This report has been prepared by the Emergency Planning Section, Audit and Risk Service, Resources Services, City of Wakefield Metropolitan District Council, County Hall, Wakefield, WF1 2QW
ANNUAL REPORT - EMERGENCY PLANNING SECTION, RESOURCES SERVICES
Introduction
This is the fifth annual report for the Emergency Planning Section, Audit and Risk Services.
2004/5 was probably the most significant year in emergency planning terms since the abolition of civil defence requirements in the early 1990s. The passing of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 was the result of many years of lobbying by practitioners for emergency planning to be put on a formal statutory footing. The Government has issued comprehensive guidance which lays significant burdens on Local Authorities to ensure that by the operative date of November, 2005, arrangements are in place to ensure compliance with the legislation.
Fortunately, 2004/5 was an extraordinarily quiet year so far as emergencies are concerned and for that we are thankful.
The Civil Contingencies Act 2004
Previous annual reports have set out the progress made in reaching the necessary standards as set out in the Home Office guidance (Standards for Civil Protection in England and Wales). Most of the standards were already fully met in 2004, but others required additional work. The only standard outstanding relates to recovery planning which is referred to in the Civil Contingencies Act and is included in the 2005/6 work programme.
The Civil Contingencies Act and supporting documentation can be viewed at: -
Civil Contingencies Act http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2004/20040036.htm
Regulations http://www.ukresilience.info/ccact/draft_regs2305.pdf
Planning Guidance http://www.ukresilience.info/ccact/emergencypreparedness.pdf
Response Guidance http://www.ukresilience.info/ccact/responding.pdf
The guidance is extremely comprehensive and includes sections on cooperation, information sharing, risk assessments, emergency planning, business continuity management and communicating with the public.
Training
A number of courses were organised by the Emergency Planning Section during 2004/5. Most of the courses were for staff who have a response role during an emergency. Officers were also given the opportunity to attend the Emergency Planning College and the courses set out in the table on page 3 were attended.
The Yorkshire and Humber Emergency Planning Trainers Group organised one course during the year. The two-day course on “Designing and running emergency response exercises” was held at Doncaster College on 1st and 2nd December, 2004.
Wakefield’s officers organised and presented the course. Wakefield are also organising the next YHEPTG event to cover the new Civil Contingencies Act risk assessment requirements, which will be held in July.
The courses organised in 2004/5 are scheduled in "Related Downloads".
The number of attendees on courses in 2003/4 was 178 whereas the number for 2004/5 nearly trebled to 480. This was mostly due to the time spent re-running the schools workshops for headteachers and the business continuity training.
Evaluations
Participants are also asked to give general comments. The following is a summary of the comments received
Forward Control Vehicle / Site Officer Training
Comments were generally to the effect that refresher training is always very useful.
Rest Centre Training
The material was well presented and the practical exercise very valuable. The introduction of other agencies into the training may be of benefit.
Emergency Centre Training
Comments included instructions for setting up the emergency centre were clear and simple to follow, the exercise was well presented and easily understood, the “hands on” part of the training was very helpful and the training session itself was just long enough to avoid information overload. One practical suggestion was to have most of the equipment already connected up its peripherals whilst in storage.
Helplines Training
The main comment was that the practical exercise felt real and illustrated what it would be like to operate the helplines in a crisis situation.
Duty Emergency Manager Training
The general comment was that there should be more of these sessions. The sessions were considered to be extremely useful in building both confidence and the information base which DEM's need. The way in which potential scenarios were discussed and worked through was very informative (and reassuring). The opportunity to network with fellow DEMs was helpful and the exercise scenario was a good way of teasing out difficulties and enabling a more uniform approach to the various problems which may arise.
Schools Emergency Planning Training
130 delegates from schools attended the training on preparing a school emergency plan and only one of the delegates evaluated the course as “not very useful”. The courses were split into half-day refresher courses for those who had attended previous training and full-day events for new headteachers. The overwhelming majority welcomed the opportunity to review their existing emergency arrangements or to receive guidance for the first time.
