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Civil emergency whole system preparedness: 2025 report

Report on whole system civil emergency preparedness 2025 - COVID-19 recommendation eight.


6. Training and Exercising

Learning

Scotland follows Integrated Emergency Management, which encourages responders to prepare for consequences rather than causes meaning responders should be prepared to have plans which can be adapted depending on the nature of the incident. To support this, training should promote adaptability and flexibility, enabling individuals to adjust their actions to reflect the circumstances of each emergency.

The Scottish Government has strengthened the provision of training to categorised responders through online training modules on its refreshed Resilience Learning Hub (resiliencelearninghub.scot.). The Resilience Learning Hub aims to deliver digestible and accessible learning to all members of Scotland’s resilience community. The library of eLearning courses is designed to strengthen responders overall understanding of resilience in Scotland.

There are currently ten learning modules on the Hub with the following titles: Care for People Affected by Emergencies, Effective Multi-Agency Working, Integrated Emergency Management, Multi-Agency Debriefing Awareness, Public Communications in a Crisis, Resilience Responsibilities in Scotland, Risk Assessment in Scotland, Resilience Structures in Scotland, Situational Awareness and Decision Making Under Pressure, and Stress Management in a Crisis.

As part of its response to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry - Module 1 report, the Scottish Government stated that it would reinvigorate the Scottish Exercise Notification process and the Scottish National Exercise Calendar. The Scottish Government will collaborate with key stakeholders to establish the requirements for a multi-agency National Training & Exercise Calendar and Notification process, developing a product that will capture all training & Exercising activity within Scotland and will manage the notification process and be responsible for maintenance of the calendar.

National Emergency Response Assessment

The Scottish Government has introduced National Emergency Response Assessment workshops to support Scottish Government policy leads to assess any knowledge, skills or process gaps which may affect the Scottish Government’s capacity to plan and respond effectively to specific emergencies. The workshops seek to work across the Scottish Government, bringing together a wide range of officials to ensure a consistent understanding of risk, mitigation and response.

Eight National Emergency Response Assessment workshops have been held, across a wide variety of civil contingency events since 2022 with follow-up actions identified to improve cross-policy coordination, information sharing, communication and awareness of plans and procedures in place. The workshops have provided high level consequence management discussions on incidents such as fuel supply disruption, cyber-attack on critical national infrastructure, severe space weather, civil nuclear incident and management of a high consequence infectious disease outbreak.

Exercise Pegasus

In Autumn 2025, the Department for Health and Social Care and the UK Health Security Agency, with participation from the Scottish Government and other Devolved Governments, will conduct a national exercise on the United Kingdom’s preparedness for a pandemic. The exercise will enable the Scottish Government to identify lessons to improve its coordination and preparedness.

National Debriefing and Lessons Protocol

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of learning lessons from incidents. To support and encourage a robust debriefing and lessons process amongst categorised responders, the Scottish Government developed and published a National Debriefing and Lessons Protocol in 2025. The Protocol was developed with categorised responders, and aims to support the lessons and debrief process, which is a vital part of the learning cycle, and provides an opportunity to demonstrate continuous improvement within resilience in Scotland.

Contact

Email: civilcontingenciespolicyteam@gov.scot

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