Civil emergency whole system preparedness: 2025 report

1. Resilience Arrangements

Legislation

In Scotland, emergency planning and preparedness is underpinned by two key pieces of legislation. The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (the Act) and the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (Contingency Planning) (Scotland) Regulations 2005 (as amended), which outline the key organisations and their duties to prepare for civil emergencies within Scotland.

The Act was introduced to establish a clear framework for emergency preparedness and response across the UK. To enable this, the Act places a number of legal duties upon Category 1 responders, which includes duties to prepare and maintain emergency plans, communicate, co-operate and share information.

For Category 2 responders, the basic legislative principle is that they must co-operate with Category 1 responders in connection with the performance of their duties, including proper sharing of information.

Category 1 and 2 responders (categorised responders) are defined in the Act, as key organisations responsible for ensuring the effective management of emergencies, as well as other organisations and groups who have an important role in the context of resilience.

Category 1 Responders include emergency services, health boards, local authorities, Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Maritime and Coastguard Agency and Integration Joint Boards. Category 2 Responders include electricity operators, Scottish Water, communication, gas and public transport operators and providers. Other organisations and groups which have an important role in the context of resilience include the Scottish Government, the military, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and the voluntary sector.

Preparing Scotland

Preparing Scotland is a suite of well used guidance documents, published by the Scottish Government to assist Scotland’s resilience community understand and implement the requirements of the Act and to promote good practice. Preparing Scotland is comprised of a parent ‘hub’ document and 12 thematic ‘spoke’ documents, covering guidance on topics such as ‘Responding to Emergencies.’

Preparing Scotland is not intended to be an operations manual, but it establishes good practice based on professional expertise, legislation and lessons learned from planning for and dealing with major emergencies at all levels and during all phases of Integrated Emergency Management. It reflects a process which prepares for emergencies from the identification of a risk to the completion of the recovery process.

The Scottish Government has committed to begin a review of the Preparing Scotland guidance in 2025/2026, to identify opportunities to strengthen the guidance on topics including; Care for People during emergencies, the roles and responsibilities of categorised responders, and equality considerations. In addition, the Scottish Government has committed to develop plans for a Scottish Resilience Strategy.

Regional Resilience Partnerships

In Scotland, three Regional Resilience Partnerships were established in November 2013, and are; the North of Scotland, the East of Scotland and the West of Scotland. The Regional Resilience Partnerships are comprised of representatives from categorised responders referred to above. In addition, there are twelve Local Resilience Partnerships that come together and have a key role in supporting Regional Resilience Partnerships to prepare by ensuring local arrangements are in place and promoting wider awareness of the roles and responsibilities to their members. Standing regional and local resilience partnerships meet year-round across Scotland.

The Scottish Government supports these partnerships with guidance, training and practical help. Additionally, the Scottish Government supports the broader work of resilience in Scotland through dedicated teams to assist and facilitate local and regional partnership activity with the aim of providing the structures and processes for efficient delivery of multi-agency debriefing, lessons, training and exercising. This resource will be working with the sector to introduce improvements, including the establishment of National Working Groups to address cross-cutting issues.

These Regional Resilience Partnerships and Local Resilience Partnerships do not respond in their own right. In the event of an emergency, the categorised responders come together to form a Resilience Partnership, which helps them to coordinate, collaborate and share information, and could cross Regional Resilience Partnerships or Local Resilience Partnerships boundaries. Resilience Partnerships may also include local or national volunteer groups. The nature of the incident will determine which organisations come together and for how long.

Scottish Resilience Partnership

The Scottish Government is a strategic member of the non-legislative Scottish Resilience Partnership, which is a group comprised of the most senior statutory responders and key resilience partners.

The Scottish Resilience Partnership has recently undergone a review, consulting with responder agencies across Scotland to ensure its workplan is aligned with sector needs. As a result, the Scottish Resilience Partnership will undertake a number of workstreams to improve assurance and reporting processes, in line with the multi-agency approach to resilience in Scotland. The Scottish Government is committed to supporting the Scottish Resilience Partnership to undertake these improvements for the benefit of the resilience sector.