AGENDA ITEM 5
BOROUGH OF POOLE
EMERGENCY COMMITTEE
24th JULY 2006
FUNDING EMERGENCY PLANNING WORK
PART OF PUBLISHED FORWARD PLAN: No
1.PURPOSE AND POLICY CONTEXT
1.1The purpose of this report is to seek members consideration of the need to provide a one off additional resource to speed up the Council’s response to the new civil contingency requirements.
2. RECOMMENDATIONS
2.1Members are asked to consider either,
recommending to Cabinet the need to identify an additional £ 30,000 to fund the one off additional work to speed up the Council’s response to its new civil contingency requirements, or
recommending that Service Units should allocate specific staff resource and time to complete the business continuity work or that they allocate a proportionate amount of funding to pay for specialist support.
3. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
3.1. The basic ‘set’ of duties under the Civil Contingency Act together with the status of implementation are as follows:
a. Co-operation and Information Sharing - The requirement is to have resilience forum(s) in place and working effectively to address multi-agency planning.
This has been met by the formation the Bournemouth & Poole Resilience Group (BPRG) to address the specific needs of the conurbation, the Dorset Local Resilience Forum (DLRF) for the wider Dorset area and the Regional Resilience Forum (RRF) based at GOSW Bristol for the South West Region.
A key support element to the BPRG is the web-portal developed by the Poole EPO (who is the system manager) for this resilience group. This portal has a public domain area for residents and businesses as well as username and password protected areas for partner organisations such as the DLRF, Poole and Bournemouth. The portal can be viewed at
The Poole protected area currently contains:
1. A link to the Community Risk Register on-line database (see below)
2. A common contacts directory of emergency contact telephone numbers (where users can submit changes to their own telephone numbers, and obtain a printout of all or part of the directory at any time).
3. An electronic plans library where a range of plans in .pdf format can be viewed or downloaded by those with username and password access.
b. Community Risk Register (CRR) Produced - The requirement is to have in place a multi-agency register (database) of hazards or threats that may affect a particular area, and to have assessed the risk of each hazard or threat.
A CRR was produced by the Poole EPO for the BPRG, initially as a stand-alone database and subsequently as an SQL (Standard Query Language) database module, which has been incorporated within the BPRG web portal protected areas.
The CRR on-line database also serves the DLRF and as such contains hazard data relating to the conurbation, Dorset districts, pan-Dorset risks and regional/national risks. Some 170 risk records have currently been identified and incorporated.
c. Communicating with the Public (warning and informing) - The requirement is to have in place facilities to inform the public, provide warning of public risks, and keep the public informed in an emergency.
Much of this duty is met by the BPRG web portal, which is being developed to be the primary (but not only) means to meet this duty.
The site has a public domain area that provides information to residents and businesses, and also provides advice and information on a range of emergency scenarios and well as an “E-Alert” facility which enables individuals and organisations to subscribe (free of charge) and then receive alerting and follow-up information by e-mail from Dorset Police when incidents occur or when important messages (i.e. Heatwave warnings) need to be promulgated.
d. Advice to Businesses - The requirement is to provide advice to those undertaking commercial activities and to voluntary organisations in relation to business continuity management in the event of emergencies. This duty falls to Local Authorities only
The BPRG portal already contains information aimed at businesses and voluntary organisations regarding:
1. Business continuity
2. Information security
3. Crime reduction
4. Security advice
e. Emergency Plans in Place - It was accepted that it would be impossible to have in place plans and arrangements by mid 2006 to address all the risks that the CRR holds, particularly as the more broader definition of emergencies mean that the number of potential risk areas have increase significantly.
The (new) requirement was therefore that a “generic emergency response plan” should be in place, and that other plans and arrangements will be developed over a 4 year cycle to address the CRR risks on a priority basis.
The Poole ‘Civil Contingencies Incident Response Plan’ has been produced as a result and had been sent (in .pdf format by e-mail) to Management Team, Service Unit Heads and those with a specific emergency response role for consultation. The plan (amongst other plans) is also located in the electronic plans library module of the BPRG website.
