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Civil Contingencies Act

Identifying and Disseminating Good Practice

Background

In response to stakeholders' feedback, including findings of the National Capability Survey 2006, CCS undertook a project in collaboration with stakeholders to provide good practice guidance on the newer duties of the Act (Business Continuity Management, Promoting Business Continuity and Communicating with the Public). Working groups were established consisting of loca1 responders and other key stakeholders to steer the work. The groups' initial task was to identify the issues that needed to be tackled in relation to each duty and to develop plans for taking the work forward. In addition to the expertise of the group, input was sought from the wider responder community through articles in magazines, regional workshops, Emergency Planning College courses and seminars.

Following on from the initial phase of the project, the groups were tasked with researching examples of existing good practice in these areas, identifying where gaps exist, and producing solutions to fill these. The outputs from the project can be found in the pages below in the form of 'how to' documentation, discussion papers and examples from across the United Kingdom of what members of the groups considered good practice.

Business Continuity Management

The material covers three areas of good practice in public sector business continuity management:

• Methodology
• Awareness and Training
• Exercising

Business Continuity Promotion

In response to the feedback that the working group received from stakeholders a nationally agreed promotional leaflet has been developed and circulated to all local authorities in England and Wales (see bulletin dated January 2008). This leaflet provides a consistent message but enables local authorities to localise it by adding local branding and contact details. The leaflet has been provided in an amendable PDF and MS Word format, however, in addition CCS hold these files in InDesign and Quark format. If you require these formats or if you need any other advice in relation to the leaflet, please contact CCS at ccact@cabinet-office.gov.uk

The working group has also published a BCM Toolkit on Preparing for Emergencies Website, which provides a resource that local authorities can point commercial and voluntary organisations to who are looking for assistance for putting BCM arrangements in place. This is a step-by-step guide and although it is applicable to all sizes of organisations across all sectors, it has been developed specifically for small and medium sized organisations in the commercial and voluntary sector who are relatively new to BCM.

Communicating with the public

• The The Ten Step Cycle – an informal guidance note [PDF, 15 pages, 124KB] provides a clear and comprehensive set of directions for establishing local warning and informing arrangements based on the Community Risk Register. It focuses on key activities for the work, including establishing a public advice and warning sub-group, selection of lead responders, audience identification, stakeholder consultation, exercising, and review. Each activity is explained and, where appropriate, examples of how an LRF have undertaken it are given.

• The Lead Responder Protocol [PDF, 18 pages, 140KB] picks up Step 3 of the Cycle and provides a tested methodology for selecting and agreeing lead responders. This is in keeping with Regulations which allow for the duty on each Category 1 Responder to be cut back by the identification of one organisation to take lead responsibility for maintaining arrangements to warn in regard to a particular emergency.

Expectation Set

The Expectations and Indicators of Good Practice Set for Category 1 and 2 Responders clarifies expectations in England and Wales within: the legislation; the National Resilience Capabilities Programme; and emergency response and recovery. It is split into three parts which cover the legislation and guidance, the National Resilience Capabilities Programme, and checklist of considerations for emergency response and recovery.

• Expectations and Indicators of Good Practice Set for Category 1 and 2 Responders [PDF 1.23MB, 74 pages] (June 2009)

Other related work

In addition to the work detailed above, CCS is working with  Emergency Planning Beacons to disseminate good practice in implementing the Civil Contingencies Act and on wider emergency planning issues. One way this good practice is being disseminated is through a series of beacon events. Further information about these events, including details of how to book your place, is provided in a bulletin to local responders [PDF, 2 pages, 114KB] (December 2007).