Coventry Council requested that the schools course be run again and Sandwell Council requested Wakefield Officers to run two courses for their headteachers. These were again very successful and gave the opportunity for Wakefield to “export” its best practice. A number of other requests were received from local authorities but these had to be declined due to time restraints.
Business Continuity
A number of workshops were arranged to help Services through the first stages of the BCM process. All of the attendees viewed the events as very or fairly useful.
Exercise Design Workshop (Yorkshire and Humber Group)
This course was organised and presented by Wakefield Officers. The participants designed exercises and then evaluated their design techniques. All participants expressed the view that they had learned significantly from the event and requested that the event be organised again in the future for new entrants to emergency planning.
Exercises
Wakefield officers designed and ran Exercise “Civic” as part of the annual training programme. The main aims of the exercise were to: -
- test and publicise the generic and other emergency plans of the Council and partner organisations,
- test multi-agency coordination and communication arrangements,
- test or highlight the need for business continuity arrangements within the Council and partner organisations.
Participants were drawn from all the Council’s Services as well as the Emergency Services, utility companies, health agencies, voluntary organisations, the Environment Agency and neighbouring Local Authorities. The full exercise report is available on request.
Brotherton Speciality Chemicals held exercise “Autumn Mist” as part of their statutory requirement under the Control of Major Accident Hazard (COMAH) Regulations. Four Wakefield officers participated, partly as a training platform for staff new to emergency response and partly to get a “feel” of the company as they have recently become subject to the COMAH regulations.
Exercise “Iridium” was a Temporary Mortuaries exercise involving the use of demountable structures. One Wakefield officer participated.
Leeds City Council also ran a Temporary Mortuaries exercise. This exercise focused on the initial setup of the mortuary and again one Wakefield officer participated.
On 26 October 2004 one officer from Wakefield attended exercise “Accord”. The exercise was run by the Highways Agency to test their emergency procedures in the event of a large road traffic accident and severe disruption on a motorway.
Officers from the Emergency Planning Section acted as facilitators in exercises for Calderdale MBC, Kirklees MC and Leeds City Council.
Emergencies Handbook
The computerisation of the Emergencies Handbook is now complete. Only one external recipient still receives paper copies of updates and amendments.
A review of the Handbook took place during the spring of 2005 and a completely revised version was issued in June. This was a considerable task as a host of Government guidance and new initiatives had to be included and some sections completely rewritten. Account was also taken of the new requirements under the Civil Contingencies Act and other Government programmes.
Intranet and Internet
The intranet and Internet sites have again been updated. Arrangements have been put into place with ICT so that when there are emergencies affecting the Wakefield District there will be a shortcut icon on the Council website home page to updated information for the public.
A number of Council officers have access rights to include emergency information directly onto the website at any time of day or night.
Incidents
A number of minor incidents took place during the year relating to utility outages (electricity and water), a chemical spillage and fumes from industrial premises but these were quickly resolved.
Weather and Flood Warnings
The Emergency Planning Section has continued to monitor weather and flood warnings during 2004/5. The numbers received and actioned are shown in "Related Downloads".
Royal Visit
The Queen visited Wakefield on Thursday 24 March 2005 for the Maundy Service at Wakefield Cathedral. Although not an emergency, the Emergency Planning Section was entrusted with a number of tasks and quickly became a central information source not only within the Council but for many external organisations.
Pre-planning included transport arrangements for a number of the Maundy recipients, including specialist Social Service transport for those in wheelchairs, street cleaning issues, liaison with City centre businesses, the Police and the cathedral staff, closure of car parks, assisting the Cathedral with checking passes for entry to the service etc. Consideration was even given to ensuring that there were no unnecessary roadworks on the route of the Royal procession.
