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POLITICS: 2013 VOL 33(4), 229–239
doi: 10.1111/1467-9256.12027
The Politics of Resilience from a
Practitioner’s Perspective: An Interview
with Helen Braithwaite OBE
James Brassett and Nick Vaughan-Williams
University of Warwick
Helen Braithwaite was appointed to the Resilience and Emergencies Division of the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) in February 2011. She is responsible for the Central area which
covers 15 Local Resilience Forums. Prior to this Helen was the Head of the West Midlands Regional Resilience team. Helen has also worked for West Mercia Police in specialist operations and in the emergency
planning departments of Hereford and Worcester County Council and Worcestershire County Council. In
2000 Helen was seconded to the Home Office and then Cabinet Office to lead the consultation process on
new civil contingencies legislation, which resulted in the Civil Contingencies Act. Helen was awarded an
OBE in June 2011.
Keywords: resilience; civil contingencies; security; crisis; response
Introduction
Helen Braithwaite has been at the forefront of thinking and practice in UK resilience from its
inception in the Civil Contingencies Act (2004), which she helped to establish. We are
therefore very grateful to gain her insight based on concrete experience in this dynamic policy
area. In this brief introduction, we hope to set the interview in the context of the special issue
and the academic study of resilience more broadly.1
While we as academics are prone to ‘theorise’ policy as an ‘effect’ of larger social structures –
be it sovereign power, neoliberalism or security – this interview challenges us to think harder
about how practitioners engage with the uncertainties of the policy process at multiple levels
across organisations. From the interview, for instance, we learn that the process of updating
the Cold War ‘defence’ agenda involved the rephrasing of planning to take account of
‘response mode’, and the uncertainties entailed by collaborating with multiple agencies.
Engaging such modifications over time, Helen suggests, foregrounds the importance of ‘maintaining relationships’ across organisations and levels – from national to local. Indeed, this
spatial dimension is particularly important in relation to the emergence of Local Resilience
Forums (LRFs), and the responsiveness of the resilience agenda to new challenges, for
example extreme weather, social disorder and critical infrastructure collapse. In this way,
Helen’s work has developed to involve far more engagement with communities, even, in the
process, working to build communities (see Bulley, 2013).
What the interview demonstrates to us is the reflexivity of practitioners. For Helen, the
importance of building and maintaining relationships is to draw people from their professional ‘silos’ and make them think differently about what they do (and why). And this is more
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than a managerial saying. In the context of the people affected by extreme events, Helen
reflects her personal concern for the very idea of the event, asking questions of when to ‘stand
down’ and when ‘not’ to act.
In this way, we would suggest more broadly that it might be possible to think about resilience
less as some grand meta-narrative of policy and rather as something we do, that we might do
better, and that might be changing. This contingency (of contingency planning) is an important concern and one that might be instructive for further academic studies in the politics of
resilience. This is especially so in terms of the emerging overlaps between academia and
resilience planning that Helen outlines, challenging us to think through the manner in which
future co-operation might contribute to, or rephrase, the resilience agenda.
Could we start by asking you to introduce yourself and your
career trajectory: how did you become involved in the world
of resilience?
I have been working in the world of resilience for nearly 20 years and have worked at several
levels in local, regional and national government.
My career began in the mid-1990s as an Emergency Planning Officer for a local authority.
Emergency Planners at that time were often recently retired officers from the military or
emergency services, so I was considered to be a little bit different and joined the team
specifically because of my training and development experience. They wanted someone to
lead scenario training and exercising, given that much of the focus prior to this was on plan
writing and then responding. In fact, some of the existing plans were hundreds of pages long
and they were not exactly user-friendly!
Subsequent roles have included working for the Police in Specialist Operations, the Government Office Regional Resilience teams and more recently within the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) Resilience and Emergencies Division (RED) team.
Most notably, I enjoyed a period of secondment to the Home Office and Cabinet Office to work
on the review of emergency planning ordered by the Deputy Prime Minister in 2000 following
a number of incidents commonly referred to as the ‘4 Fs’ (foot and mouth, flooding, fuel and
firefighters’ strike).
Can you tell us about the kind of work you did at the Home
Office and Cabinet Office? What was the outcome of this work?
The outcome was the framing of the Civil Contingencies Act (CCA) 2004. The piece of work
that I was responsible for was commissioned by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, and was
intended to update systems of emergency response in the UK. While there was a general
recognition across government that ‘local responders’ had performed very well during the 4
Fs, a number of ministers had observed a significant disconnect between local responders and
Whitehall, in terms of co-ordination. Hence a review of emergency planning was ordered.
At the time, emergency planning sat within the Home Office and the task was to conceive of
a way of finding out about and integrating the concerns of local communities and organisations: how could emergency planning be improved? How could emergency planning be
updated from the old Civil Defence Act (CDA), which was far more influenced by the threat
of nuclear war? The aim was to consult widely in order to frame the new legislation according
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to a broad input. We focused on developing the questions, and consultation documents,
before carrying out a 15-week consultation period. We travelled around the country and held
15 workshops, listened to a range of views and held an online survey for members of the
public. The findings were pooled together to produce a report that went to the Deputy Prime
Minister, ministers and ministerial committee, providing a broad outline of what the new
legislation needed to include.
What is resilience? How has the resilience agenda in the UK
evolved since you first began working in this field?
From about 2000 onwards, ministers felt that the co-ordination and response to major
incidents needed improving. The legislative framework that agencies were working within
was based on the CDA, which dated back to the 1940s and was steeped in Cold War thinking.
It was articulated around the nuclear war scenario, and the world is very different now.