The BPRG and soon the DLRF have commenced addressing conurbation risks contained within the CRR database on a priority basis (very high risks first) in order that multi-agency plans and arrangements may be developed over a 4 year cycle.
f. Business Continuity Plans in Place - The requirement is to have in place Business Continuity Plans in order that Category 1 responders ensure that they can continue to exercise their functions in an emergency so far as is reasonably practicable. This is not an Emergency Planning function but is rather a “business delivery” function that ideally all Service Units should have in place.
To date the only facility that has viable BCP arrangements in place is the Borough Operations Centre (which has been proven in the recent major incident involving a wide area power loss). Previous attempts (3 of) to encourage BCP within the Council have failed. At the time of production of this report work is on-going to develop BCP arrangements for the new Customer Services unit.
3.2. The workload that is associated with these duties includes:
a. Liaison with numerous agencies (cabinet office, government agencies, GOSW, emergency services, voluntary agencies and neighbouring local authorities).
b. Representation and attendance at local resilience forums and also on sub groups and working groups at a local, county and regional level.
c. Development and maintenance of plans in association with other responding agencies and internal service units.
d. Providing training opportunities via training events, seminars and workshops.
e. Preparing, planning and conducting exercises at all levels (strategic, tactical and operational) In conjunction with other agencies.
f. Identification and assessment of potential and existing risks in conjunction with the emergency services, government agencies and other organisations for local, wide area and regional issues
g. Implementing business continuity/disaster recovery facilities and arrangements within the council to ensure service delivery. Supporting service units in establishing their business continuity arrangements.
h. Promoting business continuity/disaster recovery, and providing advice and assistance to the wider business community and voluntary organisations.
i. The design, implementation and maintenance of on-line information facilities for the public, business and for partner organisations.
j. Providing a 24/7 emergency response service via a duty officer scheme.
4. CURRENT RESOURCES
4.1. The current staffing level is 1 x full time officer which is all can be accommodated within the Government funding allocated to the Council.. This may be compared to staffing levels in neighbouring authorities which can be seen at Annex A.
4.2. Although good progress has been made with the implementation of the new duties, There is a need for a short term additional resource to enable Council to adequately address these new challenges. Unfortunately the allocation of central government grant support for the function is not sufficient to recruit more staff, and as from 2006/7 monies will no longer be paid as a specific grant, but will become part of the RSG.
5.PROPOSED AREAS WHERE EXTRA RESOURCES ARE REQUIRED
5.1.It is proposed that the existing emergency planning resource in the Council concentrates on corporate preparations.
5.2. Other areas may be ‘outsourced’ (by temporary support contracts). Such work areas may be:
a. Business continuity planning
b. Exercise development and programmes
c. Training (primarily via the Emergency Planning College, Easingwold)
5.3Additional resources would be required on the following basis,
Business continuity plans for service units 5 days average per service unit x 20 units @ £ 200 a day = £ 20,000
Business continuity advice to small and medium enterprises
10 days £ 200 a day= £ 2,000
Training audit and programme including internal and external delivery
12 days @ £ 200= £ 2,400
Costs associated with above work £ 5,000
Total additional resource requirement£ 30,000
The above rates are based on seeking consultant support an alternative may be a fixed terms time limited contract to provide the necessary outputs.
5.4.An alternative approach would be to request Service Units to either provide the dedicated staff and time resources to undertake the required work on business continuity or the funding to purchase specialist support. Emergency Committee could monitor the approach adopted by Service units at future meetings.
6.CONCLUSIONS
6.1. The additional new workload required to meet all the duties under the CCA cannot be carried out by a single, unsupported post holder.
6.2. The need therefore exists to “buy in” support via the use of temporary contracts/consultants to address some of the work areas required under the Act.
SIMON HENDEY
HEAD OF HOUSING AND COMMUNITY SERVICES
ANNEX A
EP MANNING LEVELS - SOUTH WEST
Council / Population / No of EP staffBristol City / 393,000 / 7
Bath & North East Somerset / 178,000 / 6
North Somerset / 188,000 / 5
Plymouth City / 244,000 / 4
Torbay / 132,000 / 2
Swindon / 180,000 / 3
Bournemouth / 163,000 / 2
Poole / 140,000 / 1
Cornwall County / 506,000 / 11
Dorset County / 360,000 / 8 (+ EPLOs at districts
Devon County / 1 million / 6 (+ 7 staff in districts)
Gloucestershire County / 572,000 / 11
Somerset County / 498,000 / 9
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