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The Government aims to ensure all organisations have clear and effective risk assessment processes in place. We work at all levels to assess and mitigate the risk from emergencies facing the country as a whole.
The risks that the UK faces are continually changing: risks emerge, threats evolve and our ability to respond to the disruptive challenges we face improves. The Government monitors the most significant emergencies that the United Kingdom and its citizens could face over the next five years through the National Risk Assessment (NRA). This confidential assessment is conducted annually and draws on expertise from a wide range of departments and agencies of government. The National Risk Register (NRR) is the public version and this 2010 edition has been produced to reflect the latest iteration of the National Risk Assessment.
The National Risk Assessment and National Risk Register are intended to capture the range of emergencies that might have a major impact on all, or significant parts of, the UK. These are events which could result in significant harm to human welfare: casualties, damage to property, essential services and disruption to everyday life. The risks cover three broad categories: natural events, major accidents and malicious attacks.
The risks we face depend upon where we live and work. For example, risks such as coastal flooding will be limited to specific parts of the country while the likelihood and impact of major industrial accidents will depend upon the type of industry in an area. Alongside the national level risk assessments, regional and local tiers are required to produce a specific risk assessment that reflects, as far as possible, the unique characteristics of each region and local area.
The Government provides guidance to Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) and Regional Resilience Forums (RRFS)s on the likelihoods of emergencies based on national assessments, which can then be flexibly tailored to meet local and regional judgements of the risks facing their areas. This ensures there is a fully integrated risk assessment process at all levels of Government which underpins coherent emergency planning throughout the UK.
It is equally important that organisations within the Devolved Administrations conduct effective risk assessment. The Devolved Administrations section provides more detail on the extent to which the Civil Contingencies Act duties apply in the Devolved Administrations, and their individual emergency planning arrangements.
In practice, the Government works closely with the Scottish Executive, Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) and Northern Ireland Executive to promote effective risk assessment work that is, as far as possible, consistent with that of the rest of the UK. The Local Risk Assessment Guidance (LRAG), for example, is provided to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland emergency planning departments. In Northern Ireland, only a limited number of organisations have duties under Part 1 of the Act. Most organisations in Northern Ireland deliver civil contingencies activities in line with the Northern Ireland Civil Contingencies Framework, which requires organisations to carry out individual risk assessments, and encourages them to co-operate in producing risk assessments and sharing information.
The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 also requires emergency responders in England and Wales to co-operate in maintaining a public Community Risk Register. These are approved and published by Local Resilience Forums which include representatives from local emergency responders as well as public, private and voluntary organisations. You should familiarise yourself with both this National Risk Register, which outlines broadly the risks faced by the UK as a whole, and your local Community Risk Register (which can be accessed via www.direct.gov.uk), which will capture how these risks relate to your local area.
All emergency incidents can have widespread and long term consequences. The risks to life and property can be significantly reduced by preparing for these consequences. Chapter 4 in the National Risk Register gives advice to individuals, families and communities on how to prepare for emergencies.
Effective identification and assessment of the risks which could potentially seriously obstruct an organisation in the performance of its functions should underpin all other emergency planning and business continuity management processes. For further information see chapter 3 in the National Risk Register which gives advice to businesses and organisations on how to prepare for the impacts of emergencies.
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