Not so long ago, the likelihood of facing a global pandemic, wildfires or Russian attacks seemed vanishingly small.
Yet local authorities have found themselves on the frontline from evacuating residents from fire-hit towns to leading Covid test and trace efforts and fending off cyber attacks.
While valiant, those efforts have been hindered by a central government approach that has often been haphazard and ad-hoc, leaving the sector's confidence in resilience low.
At The MJ's Future Forum Midlands earlier this month, two chief executives were asked if there was sufficient planning in place across the country for a major disaster.
Interim chief executive at Sussex & Brighton Strategic Authority, Mark Rogers simply responded: ‘Absolutely not.'
Operation Albiston Shadow, dubbed the ‘largest UK home defence exercise in several decades' will take place next year, testing the country's ability to respond to hybrid attacks.
Cambridgeshire CC's Stephen Moir agreed: ‘I think local authorities think they are prepared – we have systems and processes and some of us have got well-trained people and emergency planners – but does that actually mean we can deal with a genuine major emergency when it arrives? No.'
He added that after attending a Cabinet Office Briefing Room meeting, it ‘didn't make me feel more encouraged about the preparedness of the country'.
The Government has signalled it is waking up to the need to plan ahead. The Cabinet Office, which is tasked with national emergency planning, has established a societal resilience team, and is about to issue guidance to the public on how to prepare for extreme weather events or missile attacks.
Chair of the Institute of Civil Protection and Emergency Management, Sarah Schubert, told The MJ: ‘Since the Covid pandemic there has been a noticeable increase in political and organisational focus on resilience. The publication of new resilience strategies, inquiries and reviews demonstrates that preparedness is receiving greater attention.
‘However, there remains a difference between recognising resilience as a priority and investing sufficiently in the people and capabilities needed to deliver it.'
Amid fresh sabre-rattling from the other side of Europe in recent weeks, it is the threat from Russia that is foremost in the minds of ministers at present. For the first time in decades, the UK faces the prospect of a war on its home turf, albeit one more likely to be fought in cyber space rather than the beaches and landing grounds of Churchill's speeches.
Operation Albiston Shadow, dubbed the ‘largest UK home defence exercise in several decades' will take place next year, testing the country's ability to respond to hybrid attacks.
Work is also under way to create updated ‘war books' setting out how the whole UK would respond in the event of a military attack, from Whitehall to local authorities. They were last updated in the 1990s in a very different landscape, when a full-scale nuclear strike was seen as a possibility.
In the nightmare scenario, councils would have played a role in providing meals, water, medical care, sanitation, graves to bury the dead and accommodation for the homeless in a post-nuclear world.
It was far from perfect. Exercises during the 1980s uncovered ‘limited planning' in areas such as clearing debris from roads and recognition rural authorities would likely be ‘overwhelmed' by evacuees fleeing cities. Political opposition to nuclear arms also saw dozens of authorities boycott civil defence preparations.
But in the absence of up-to-date war books, there is now very little sign of planning for a nuclear attack in the public domain.
A 2023 paper by health academics at the West Midlands Applied Research Collaboration found ‘scant evidence that the UK has made comprehensive plans to deal with a nuclear strike' and that ‘we appear much less prepared than we were back in the 1960s'.
The London Resilience Risk Matrix references ‘contingency planning' lying with central government, making provision for ‘evacuation and shelter' of people. It added: ‘Local authorities can adapt existing plans for other large-scale incidents to support affected individuals.'
An anonymous source familiar with emergency planning across several local authorities told The MJ: ‘Civil defence has gone up the agenda, but at the same time local authorities' resilience and capabilities have gone off a cliff.'
Compared to past decades, authorities have less control over services with the growth of outsourcing and lack of stockpiles of essentials such as water and radios due to a lack of funding.
They added: ‘Could we deal with it now? Not a chance.'
Seen as far more likely than attacks from hostile states are incidents like the 2018 nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury, sabotage and cyber incidents. Extreme weather such as flooding resulting from climate change, threats to cohesion stoked by global events and social media, and the emergence of a new pandemic are also high on the agenda.
Schubert said: ‘What has changed is not simply the number of risks but the likelihood that multiple risks may occur simultaneously or create cascading impacts across communities and public services. The UK has always faced emergencies, but the current risk landscape is broader and more interconnected than in the past.'
Nick Moon, chief executive of Applied Resilience, a public service mutual specialising in resilience, said the situation demanded flexibility from emergency planners.
He said: ‘One of the most important principles is that we cannot write a plan for every conceivable emergency. What matters is building adaptable capability.'
But he added it would not be a task that can be completed overnight. ‘Resilience is fundamentally a long-term capability – it depends on skilled people, relationships, training and institutional knowledge built over years,' Moon said.
Until the Civil Contingencies Act was passed in 2004, councils, police and fire services were entirely tasked with responding on a local level. With the creation of Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) more bodies are expected to shoulder responsibilities.
Councils' major role is to warn and inform the public and coordinate the other bodies such as the police, health and fire services. They are also obliged to assess the risk of, plan, and exercise for emergencies.
But analysis by the National Preparedness Commission found a lack of effective sharing of best practice or coordination, despite a growing remit. It added: ‘The rollout of English devolution could have significant impacts here, especially with respect to changing responsibilities of LRFs, elected mayors and potential changes in policing boundaries.'
Furthermore, a report by the National Audit Office (NAO) published this month found ‘LRFs' capacity and capability across a range of risk areas do not match lead government departments' expectations'.
In particular, ‘the capability and capacity of LRFs to respond to food supply disruptions is insufficient, and LRFs lack clarity on what is expected of them'.
The chief reason comes down to the familiar issues of local government lacking funding and capacity. The NAO concluded: ‘Limited resources, competing priorities, and lack of legal powers to direct local businesses during emergencies may reduce LRFs' effectiveness.'
Moon said: ‘The risk landscape has expanded considerably – local capacity hasn't necessarily expanded with it.
‘The commitment is absolutely there. We see exceptionally capable councils achieving a huge amount with limited resources, but there's real variation in capacity and maturity across the country, and resilience can be hard to prioritise against immediate pressures on frontline services.'
Likewise, Schubert said while the emergency planning framework was ‘fundamentally strong', its potential undermining by resourcing at a local level was among her ‘greatest concerns'.
She said: ‘Many local authorities continue to deliver effective preparedness arrangements, but they do so against a backdrop of financial pressure, workforce constraints and growing expectations.
Schubert added: ‘LRFs are often highly effective partnerships, yet they frequently rely on limited specialist capacity. The challenge is not a lack of commitment to preparedness, but ensuring that resources keep pace with the increasing complexity and frequency of risks.'
As we approach the Autumn Budget and with a Spending Review on the horizon, emergency planners are questioning whether the good intentions and rhetoric can be matched with resources in an era of incredibly tight public finances.
Moon said: ‘There has been significant progress nationally, including the work of the UK Resilience Academy and the support provided by organisations such as the National Cyber Security Centre, but we need to ensure that national ambition is matched by sustainable capacity to deliver locally.'
Schubert added: ‘The question facing policymakers is not whether emergency planning is important, but whether local responders are being given the resources, workforce capacity and support needed to manage an increasingly complex and demanding risk environment.'
