A local resilience forum (LRF) is a multi-agency forum formed in a police area of the United Kingdom by key emergency responders and specific supporting agencies. It is a requirement of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 for partners to engage with a Local Resilience Forum.
The purpose of an LRF is to allow responders to coordinate activity related to emergency preparedness across their geographic area and produce a community risk register. [1] An LRF does not have a direct role in emergency response, but its members are standing members of Tactical and Strategic Coordinating Groups, that provide for a multi-agency approach to coordinate response and recovery efforts.
There are 42 LRFs within England and Wales, with the Greater London area forming an area-wide forum including the City of London. Each London Borough has its own Borough Resilience Forum to focus upon local activity. In Scotland, there is a similar system of Regional Resilience Partnerships and Local Resilience Partnerships; Northern Ireland has a number of Emergency Response Groups.
Each LRF includes representatives from the below agencies:
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The Civil Contingencies Secretariat (CCS), created in July 2001 and disbanded in July 2022, was the executive department of the British Cabinet Office responsible for emergency planning in the UK. The role of the secretariat was 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 Civil Contingencies Committee, also known as COBR.
Law enforcement in the United Kingdom is organised separately in each of the legal systems of the United Kingdom: England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Most law enforcement duties are carried out by those who hold the office of police constable of a territorial police force.
National Highways (NH), formerly the Highways Agency and later formerly Highways England, is a government-owned company charged with operating, maintaining and improving motorways and major A roads in England. It also sets highways standards used by all four UK administrations, through the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges. Within England, it operates information services through the provision of on-road signage and its Traffic England website, provides traffic officers to deal with incidents on its network, and manages the delivery of improvement schemes to the network.
Emergency management is a science and a system charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Emergency management, despite its name, does not actually focus on the management of emergencies; emergency management or disaster management can be understood as minor events with limited impacts and are managed through the day-to-day functions of a community. Instead, emergency management focuses on the management of disasters, which are events that produce more impacts than a community can handle on its own. The management of disasters tends to require some combination of activity from individuals and households, organizations, local, and/or higher levels of government. Although many different terminologies exist globally, the activities of emergency management can be generally categorized into preparedness, response, mitigation, and recovery, although other terms such as disaster risk reduction and prevention are also common. The outcome of emergency management is to prevent disasters and where this is not possible, to reduce their harmful impacts.
The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (c. 36) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that makes provision about civil contingencies. It also replaces former civil defence and emergency powers legislation of the 20th century.
The London Emergency Services Liaison Panel (LESLP) consists of representatives from the following agencies:
The fire services in the United Kingdom operate under separate legislative and administrative arrangements in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland.
The UK Government Decontamination Service is an organisation within the UK Government that provides advice and guidance to help the UK resist and recover from any deliberate or accidental release of chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear materials (CBRN) or from major accidental releases of hazardous materials (HAZMAT).
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom provide emergency care to people with acute illness or injury and are predominantly provided free at the point of use by the four National Health Services (NHS) of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Emergency care including ambulance and emergency department treatment is only free to UK residents and a charge may be made to those not entitled to free NHS care.
The Scottish Government Resilience Room (SGoRR) is the emergency and crisis response co–ordination facility of the Scottish Government that is activated in cases of national emergency or crisis, or during events abroad with major implications for Scotland and the wider British Isles. It is located in Scotland's capital city and seat of power, Edinburgh, at St Andrew's House, the official headquarters of the Scottish Government. Prior to February 2008, it was called the Scottish Government Emergency Room, or "SEER", from the former name "Scottish Executive Emergency Room".
Drug Action Teams ("DAT") are multi-agency partnerships created by the 1995 United Kingdom national drug strategy. DATs are responsible for coordinating local initiatives and programmes on drug and alcohol use, and reporting how said programmes support the national strategy to national public health agencies.
The California Governor's Office of Emergency Services is a California cabinet-level office responsible for overseeing and coordinating emergency preparedness, response, recovery and homeland security activities within the state. The agency was created by AB 38 (2008), superseding both the Office of Emergency Services (OES) and Office of Homeland Security (OHS).
4x4 Response is a UK based charity whose volunteers offer the use of their 4x4 vehicles to provide logistic support in adverse conditions, working with other Voluntary Organisations and the blue-light emergency services. The Charity was set up to assist or facilitate 4x4 drivers that wanted to form a group in an area where there was no group currently in existence. The charity itself, while largely consisting of volunteers, in itself, is not a response group.
Emergency planning in Wales is carried out in line with the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 however as a result of devolution it is managed with its own ‘welsh flavour.’ For instance there are unique bodies operating in Wales like The Joint Emergency Services Group (JESG) and there is involvement from The Welsh Government.
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is the national fire and rescue service of Scotland. It was formed by the merger of eight regional fire services in the country on 1 April 2013. It thus became the largest fire brigade in the United Kingdom, surpassing the London Fire Brigade.
The 2019 New Year Honours are appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebrations at the start of January and were officially announced in The London Gazette at 22:30 on 28 December 2018. Australia, an independent Realm, has a separate honours system and its first honours of the year, the 2019 Australia Day Honours, coincide with Australia Day on 26 January.
Exercise Cygnus was a three-day simulation exercise carried out by the UK Government in October 2016 to estimate the impact of a hypothetical H2N2 influenza pandemic on the United Kingdom. It aimed to identify strengths and weaknesses within the United Kingdom health system and emergency response chain by putting it under significant strain, providing insight on the country's resilience and any future ameliorations required. It was conducted by Public Health England representing the Department of Health and Social Care, as part of a project led by the "Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response Partnership Group". Twelve government departments across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as local resilience forums (LRFs) participated. More than 950 workers from those organisations, prisons and local or central government were involved during the three-day simulation, and their ability to cope under situations of high medical stress was tested.
Operational collaboration is a cyber resilience framework that leverages public-private partnerships to reduce the risk of cyber threats and the impact of cyberattacks on United States cyberspace. This operational collaboration framework for cyber is similar to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)'s National Preparedness System which is used to coordinate responses to natural disasters, terrorism, chemical and biological events in the physical world.
The 2022 New Year Honours are appointments by some of the 15 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebrations at the start of January and those for 2022 were announced on 31 December 2021.