Civil Protection Unit
Under the requirements of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, the emergency services and the council have specific legal duties to plan for and respond to civil emergencies in the borough. The council also has a legal duty to prepare, test and exercise business continuity plans for its core public essential services so that these services can be maintained during major emergencies.
Emergency Planning/Contingency Planning in London is delivered by contingency planning teams across all category 1 responders. These include the Metropolitan Police, London Fire Brigade Emergency Planning Authority, London Ambulance Service Emergency Planning Resilience and Response and all 33 London boroughs.
The Tower Hamlets Civil Protection Unit produce, maintain, review and update the council’s generic Major Emergency Plan and a number of specific emergency plans.
Emergency plans are regularly reviewed and exercised with any post incident learning points applied to further plan updates.
National Resilience Standards for Local Resilience Forums (LRFs)
A set of individual standards have been produced for LRFs to identify good and leading practices. It will also help them self-assure their capabilities and overall level of readiness.
Resilience Standards for London
With London being quite unique, this set of standards have been produced for London local authorities. These standards have been developed to support continuous improvement and assurance within a council.
All London local authorities will self-assess against each of the eleven standards every two to three years. Each standard contains a ‘Descriptor’ (developing, established and advanced). The descriptor provides a framework for each borough to reach a view on its current level of performance, based on the evidence.
Following each self-assessment, boroughs will seek assurance from their peers from neighbouring boroughs. This will be in an annual challenge session to assess progress and to share experience and leading practice.
Assessing potential risks assist us in our planning
Understanding what hazards and threats we may face in London can help us understand what we need to prepare for. Therefore we assess our risks locally alongside our key response partners in line with the London Risk Register.
Emergency planning
An overview on emergency planning in Tower Hamlets and how we link into the pan London arrangements can be found in a short guide to Emergency Planning in Tower Hamlets.
Please see the section on business continuity for information and assistance on writing a business continuity plan.
Further information