Background
This annexe provides details of a review of KCR 11, Major Incidents
The description of this risk is as follows:-
KCR 11 MAJOR INCIDENTS: Failure to respond appropriately to major incidents. Local Authorities are required by law to prepare to deal with emergencies. Local Authorities have four main responsibilities in an emergency
1. to support the Emergency Services,
2. to co-ordinate non-emergency organisations,
3. to maintain their own services through a robust Business Continuity Management process,
4. to facilitate the recovery of the community and
5. since 2013 the council also has a statutory duty to protect the health of the population under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and the transfer of public health responsibilities to local authorities.
The Council must ensure that its resources are used to best effect in providing relief and mitigating the effects of a major peacetime emergency on the population, infrastructure and environment coming under it’s administration. This will be done either alone or in conjunction with the Emergency Services and other involved agencies, including neighbouring authorities.
The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (CCA) defines City of York Council (CYC) as a Category 1 organisation and has enhanced responsibilities as a result.
The CCA is the driver for how agencies prepare and plan for emergencies, working nationally, locally and co-operatively to ensure civil protection in the UK
Risk Detail
An uncoordinated or poor response to a major incident such as:
• Flood
• Major Fire
• Terrorist Attack
• Pandemic
· Failure to protect citizens from the adverse impacts of climate change
· Potential for rolling commercial power outages over winter
· Increasing frequency of extreme weather events
· Radicalisation and emergence of extremism and terrorism
· Warning and Informing is a key responsibility of Category 1 responders. It is important therefore that in times of emergency this responsibility is exercised in a timely way, not to do so has the potential to put a communities at risk
Implications/consequences
Death or serious injury
Damage to property
The council may experience a reputational impact if services are not delivered to a good standard
Potential for litigation
Potential for corporate manslaughter charges if risks are identified and proposed actions not implemented
Reduction in life expectancy and quality of life
Civil disturbances
Risk to community cohesion
City of York Emergency Planning
The City of York council Emergency Planning function sits in the Directorate of Environment, Transport and Planning under a Director who is a trained Multi Agency Gold Incident Commander (MAGIC) and responsible for ensuring the organisation fulfils its statutory responsibilities.
Planning, preparedness and response is provided by a shared service collaboration with North Yorkshire Council, the York work plan overseen by the City of York Resilience and Contingencies Manager, this includes the out of hours on call provision, engaging with all City of York service providers such as Highways, Adult and Children Social Care, Public Health, Housing, Building Control and Communications and Engagement etc. to provide our local response to incidents and escalation protocols. The Council has a Director on Call Rota some services also have out of hours arrangements according to the risks.
Officers engaged in emergency incident response are required to complete corporate training, attending events and exercises as required for continued personal professional development.
The service is audited regularly at local level by Veritau and has a separate assurance process for the LRF
City of York partners
1Local engagement with other responder organisations is provided formally at the Water Safety Group, Flood Group, Protect Group, Safety Advisory Groups and feed into the Integrated Emergency Management Group, identified risks or issues escalated into the York Corporate Emergency Planning Group, Corporate Management Team and if multi agency response is required the Local Resilience Forum Emergency Planning and Risk Groups.
Local Resilience Forum (LRF)
The Chief Operating Officer is a member of the York and North Yorkshire Local Resilience Forum Executive Board and responsible for developing the LRF strategy for 2025 to 2030. The secretariat function is provided by North Yorkshire Council with funding provided by partner agencies.
Six themes have been taken directly from the UK Resilience Framework that have been determined to be important for York and North Yorkshires Resilience
• Risk: NYLRF will continue to make effective risk assessment the foundation of our resilience activity. We will make the best possible use of available information and expertise when seeking to understand the risks we face and take steps to improve our collective understanding of local and regional resilience capabilities.
• Responsibility and accountability: NYLRF will facilitate effective leadership within and across organisations and will be responsible and accountable to partners and communities within York and North Yorkshire for providing an effective framework for emergency management.
• Partnerships: NYLRF will build cohesive, healthy and resilient partnerships with new and existing entities that support more effective emergency management and enable us to capitalise on new technology and the wealth of expertise in the county
• Communities: NYLRF will build cohesive, healthy and resilient communities who are ready to respond together and recover well from adverse events
• Investment: NYLRF will seek opportunities for investment to support and strengthen York and North Yorkshire in preventing, preparing for, responding to and recovering from major incidents and emergencies.
• Skills: NYLRF will ensure that we have the right people with the right skills to support this strategy.
Controls Measures for KCR11
Emergency planning and Business Continuity Plans in place and regularly reviewed along with regional risk registers
Increased exercising and training opportunities
Business Continuity training for all managers
Regular review of emergency and business continuity plans
Strong partnerships with Police, Fire, Environment Agency and other agencies with principles such as JESIP and METHANE built into the way we work together
Support to Regional Resilience forums
Support and work in partnership with North Yorkshire local resilience forums
Investment in Community Resilience (re Flooding)
Work with partners across the city to minimise the risk of a terrorist attack through Protect and Prepare Group and Hostile Vehicle Management projects
Development of the local outbreak control plan and a variety of internal recovery strategies
Local outbreak prevention, management and response in place
Climate change mitigation and adaptation program
Regular review and reporting of carbon emissions
Carbon reduction and climate change action plan regular updates to Executive/CMT
Communications to citizens about steps they can take to reduce impact of climate change
Sustainability leads group to encourage city partners to work together to reduce impact of Climate change
Communications incident management plans, including outbreak
Directorate risk registers will include relevant climate change risks
Involvement in National planning and exercises
Prevent Situational Risk Assessment in place. The York Prevent Local Delivery Group will mitigate risks from radicalisation and report to the Safer York Partnership and the York & North Yorkshire Prevent Partnership Board.
ACT guidance for Local Authorities
Corporate Emergency Planning Group established to improve resilience of the Council and our Communities and provide assurance we are resilient in Integrated Emergency Management* and comply with the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. (*Anticipate, assess, prevent, prepare, respond and recover)
The LRF is currently undertaking a review of capabilities linked with risk for all partner agencies
NYLRF strategy and priorities 2025 to 2030.
Application of National Resilience Standards and compliance check
National Tier 1 exercises completed for Counter Terrorism, Utility Outage, Pandemic and Cyber planned for early 2026
Local exercises in York include strategic level Cyber, Flooding, Counter Terrorism York Minster and power outage, and tactical level for Music in the Museum Gardens, Racecourse and Community Stadium
Risk Owner and Actions
Garry Taylor – risk owner Director of City Development
Dave Atkinson – Director Environment and Regulatory Services
Individual directorates – where appropriate as Gold / Silver Commanders and lead directors for the strategies impacting control measures
Steve Ball – Emergency Planning - Resilience and Contingencies Manager