Regional resilience

Regional Resilience and Emergency Response

The Regional Resilience and Emergency Response Division (part of the Fire and Resilience Directorate) was set up in April 2003 to implement a new regional 'resilience' tier to ensure:

That the current ability to respond to major emergencies is fully understood;
That gaps in preparedness are identified, and;
That work plans are put in place to ensure that such gaps are filled to the extent required by regional and local circumstances.

Communities and Local Government funded the creation of the regional resilience tier because of its responsibility for the Government Office network. However, the work is essentially cross-governmental and part of a wider Cabinet Office-led programme to enhance preparedness.

The Regional Resilience Tier

The new regional structures described below provide the platform for a regional role in both planning and response in relation to civil contingencies. While the regional tier provides improved co-ordination and facilitation, the actual delivery of a response to a disruptive event remains for the most part with local responders (emergency services, Local Authorities, etc).

Regional Resilience Teams (RRTs)

Regional Resilience Teams (RRTs) have been operational in each of the Government Offices in the nine English Regions since April 2003.
These teams facilitate much of the new regional activity and play an integral part in both planning and response. A senior official leads them, with support from 3-4 staff drawing heavily on external civil protection experience.
They take the lead in managing key relationships with local responders, communicating between regional partners, and between the regions and central Departments; and provide improved information gathering and reporting back to the centre.

Regional Resilience Forums (RRFs)

Regional Resilience Forums were formed to bring together the key players, including central government agencies and the Armed Forces, and representatives of local responders including the emergency services and local authorities. The Forums work to improve the co-ordination of planning at a regional level and improve communications between the centre and the region and between the region and the local response capability.

Regional Civil Contingencies Committee (RCCC)

A separate committee, the Regional Civil Contingencies Committee, would be formed to co-ordinate the regional response to an event which completely overwhelmed local responders or which had an impact over a wide area. Since the establishement of the Regional Resilience tier in 2003, the RCCC mechanism has only been activated once, in response to the Gloucestershire flooding of July 2007.