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Division(s): N/A

ITEM CA16

CABINET – 20 DECEMBER 2005

CIVIL CONTINGENCIES ACT 2004 AND EMERGENCY PLANNING DUTIES

Report by Director for Community Safety & Chief Fire Officer

Introduction

  1. The Civil Contingencies Act (CCA) 2004 reflects the move away from a ‘civil defence’ approach to emergency management to one which recognises the modern environment. Consequently it imposes additional statutory obligations in some areas. Implementation has been staged over a year to allow responders to align their plans with the Act including the Business Continuity Regulations for businesses and voluntary organisations (by April 2006).

    2. Background

  2. The CCA 2004 gives the County Council and the District Councils, statutory emergency planning duties as Category 1 responders. Other Category 1 responders include Fire Authorities, the NHS and the Police. Category 1 responders have the following duties: Planning, training and exercising; Risk assessment and risk mitigation; Emergency response and recovery; Business continuity management (BCM) for the authorities’ own business; BCM promotion for the local area; Information sharing; Co-operation in multi agency work.

  3. Much of this is best practice within this authority but there are areas requiring additional work such as BCM within the County Council and community BCM. Action plans are developed and being progressed to meet these needs.

    4. County/District Partnerships

  4. The County and District Emergency Planning Officers have agreed to continue the existing partnership arrangement which has worked to the benefit of both tiers to date.

  5. Work is in hand via the Thames Valley Resilience Forum to produce a joint Risk Register, which will form part of the Thames Valley Register. Both tiers will work jointly on a BCM awareness plan for local businesses with each tier dealing separately with its own internal BCM plan. At the Oxfordshire Leaders’ Group Meeting on 31 March 2005, the Leaders and Chief Executives agreed to continue the partnership working between the County Council and District Councils. They required a formal Agreement for future working arrangements under the CCA 2004.

  6. The CCA 2004 Statutory Regulations and Guidance allow an authority to take the lead for most of the work streams and capabilities of other Category 1 Responders. The Agreement will codify these existing arrangements wherein the County Council leads on strategic work in consultation with our Category 1 District Partners.

  7. The Agreement does not remove each council’s statutory duty. All local authorities still retain the right to attend the various administrative structures set up by the Act and the various incident command level meetings on Thames Valley arrangements.

  8. The Agreement and Protocols which will support the County Council as the Lead Authority are attached at Annex 1 (download as .doc file).

    9. Business Continuity Management Project Update

  9. The BCM project was initiated across Directorates by a seconded officer. This resulted in a report for the new full-time BCM officer who has reviewed the project and has made recommendations to the Director for Community Safety. The aim of the project in the current phase is to ensure that all services/units/directorates have identified their critical services, without which their business could not continue in the event of an incident affecting their staff, workplace or contractors.

  10. Directorates have been asked to produce their BCM plans for these critical services from 48 hours to seven days after a major incident affecting service delivery and the BCM officer has produced a template for the plan writing. On completion of the plans, the emergency planners will provide a validation exercise to allow managers to review their plans. Progress on plan completion will form part of any future Comprehensive Performance Assessment. This is regarded as a corporate responsibility and not merely the function of a discrete emergency planning unit.

    11. Resourcing

  11. There are no extra resourcing implications for these proposals beyond that agreed by the Executive on 19 October 2004. The Leaders agreed that there would be no charges to the Districts for the Lead County Council role under the CCA 2004.

  12. Any extra joint work will be undertaken on a cost-sharing basis and costs for any operations will lie where they fall with the use of the Bellwin Scheme to recover parts of extraordinary expenditure from the Government after a Major Incident.

    13. Conclusion

  13. The Agency Agreement and Protocols to meet the joint working arrangements of the CCA 2004 continue best practice in Oxfordshire over almost two decades and meet government aspirations without increasing the bureaucracy of the structures of the CCA 2004.

  14. The County and District Emergency planners have been working on the protocols for the past year and they will be reviewed initially in December 2006, thereafter every three years or earlier as a result of any Structured Debrief on a Major Incident.

    15. RECOMMENDATIONS

  15. The Cabinet is RECOMMENDED to:

          1. approve the terms of an agreement with the District Councils and incorporated protocols as described in the report and set out in Annex 1;

          2. note the progress on the Business Continuity Management project and ask the Director for Community Safety and Chief Fire Officer to produce any other reports as required on this;

          3. instruct the Director for Community Safety & Chief Fire Officer to report back on any significant additional commitments from the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, when all the Thames Valley and Regional structures are in place.

JOHN PARRY
Director for Community Safety & Chief Fire Officer

Background papers: Nil

Contact Officers:
John Parry, Director for Community Safety & Chief Fire Officer Tel: 01865 855205.
John Kelly, County Emergency Planning Officer. Tel: 01865 815341

December 2005

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