Minutes:
(1) Mr Cloake began his presentation by saying that the Kent Resilience Forum was chaired by Kent Police. The multi-agency funded Business Management Support Unit (BMSU) co-ordinated all its activities.
(2) Resilience Forums had been established in 2005 in response to the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. They were based on each Police area. They were, however, statutory processes rather than legal entities.
(3) The Kent Resilience Forum had a range of duties relating to the development of the Community Risk register, planning for emergencies, planning for business continuity management, the preparation of multi-agency plans, training and exercising, warning and informing the public.
(4) Mr Cloake set out a list of the KRF partners. The Category 1 Responders were Kent Police, Kent and Medway Fire and Rescue, KCC, the District Councils, Environment Agency, Health Protection Agency, NHS and Transport Police. The KRF was chaired at a strategic level by the Chief Constable and met twice yearly. All Category 1 responders had a statutory responsibility to engage actively in its work. Category 2 responders (utility companies, transport organisations, the military) had a right to attend KRF meetings. The KRF was serviced by the BMSU.
(5) Mr Cloake went on to describe the KRF structure chart, focusing on the Executive Group which was chaired by Steve Demetriou from KMFRS. This Group discharged strategic requirements and oversaw the work of the Workstreams. These were dedicated groups working on Risk, Public Warning and Information, Training and Exercise, Business Continuity, Severe Weather, Health and Emergency Planning. Meanwhile, the “Pitt Severe Weather Group looked more widely at all aspects of severe weather. All the agencies involved shared a collective will to work closely together.
(6) Mr Cloake then described the Kent Community Risk Register in greater detail. He said that it been created as a public document to provide assurance for local people that the necessary measures and plans were in place to deal with a variety of emergencies (such as flooding, pandemics, heat waves, fuel shortages). It was a key tool in the development of the KRF Strategic Business Plan.
(7) Mr Cloake concluded his presentation by outlining the processes of the KRF. He summarised them by saying that they represented “good bureaucracy”. KRF was one of the very best Resilience Forums in the Country as was its Flood Risk planning.
(8) In response to a question from Mr Vye, Mr Douch from the Environment Agency said that the philosophy of Emergency Planning was to produce both generic and specific plans. In the area of flooding, this entailed multi-agency flood risk planning at District level. This enabled a broad portfolio of generic capability together with specific capabilities. The Risk Register would only identify the credible risks (where the likelihood of an event occurring was balanced by its potential impact. A key indicator of a plan’s effectiveness was its “extendability”. This meant that a Plan would need to be the basis for a response on a much greater scale than had been anticipated.
(9) Mr Douch also said that it was clearly evident that KRF was well focussed on a multi-agency level. All agencies were expected to share costs from their revenue budgets. This contributed to broad ownership of all flooding-related issues across the County.
(10) The Committee considered that it would be essential for its Members to attend a KRF seminar when flooding was the main item on the agenda.
(11) RESOLVED that the report be noted and that Mr Cloake be thanked for his presentation.