Agenda item

(1)       Paul Flaherty (Kent Fire and Rescue) gave a presentation in his capacity as Chairman of the Training and Exercise Group of the Kent Resilience Forum. The slides are contained with the electronic agenda papers on the KCC website.

(2)       Mr Flaherty said that the Kent Resilience Forum (KRF) had been set up as a requirement of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 to provide a joined up and co-ordinated response in the event of a large scale civil emergency.  It had established Category 1 and Category 2 Responders. Category 1 Responders included Kent County Council, the District Councils, the Police, Fire and Ambulance services, the NHS, Public Health England and the Environment Agency. Category 2 Responders included ports and utilities such as the water and power companies.   Overall, there were nearly 100 organisations within the Kent Resilience Forum. 18 to 20 of these were major stakeholders who attended most of the constituent planning groups.  

(3)       Mr Flaherty said that the Environment Agency attended many KRF meetings as a Category 1 Responder and that they also convened the Severe Weather Advisory Group (SWAG) in the event of a flood risk.  SWAG would discuss next steps in response to predicted flood conditions.  

(4)        Mr Flaherty identified some of the matters which had required either a co-ordinated response or joint working in preparation for potential emergencies, ranging from the coastal floods of 1953, to the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster in 1987, the 2012 London Olympics and latterly Operation Stack.

(5)       Mr Flaherty went on to set out the structure of the KRF.  All Category 1 Responders were represented on its Strategic Group which met every six months, usually at Chief Executive level.  The Executive Group (Director level) met quarterly in order to set out operational priorities.

(6)       Mr Flaherty then said that three Groups sat below the Executive Group. The first of these was the Risk Assessment Group which had published the Kent Community Risk Register in 2016.  An example of this Group’s work was in identifying the biggest risk to Kent as that from coastal flooding; particularly tidal surge.  As a consequence, Exercise Surge had taken place in September 2016 in order to assess response capability in Kent.  He said that a major reason why Kent had played a lesser role in Exercise Certus was that Kent’s capacity had already been tested. Exercise Surge had been focussed upon New Romney because of the 14,000 people who would potentially need to be evacuated from the Marsh in the event of major tidal flooding.  The issue facing the responders was how to do so when the key highways infrastructure was out of action due to being under water.  He explained that a major reason for siting the Environment Agency equipment depot in Rye was that it was easier to get equipment to the Marshes from there than by using other routes.

(7)       Mr Flaherty continued by saying that the Emergency Plans and Capabilities Group had the role of ensuring that the KRF had the plans to deal with identified risks, but also that they had the capability to do so.  An example of the work undertaken in this regard was the work that had been done over the past two years with the EA in training flood wardens. All the most at risk parishes in Kent now had trained flood wardens.  Exercise Surge had tested the Pan Kent Flood Plan to ensure that all Districts and Parishes were in a position to respond effectively, based on the particular needs in their areas.

(8)       The Training Group, which Mr Flaherty chaired, ensured that everyone who was implementing the plans was sufficiently trained to do so.  This training was undertaken by the individual agencies themselves rather than by the KRF. Exercise Surge had tested whether this had taken place and been effective.  The Training Group also acted as a focal point for the provision of generic joint training at a local level.  The aim was to ensure that when people from various local authorities and agencies were working together, the first thing they would say to one another would be “how are you?” rather than “who are you?”

(9)       Mr Flaherty said that the KRF had helped deliver a number of exercises in 2016.  These were Exercise Unified Response (February) which had been London’s largest ever civil resilience exercise (but had taken place in Kent), Exercise Combine on the Isle of Grain (April), Exercise Distant Echo at Ashford (May), Operation Fennel table top which was linked to Operation Stack (July), Exercise Surge (October) and Exercise Cygnus which was an NHS exercise in respect of a flu pandemic (October).  All of the District Councils and KCC had been involved in these exercises.

(10)     Mr Flaherty turned to the Kent Resilience Team (KRT). Kent was quite unique in having created a single team which effectively managed the day-to day work of the KRF.  Membership of the Team was drawn from Kent Police (2), Kent Fire and Rescue (2) and KCC, who provided 8 personnel. It was based at Fire HQ in Tovil and had been very efficient and effective.  Kent Fire and Rescue provided the Manager, with KCC and Kent Police each providing a Team Supervisor.  It was able to keep on top of and update all its Plans, culminating in an annual Seminar.  The major exercise planned for 2017 would test how Kent as a county could cope with mass fatalities.

(11)     The KRT had initially been established in 2013 as a 3 year project.  All the partner agencies had agreed that it was worth continuing.  Negotiations were well underway amongst the three partner agencies to make the KRT a permanent entity from April 2017 onwards on a rolling three year programme.  All the KRF’s major partners either had agreed or were in the process of agreeing to participate in the agreement by providing funding for the KRF and/or embedding personnel into the KRT.  In addition to the three permanent members of the KRT, the EA and Medway Council hot desked there two days each week. Other agencies such as the Ambulance Service and Public Health England were also regularly working at the Head Office. 

(12)     Mrs Brown asked why KALC was not involved in the partnership, particularly as they could bring their vast experience of local conditions to the table.  Mr Flaherty replied that the KRF worked with KALC, but that it was not a Category 1 or 2 Responder as set out in the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.  He added that there were a number of voluntary organisations where the same consideration applied. Nevertheless, the KRF worked very closely with all of them.

(13)     Mr Vye asked whether there were any plans for an exercise involving fluvial flooding.  Mr Flaherty said in reply that there were a number of local, single agency exercises every year.  From the KRF’s perspective, exercises took place for one of three reasons.  These were: a) that an event had taken place nationally which had caused the KRF to reflect on its own plans and to test whether its plans were able to meet the same scenario; b) an event had occurred in Kent which had demonstrated that the plans needed to be revised; and/or c) a plan had been updated and revised to such an extent that it needed to be tested in order to ensure that it worked.  The major exercise in 2016 had been on coastal flooding. It would be based on a flu pandemic in 2017.  It was likely to again be on flooding in 2018 and it was possible that it would involve a more localised fluvial flooding scenario. 

(14)     Mr Hills said that as a participant in Exercise Surge, he had not noticed any RNLI involvement.  He asked how closely the KRF worked with them. Mr Flaherty replied that they worked very closely with the RNLI. They had been involved in the exercise although they had not put people on the ground on the day itself. This was because it was felt that if Romney Marsh was under threat, it was highly likely that other areas would be affected too. The RNLI would, in such circumstances be focussing its activities more widely. There was a Register of Pan Kent Flood Assets, which included all the assets in the RNLI possession as well as those from the Red Cross and the RSPCA and others.   The RNLI also featured very heavily on the national asset plan for flooding.

(15)     In reply to a question from Mrs Blanford, Mr Flaherty said that the KRF’s Strategic Group met every six months, the Executive Group every three months, as did the three Groups below it.  All of the District Authorities were represented at all of those meetings.  In addition, there were partnership agreements with each of the Districts, giving them a nominated point of contact within the KRT.  This contact occurred on a regular weekly basis.

(16)     RESOLVED that Paul Flaherty be thanked for his presentation and that the report be noted for assurance.