Agenda item

This report continues the cycle of annual updates that the Emergency Planning team has shared with the Audit and Standards Advisory Committee since 2018. The report provides the Committee with an update on the work and priorities of the team since the last report in September 2022, focusing on the continuous improvement within the Council’s Emergency Planning and Resilience service.

Prior to consideration of the report, David Ewart (as Chair) advised members that Melissa Brackley (newly appointed Emergency Planning & Resilience Manager) had needed to pass on her apologies due to an incident currently ongoing with Tanveer Ghani (Director Property & Assets) and Russell Burnaby (Head of Facilities Management) therefore attending to present the report in her absence.

In presenting the report the Committee was advised that the report, as part of the annual update cycle, provided an outline of the work and priorities of the Emergency Planning Team following on from the last update provided in September 2022 as well as focussing on the programme of continuous improvement being delivered across the service.

In considering the report the Committee noted:

·             The staffing changes within the team since the last update with the recruitment of an interim Emergency Planning and Resilience Manager following the previous manager having moved to a new role within the Council.

·             The completion of an external review of the Council’s emergency planning function, which had been focussed on the extent and nature of compliance with the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, the Council’s existing command and control structures and plans in place to address know key risks.  Whilst the review had recognised that the existing arrangements provided a good foundation in relation to emergency preparedness activities across the Council it had also identified a number of key areas for focus designed to support further development of the service, which had been detailed in Appendix 1 of the report.  Key areas for focus identified during 2024 had included enhancing the capacity of the team, a greater focus on training and development, update of the Brent Recovery Plan and the use of simulated exercises involving multi-agency response(s) on which progress updates had been provided within section 3 of the report.

·             The outline of major emergency planning incidents since the previous update, as detailed within section 3.11 of the report which had included flooding in the Wembley Brook (August 2023), Kilburn Tower Block fire (September 2023) and a sink hole in Kilburn (January 2024).

Having considered the report the Committee was then invited to raise any comments/questions, which are summarised below:

·             In thanking officers for the update provided, the Committee sought further details on the measures being taken to address the recommendations within the external service review relating to team structure, recognising the ongoing challenges in recruitment being experienced within the field by many local authorities.  Whilst an ongoing challenge, members were advised of the benchmarking being undertaken with other boroughs in relation to staffing along with the success achieved in finding a replacement for the service manager which had addressed a key staffing issue.

·             The Committee were keen to explore the extent to which incidents relating to cyber security and use of Artificial Intelligence had been identified as risks in relation to the Council’s emergency planning and preparedness arrangements.  In response the Committee were advised this had been included as an element of the recent multi agency exercise undertaken in relation to Wembley Stadium, the outcomes from which were currently being reviewed.  The Committee was also advised of work being undertaken by the Emergency Planning and Resilience Service in partnership with the Shared IT Service to plan and agree the scope for a table top and associated exercise to test organisational resilience to a potential cyber-attack, including the effectiveness of recovering key IT infrastructure as part of the business recovery time objective.

·             Further assurance was also sought by the Committee in relation to the funding available to support emergency planning activity and incidents, with an outline provided of the service budget and access the service had to key corporate contracts and contractors for specific provisions and support.  In addition, Minesh Patel (as Corporate Director of Finance & Resources) highlighted the access available to the Council’s general reserves, if required, to support any significant emergency planning response on specific incidents with the Committee keen to ensure that the planning and assessment of risks along with any potential mitigations that may be available in relation to common themes being identified was included as part of the financial planning arrangements and use of reserves strategy.

·             Following on from the previous issue, the Committee sought further details on the process for the assessment of common themes/trends being identified in terms of the range of emergency planning incidents being responded to and how this could be used to consider mitigating against and, where possible, seeking to prevent similar events in future.  Although recognising the increase in weather related events and the impact in relation to incidents such as flooding etc, officers advised that no specific common themes had been identified and also felt it important to highlight the extent to which events were often more closely linked to human behaviours e.g. construction methods, fire safety controls, the poor quality of unlicensed housing in multiple occupation etc.  The systematic nature of the process used to assess and seek to mitigate against and prevent future emergencies was recognised by the Committee, which officers assured members was constantly evolving as lessons were learnt and shared following reviews undertaken after each incident.  The Committee were keen to ensure this more proactive activity was kept under review in order to identify and mitigate against any trends being identified with specific reference, as an example, to work that could be undertaken linked to the Climate Emergency Strategy to provide further resilience to climate related events and landlord licensing scheme to address safety concerns in relation to HMOs alongside work with Thames Water to address flooding related issues and with social landlords to address the risks arising from the storage of e-bikes and prevention of lithium battery fires etc.

·             Having highlighted a need to consider in more detail how the identification and analysis of trends along with associated learning in terms of emergency planning events could be developed on both a local and regional basis, the Committee were advised that this was something that could be explored in more detail seeking to utilise the role of the London Resilience Forum which members supported as a way forward.

As no further issues were raised the Chair thanked officers for the report and the Committee RESOLVED:

(1)    To note the report along with the update provided on progress with the external service review and training sessions and exercises to improve organisational readiness.

(2)    That a further progress update be provided for the Committee in 6 months on implementation of recommendations from external service review; and

(3)    that the further 6-month update in (2) above also include further detail on work planned to test resilience of IT systems and cyber security as well as on the role of the London Resilience Forum in seeking to identify and analyse trends in incidents and associated learning/mitigations on a regional basis.