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ABSTRACT
In this article, the author outlines the government proposals for effective responses to emergencies and major disasters. Partnership working is a major theme within this and therefore there will be implications for crime and disorder partnerships.
KEY WORDS
emergency/ contingency
planning
crime and disorder
partnerships
risk assessment
EXPECTING THE UNEXPECTED!
'If we always do what we have always done, we will always get what we have always been given.'
The above phrase is so true of emergency planning. Disasters such as; Lockerbie, the Hatfield rail disaster, Selby, IRA bombings of Britain's towns and cities and of course the foot-and-mouth outbreaks, fuel crisis and severe flooding of the autumn and winter of 2000, led the government into realising that existing legislation introduced after the second World War was inadequate.
The 9/11 attack on the US, the British involvement in Iraq and terrorist atrocities throughout the world and more recently in Europe have led senior police and intelligence chiefs to issue a warning of a similar attack in Britain as being almost inevitable.
Patrick Cunningham, Chair of the Emergency Planning Society warned that the UK could deal with a 'traditional IRA bomb' but not anything on the scale of the Madrid train bombings, which killed more than 200 people.
Experts in the area of emergency/contingency planning have long warned that existing legislation needs to be replaced and that local authorities and other agencies need to be more accountable for their actions, (or lack of them) in this arena. The Commons Defence Select Committee, the National Audit Office and the Prime Ministers Strategy Unit, as well as the Emergency Planning Society had all criticised the Government's response to emergency planning. In the light of these comments the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott announced a review of emergency planning arrangements in Britain. This decision was warmly welcomed.
In August 2001, a discussion document was published inviting responses from key stakeholders. 260 responses were received and analysed. Government ministers agreed that the Cabinet Office along with other government departments and stakeholder groups, should prepare a set of proposals for new legislation, for introduction as soon as possible. These new proposals formed the basis of the Civil Contingencies Bill, which completed its committee stage in the House of Commons...