courtesy Pilgrims
The Pitt Review: The Government Responds
Jennifer Cole, RUSI's Head of Emergency Management, says the government's measured response should result in an improved Civil Contingencies Act
Nearly five months after the publication of The Pitt Review ( archive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/pittreview/thepittreview.html ) the Government's official reply to the recommendations ( www.defra.gov.uk/environ/fcd/floods07/Govtresptopitt.pdf )made within it was finally released on December 17 2008 by Defra, the department that is now responsible for making sure those recommendations are implemented.
There has been some criticism of the delay in releasing a response originally planned for 'the autumn'. A more responsible attitude, however, would be to accept that the five months the Government took to consider the recommendations should ensure that any new flood resilience measures introduced because of them will be robust and effective in the long-term, and not just knee-jerk reactions.
After all, few stakeholders will have waited until the response was released before taking action. Many of the ninety-two recommendations made by Sir Michael Pitt in his final report have already have been, or are being, implemented. As was made clear by Martin Hurst, Director of Water at Defra, at RUSI's annual Emergency Response workshop the week before the response was released ( www.rusi.org/events/past/ref:E48D3D436E25B1 his presentation is downloadable from here) : "if people are waiting [for the Government's reply to the Pitt Review] they shouldn't. If they are waiting for the Floods and Water Bill before doing anything then they shouldn't, either. It's incumbent on all of us to address the issue as soon as we can".
Defra's response acknowledges that there are different stages of flood resilience and that each is equally important to managing the risk: the document is split into sections covering flood prediction, preparedness, response and recovery. There are also specific sections on maintaining essential supplies, such as water and electricity, and ensuring that the public are aware of their own responsibilities.
These last two are perhaps the most important. The issues surrounding critical infrastructure protection and community resilience were very much in the spotlight during the 2007 floods. A need for greater awareness of, and involvement in, contingency planning amongst Category 2 responders was identified: too many of them did not understand the structure of the Strategic Co-ordinating Groups or the Gold/Silver/Bronze command structure until they suddenly found themselves thrust into such arenas. This must not be allowed to happen again. Similarly, a need to understand the responsibilities the public must take for themselves was also highlighted, from making adequate insurance provision to co-ordinating a response from within the community that will relieve pressure on over-stretched emergency services.
Most importantly for the future, the summer 2007 floods were the first serious test of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, of its all-hazards approach and its need to be flexible enough to cope with whatever Mother Nature, as well as Osama bin Laden, decides to throw at the UK in the twenty-first century. While it would be wrong to suggest that the devastation was a good thing, its timing was well-placed to inform and drive the focus of the Civil Contingencies Act Enhancement Programme (CCAEP) [please link to www.ukresilience.gov.uk/news/ccact_enhancement_programme.aspx] - the Act's first major review - which has recently started and will continue until 2011.
Anticipating what enhancements might be needed had the Act never been tested would have been far more difficult than responding to actual shortcomings highlighted by experience. The timing also ensures that the recommendations made in The Pitt Review can be incorporated into the revised Emergency Response and Recovery ( www.ukresilience.gov.uk/preparedness/ccact/errpdfs.aspx ) guidance document due to be published in Spring 2009.
It is important that The Pitt Review, its recommendations and the way in which they are taken forward are applied to all civil contingencies and not just to flooding. To address this, the Government promises programmes to reduce disruption to essential services by natural hazards, and frameworks that will help to build resilience and promote business continuity within the essential services sector. A National Resilience Forum (separate from the National Security Forum announced in March 2008) will be established to facilitate national level multi-agency planning for flooding and other emergencies and a new department within Defra will co-ordinate with the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) to fill the gaps between that organisation's work on protecting critical infrastructure sites from security threats and Defra's work on protecting them from the natural hazards to which they are, arguably, more vulnerable.
All of this is to be welcomed. The Pitt Review itself and the Government's measured response should ensure that the CCAEP is based on bitter experience and not just the best considered planning assumptions. The result will be a Civil Contingencies Act that has not only been revised but also tried and tested, and which should therefore be more capable of rising to similar challenges in the future.
Further commentary on the Government's response to The Pitt Review can be found on the RUSI website at: www.rusi.org/research/hsr/intro/commentary/ref:C494A850A9D0E9/
An article on the CCAEP will appear in the March issue of RUSI Monitor, published in early February.
Jennifer Cole
Head of Emergency Management
Department of National Security and Resilience
Royal United Services Institute www.rusi.org
