Civil Contingencies Act
The introduction of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 placed
certain additional responsibilities on Local Authorities to prepare
and respond to emergencies and work closely with the emergency
services and voluntary organisations in doing so.
The Act deals with Emergency
Preparedness and 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.
Category 1 Responders are those organisations
at the core of the response to most emergencies (e.g. 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 information with other local responders to
enhance co-ordination;
- Co-operate with other local responders to enhance co-ordination
and efficiency; and
- Provide advice and assistance to businesses and voluntary
organisations about business continuity management (Local
Authorities only).
Category 2
Responders are the Health and Safety Executive,
transport, utility companies and the voluntary sector
organisations. These "co-operating bodies" are less likely to be
involved in the heart of planning work but will be heavily involved
in incidents that affect their sector.
Category 2 responders have a lesser
set of duties - co-operating and sharing relevant information with
other Category 1 and 2 responders.
Category 1 and 2 organisations will
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.
Local Resilience Forums (LRF) have
already been set up and are working effectively to address all
issues outlined above.
