Our role in emergency resilience is as a 'responder'. We need to make sure we can cope with incidents, with careful forward planning. We then respond to it and do what we can to ease the impact it has on us all. We work very closely with emergency services and other responders to make sure this happens. This includes voluntary organisations, local community groups and the Scottish Government.
What are we planning for?
We need to be ready for any incident that threatens serious damage to human welfare or the environment. Included in this is war or terrorism that threatens serious damage to the security of the UK.
Examples of this are:
- severe weather
- a fuel crisis
- a flu pandemic
- a gas leak/explosion
- an IT/communications failure
- a terrorist attack.
Legislation
Under the Civil Contingencies (2004) Act, we are legally required to work in partnership with other responders to make sure we have an emergency plan in place for an incident. We then look at how we recover from it.
The above Act defines the following organisations as either category 1, 2, or other responders in Scotland.
Category 1 responders:
- Local councils
- Police Scotland
- Scottish Ambulance Service
- Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
- NHS Health Boards
- Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA)
- Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
Category 2 responders:
- Gas and electricity companies
- rail and air transport operators
- harbour authorities
- telecommunications providers
- Scottish Water
- the Health and Safety Executive
- NHS National Services Scotland.
Other organisations that could provide support in an incident include:
- Scottish Government
- the Military
- local communities
- voluntary organisations.
How does Fife Council meet this legal requirement?
Our Emergency Resilience Team (ERT) make sure Fife Council follows the Civil Contingencies (2004) Act. They cover the three stages of the emergency resilience process:
- Prepare
- Respond
- Recover
During the planning stage, the ERT will:
- get involved in the Fife risk assessment process. They will help to identify key risks which could impact on Fife and its communities. It points out areas where we need to plan, train and exercise. This is together with our colleagues in emergency response organisations.
- help put together the Community Risk Register. The risk assessments find the likely risks in the area. It rates them in terms of their potential impact and likelihood of occurring. These assessments are then used to come up with agreed multi-agency plans and procedures.
- write and review our own emergency plans.
- help to come up with multi-agency emergency plans.
- support our colleagues in other services with their own action plans.
- work closely with these services to arrange awareness sessions and training. People need to know how to respond to and recover from an incident in Fife.
- give advice to individuals or organisations in Fife about planning and responding to incidents.
During an incident, the ERT will:
- work with other category 1 and 2 responders
- warn and inform the public of an incident. They will also offer advice or instructions on how to act
- request support from voluntary organisations if required
- notify and support existing community resilience groups in affected area
The support and resources we can offer includes:
- People
- Needs of the people
- Emergency rest centres
- Short-term temporary accommodation for displaced people
- Infrastructure
- Environment
- Environmental Health
- Animal health and welfare
- Natural resources and habitats
- Economy
We're the lead organisation for the recovery phase, following an incident in Fife. We'll:
- look at the long-term effects of the incident on all areas of Fife. How has it affected our people?
- Has our infrastructure or environment been affected? We'll also look at economy and tourism and the impact it's had on those areas.
- make sure the action we take is co-ordinated with any other agencies that still have a role to play in recovery.
We hope we've provided you with a brief insight into how Fife Council is preparing for incidents
If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact the Emergency Resilience Team at emergency.planning@fife.gov.uk
You can also find out more about emergency resilience on Ready Scotland. You can also visit the How Scotland Prepares page if you’d like to know more about the national emergency resilience structure.
For more information, please contact the Emergency Resilience Team by emailing emergency.planning@fife.gov.uk