Our main task one the day was to assist the Queen’s Wandsmen to look after the 158 Maundy recipients and their companions. This included checking their invitations and photo IDs at Cedar Court Hotel, coordinating the transport arrangements from the hotel to the Cathedral and back and otherwise doing whatever was necessary.
It was a very long but enjoyable day and our thanks go to every member of staff within the Council (and there were many) who helped to ensure that the day went without a hitch
Working with Other Organisations
The Civil Contingencies Act lays great emphasis on joint planning between responding organisations. West Yorkshire has a long history of voluntary cooperation (see previous annual reports) but this has been enhanced significantly. At present there are a number of forums / working groups. See "Related Downloads" for details.
Business Continuity Planning
Business impact assessments have been undertaken in all services to identify the threats to service continuity. The policy statement has been drafted (see Appendix A) and Services have been issued with a plan template as the first stage in producing a business continuity plan.
The work programme above sets out the anticipated timelines for progress. However business continuity planning is a complex area of interdependencies between Services, contractors and external providers and other partner organisations. The first draft plans will undoubtedly identify critical areas which will need detailed investigations to accomplish a satisfactory resolution.
Corporate business continuity plans covering human resources, property and information and communication technology will affect the Service level plans and vice versa.
In April 2006, local authorities will be required to promote business continuity management to the business community and voluntary sector. This will include offering advice and assistance, but will fall short of writing plans for the private sector.
Local authorities will have to fund the promotion of business continuity management themselves, although under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 will be able to charge for additional work and requests for assistance in certain circumstances.
Audit Commission Self Assessment
In 2004 the Audit Commission issued its self assessment form to assist local authorities to judge their progress against the requirements set out in the Civil Contingencies Bill (which has now been enacted). Wakefield officers took the opportunity to complete the self-assessment and the completed form is available from Emergency Planning Section on request.
Although Wakefield’s emergency plans are well advanced, there are still areas which need to be developed and these are addressed under the 2005/6 work programme.
Further Information
Any of the Emergency Planning Section staff will be happy to answer questions on this annual report. We are located in Rooms 47/48 at County Hall, Wakefield and contact details are set out below: -
Malcolm Wilcock Emergency Planning Manager 01924 305048 mwilcock@wakefield.gov.uk
Ken McCluskey Senior Emergency Planning Officer 01924 305053 kmccluskey@wakefield.gov.uk
Helen Brighton Emergency Planning Officer 01924 305767 hbrighton@wakefield.gov.uk
Wayne Harrop Business Continuity Officer 01924 305048 wharrop@wakefield.gov.uk
The Emergency Planning Website can be found at: -
www.wakefield.gov.uk/CouncilAndDemocracy/EmergencyPlanning/Default.htm
Appendix A
Business Continuity Statement
The City of Wakefield Metropolitan District Council is committed to undertaking Business Continuity Management in three key areas as required by the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. The Council has made significant progress in Business Continuity Management in advance of the statutory requirements.
The three key areas are:
The Council will direct efforts through its business continuity framework to maintain the corporate availability of information & communication technology, buildings and human resources.
Council Services are dependent on the availability of these three key areas. The Business Continuity Management framework, at corporate level, will provide business continuity arrangements, which safeguard the availability and/or ensures the timely recovery of these areas.
The Council will provide a framework for improving the resilience of service provision. This will be achieved through a series of service level Business Continuity Plans and aims to:
a) Protect the Council’s community strategy and service improvement planning.
b) Maintain or rapidly recover primary functions.
c) Maintain the availability of key resources to support primary functions.
d) Prevent or limit the disruption to service users, other Council Services, partner organisations and stakeholders.
The Council will act to raise awareness of Business Continuity Management through the commercial and voluntary sectors across the District for the purpose of improving the community’s resilience to the effects of emergencies.
The Council does not have a duty to undertake business continuity for other organisations, but only to promote the concept and to provide advice on community risks.
