Issue - meetings

Emergency planning and business continuity are statutory duties for BCP Council. The reporting period has been characterised by remaining resilient and maintaining essential response and planning activity at a local level, whilst at a national level there has been considerable scrutiny of emergency planning and response through the publication of two public inquiries reports.

The Emergency Planning and Resilience Manager presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'E' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

The report provided an update on the statutory emergency planning and business continuity arrangements in place across BCP Council and related activity during the period from November 2023 to October 2024. It was noted that activity had been more reactive than proactive due to two long term vacancies. These posts had recently been filled, enabling work previously delayed to be progressed. The Emergency Planning and Resilience Manager outlined the key focus of activities since November 2023, including the human aspects area of work, a two day multi agency live exercise based on coastal flooding and building community resilience across the BCP Council area. Nationally there had been considerable scrutiny of emergency planning and response through the publication of two public inquiries reports in relation to the Covid inquiry and Grenfell.

Committee members asked what steps were in place to contact local councillors when incidents occurred. Members were assured that communicating with councillors formed part of the tactical response and that work was ongoing with Democratic Services to ensure there was an updated contact list. Members discussed the role of councillors at all tiers of local government in acting as a conduit of information for their residents and for alerting local social media groups.

Officers responded to questions on a number of issues, including:

• The key partners who formed the membership of the Dorset Local Resilience Forum.

• It was confirmed that there was no local facility to replicate the Government’s national emergency text alerts. There were separate legislative requirements for certain facilities, e.g. oil and nuclear
• It was conformed that the cyber response plan had been tested and was subject to ongoing development. Business continuity impact assessments were reviewed regularly.
• There had been no significant disruptions requiring the involvement of business continuity in a corporate response during this period.

RESOLVED that:

(a)  the Committee notes the emergency planning and business continuity activity that has taken place during the monitoring period; 

(b)  the Committee notes the issues there have been within the Emergency Planning Team and more widely regarding resource and the impact this has had on service delivery and the potential impact for response;

(c)  the Committee notes the current resilience position locally and nationally and the implications of this with regard to future expectations of local authorities and their level of preparedness.