Civil Contingencies Secretariat

The Civil Contingencies Secretariat (CCS), created in July 2001, is the department of the British Cabinet Office responsible for emergency planning in the UK. The role of the secretariat is 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 COBRA committee.

Formation

When compared to other countries, the UK is not particularly prone to disasters, but in the aftermath of the Y2K bug scare, the fuel protests of 2000, flooding in autumn 2000, and the foot and mouth epidemic of 2001 the UK government felt that the existing emergency management policies and structures were inadequate to deal with natural or man-made disasters, and formed the Civil Contingencies Secretariat in July 2001, located in the Cabinet Office.^[1][2][3] Soon after the 9/11 attacks the remit of the CCS was expanded to include mitigating the consequences of a large scale terrorist attack.^[4]

Remit and reporting

In 2002 David Blunkett, then Home Secretary, stated, in a written reply to a parliamentary question:

The remit of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat is to make the United Kingdom more effective in planning for, dealing with, and learning lessons from emergencies and disasters.

— David Blunkett, ^[5]

He went on to state:

The Secretariat services the Civil Contingencies Committee, which I chair and in addition as part of the Cabinet Office reports to my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister (Mr. Blair) through the Cabinet Secretary (Sir Richard Wilson).

— David Blunkett, ^[5]

The Civil Contingencies Committee, often informally referred to as COBRA from the name of the room used, is a forum for ministers and senior officials to discuss and manage serious (level 2) and catastrophic (level 3) emergencies.^[6][7]

Structure

The secretariat is led by a director and initially comprised five divisions dealing with:^[8]

• Assessment - assessing known risks and scan for future potential risks
• Capability Management - working with departments facing potential disruption, and advising on to prevent or manage crisis
• Communication and Learning - including the News Co-ordination Centre in the Cabinet Office and the Emergency Planning College
• National Resilience Framework - developing partnerships between governmental agencies, voluntary agencies, local communities and private sector groups
• Programme Co-ordination - providing secretariat support for the Civil Contingencies Committee

In 2012 the CCS still had five sections, with a slightly different emphasis:^[9]

• Capabilities
• Local Response Capabilities
• Emergency Planning College
• Horizon Scanning & Response
• Natural Hazards Team

Director of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat

• Katharine Hammond (2016-) ^[10]
• Campbell McCafferty (2013-2016)^[11]
• Christina Scott (2009-2013)^[12]
• Bruce Mann (2004-2009)^[13]
• Susan Scholefield, CMG (2002-2004)^[14]
• Mike Granatt, CB (2001-2002)^[2]

Until 2001 the Home Office carried out emergency preparedness planning through its Emergency Planning Division, which in turn replaced the Home Defence and Emergency Services Division. From 1935 to 1971 a separate department, called the Civil Defence Department (in the early years the Air Raids Precautions Department, Ministry of Home Security), existed.

Documents issued

The CCS has produced the following documents:

• Emergency Response and Recovery which provides non-statutory guidance to accompany the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. First published in November 2005, it was last updated in October 2013.^[15][16]

See also

• Civil Contingencies Committee
• Emergency Planning College
• CONOPS
• Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre
• Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure

References

External links

• Emergency planning - from Gov.uk
• Risk assessment: how the risk of emergencies in the UK is assessed - from Gov.uk
• Preparation and planning for emergencies: the National Resilience Capabilities Programme - from Gov.uk
• UKResilience twitter account - from the Civil Contingencies Secretariat
• Emergency Planning Society - official website

Downing Street
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Prime Minister's Office	Parliamentary Private Secretary Principal Private Secretary Chief of Staff Press Secretary Director of Communications Prime Minister's Spokesman Policy Unit
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Incidents	Provisional IRA mortar attack (1991) Plebgate (2012)