Cabinet Office UK Resilience

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What is community resilience?

“Communities and individuals harnessing local resources and expertise to help themselves in an emergency, in a way that complements the response of the emergency services.”

The National Security Strategy (2008)

Why is community resilience important?

• Emergencies happen, preparing yourself and your family will make it easier to recover from the impacts of an emergency.
• Being aware of the risks you might face, and who in your community might need your help, could make your community more resilient.
• Local emergency responders will always have to prioritise those in greatest need during an emergency, especially where life is in danger. During these times, you need to know how to help yourself and those around you.

The Cabinet Office leads a programme of work to help build and enhance community resilience across the UK. Find out more about the Community Resilience work programme.

Public consultation on Community Resilience guidance

22 March 2010

We have developed a package of documents about community resilience. The documents include guidance for individuals and communities on how to prepare for emergencies and a strategic national framework for community resilience, which sets out the Government’s contribution to build and enhance community resilience across the UK. We would welcome your views on the documents.

The documents have been produced as a result of work with a range of stakeholder groups since November 2008. These included members of the public, local and national voluntary agencies, businesses, emergency responders and government departments.

The consultation aims to seek the views of anyone who is interested in being prepared to cope in an emergency at the individual and community level. Responses are welcome from both individuals and on behalf of organisations. As the documents are intended for use by the public, responses from the general public are especially welcomed.

The consultation will close on 1 July 2010. We aim to publish the Government response to the consultation and finalised documents in October 2010.

Please submit your consultation responses by 1 July 2010 to community.resilience@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov.uk or by post at Community Resilience Team, Civil Contingencies Secretariat, 22 Whitehall, London, SW1A 2WH.

You can also use the ‘Have your say’ discussion to tell us what you think of the documents if you do not wish to submit a formal response.

If you have any queries about the consultation please contact Rob Doran or Laura Gibb on 020 7276 5295/5294.

Document Downloads

• Strategic National Framework for Community Resilience [PDF 25 pages, 256KB] - A strategic overview of the Government’s contribution to building and enhancing community resilience across the UK.
• Revised Preparing for Emergencies leaflet [PDF 20 pages, 1.4MB] – An updated version of the Preparing for Emergencies booklet – aimed at encouraging individuals and households to become better prepared to deal with the impacts of emergencies.
• Preparing for Emergencies - Guide for communities leaflet [PDF 10 pages, 723KB] – An introduction for communities who are new to emergency preparedness and want to help their community be better able to cope with emergencies.
• Community Emergency Plan Guidance and template [PDF 30 pages, 1MB] – A practical guide and template to help communities create a Community Emergency Plan.
  • Community Emergency Plan template [Word document] – Word version of the above template.

Response questionnaires

• Draft Strategic National Framework – Consultation response form [Word document]
• Draft Preparing for Emergencies leaflet – Consultation response form [Word document]
• Draft Preparing for Emergencies – a guide for communities - Consultation response form [Word document]
• Draft Community Emergency Plan Guidance and template - Consultation response form [Word document]

Key Links

• www.direct.gov.uk/preparingforemergencies [External website] - Preparing for Emergencies – where you will find the current advice on how to prepare for an emergency.
• www.schoolemergencies.info [External website] – Website of the Developing Community Resilience Through Schools project - run by Essex and Nottinghamshire County Councils and their Beacon Authority partners. It aims to help schools and their students to become better prepared for emergencies.
• www.informedprepared.eu [External website] – Red Cross led and EU Commission supported project to bring together resources and best practice from across Europe to support those involved in civil protection/community resilience.