soviet Union. However Since the end of the Cold War, the focus of civil contingencies has largely shifted from military attack to emergencies and disasters in general. The Civil Contingencies Act, and accompanying non-legislative measures, delivers a single framework for civil protection in the United Kingdom. Part 1 of the act establishes a clear set of roles and responsibilities for those involved in emergency preparation and response at a local level, dividing local responders into two categories, imposing a different set of duties on each. Part 2 focuses more on emergency powers and providing a framework for the use of special legislative measures to deal with the effects of the most serious emergencies.

Those in Category 1 are those organizations at the core of the response to most emergencies for example emergency services, local authorities and 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 information with other local responders to enhance co-ordination;


Co-operate with other local responders to enhance co-ordination and efficiency; and
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