However, the CDA was criticised well before resilience came to the fore: there has long been
scepticism about the phrase ‘civil defence’, for instance. Legislation from the 1940s was simply
not reflective of the modern world. We are not under attack, or if we are, it is from different
sources. The CDA was very much a creature of its time.
During the review that resulted in the CCA 2004, ministers maintained that any new or
updated legislation should provide a flexible framework. Such a framework required a
consistent approach predicated on agencies working together to understand and assess risks
and threats at the local level and then planning, training and exercising to mitigate these
accordingly. As a member of the public or a community affected by a major incident you can
expect an organised, co-ordinated response, no matter what part of the country you come
from or where the incident has occurred.
So resilience is a framework that brings organisations together
in a particular way?
To some extent, yes, resilience is about organisation, but it works across a number of different
levels. When it comes to UK resilience, it is simply about multi-agency partnerships: encouraging people not to be tribal, to move out of their silos and get together. That can be
challenging because everyone comes from different organisations with priorities and pressures
which are unique. The view is that in planning and response, we need to be able to
co-ordinate flexibly.
Does flexibility imply that resilience has become more
‘people-focused’ and about building teams?
Yes, resilience is now more about focusing on individuals and actually getting a better
structure in terms of the multi-agency response, that is, the recognition that no one person or
organisation can work on its own, separated from the others. It has to be a multi-agency
response. The CCA put forward the idea of creating Local Resilience Forums (LRFs). It was
hoped that these LRFs would be a mechanism for pulling individuals and organisations
together in order to plan, train and exercise. Once established these LRFs could then serve as
the basis for building Strategic Co-ordination Groups to oversee and, indeed, lead the incident
response. The Strategic Co-ordination Groups are made up of the same partners as the LRFs.
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It was argued that this kind of partnership building through planning and training would
allow for a seamless move into the response phase of operations.
Do plans drop out of view now, or does planning and flexibility
combine effectively?
There are plans and indeed the whole of the process is predicated on the LRFs recognising and
identifying their local risks. So the tools they have to help them with that are the National
Security Strategy, the National Risk Register, and then the CCA requires them to produce a
local community risk register. The point is that planning is co-ordinated in relation to the process
of defining risks.
For instance, LRFs do things differently in different places. Many will identify their top three
risks, then plan, train and exercise in direct relation to those risks. Some will focus on the top
risks under the National Risk Register and then plan accordingly. Others will focus on
whatever is the greatest risk in their local area, for example flooding, and focus a considerable
amount of time and effort on that. But the point is that, despite the various risks addressed,
there will always be benefits to this overall system through the generation and promotion of
multi-agency co-operation throughout all the stages of the process.
So the mere act of coming together builds a community?
Exactly. The other element of course is that it’s not just the responding organisations, the
partners – Category 1 and Category 2 responders2 – who are coming together through the
LRFs, but there will also be some element of ‘warning and informing’ the public. This process
will obviously generate further engagement with the various communities. There are lots of
good examples of local authorities and LRFs working with local communities that have a
significant threat of flooding. In this way, community resilience is built up by trying to get
people to take responsibility and by educating them.
What were some of the challenges involved in providing a more
flexible framework for dealing with emergencies and how well
did the agencies respond?
I have reflected a lot on this issue. Having been involved in the framing and spoken to
ministers around the issue of intended outcomes it is clear to me that they wanted legislation
to capture good practice already out there. Essentially, it does make sense for people to plan,
to co-operate and have the ongoing conversation and for work to go on at different levels, that
is, the strategic group, the tactical group, etc. So the CCA was not framed to complicate or add
policy, it was to try and provide people with a framework, giving them a structure in terms of
how they would plan for major incidents.
I think it’s fair to say there was a full range of emotions and reactions to the CCA. In general
people felt legislative changes were needed, but some would say it was not enough, and
others would maybe feel it was not necessary. Some would say: ‘well, we’re already doing
that’, some wanted to just be left alone to find their own way, and some wanted more
guidance and instruction over what to do. Over time, people have adjusted their practices to
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fit. Right now there is a view from ministers that things are best determined at the local level.
But then of course, when we are in response mode, the demand for information about what
is happening at the local level still exists.
To what extent has the Act been successfully translated
into practice? What aspects have worked and what needs
to be revised?
The framework set out within the Act has led to a more consistent approach to planning and
responding. LRFs, the multi-agency group of Category 1 and 2 responders, who meet regularly to assess risks against both the National Risk Register and National Security Strategy, are
all well embedded within local areas. They have the responsibility of publishing local community risk registers, and thus highlighting to local communities the risks they face and what
the partnership is doing to work together to mitigate these risks and threats. This risk-based
approach forms the bedrock of their working activities.
Following on, there is a need for agencies involved in this multi-agency partnership to ensure
they are able to co-ordinate the response even if they themselves are affected, so the need for
robust business continuity planning arrangements is key, coupled with the need for agencies
to understand their individual and collective roles and responsibilities, share information with
one another and train and exercise together to understand them better.
From your point of view does government understand local and
national resilience needs?
I think government understands much better the challenges faced by local responders in
meeting resilience needs, managing and responding to risks and threats. That does not mean
that there are not challenges around managing expectations at local and national level,
particularly during response phases. What the Resilience and Emergencies Division within
DCLG seeks to do through our team of resilience advisers is to bridge the gap and work with
local responders and government to support resilience activities.
Is it possible for members of the public to get involved with
LRFs? And how would they make LRFs accountable?
That is quite interesting; LRFs are a collection of equals who come together to co-operate and
to ensure an effective and co-ordinated response. Now, clearly there is the community risk
register that LRFs have to produce and that has to be accessible to members of the public, so
if people pick up on a local community risk register and raise some questions then clearly they
will have to interact with the LRF or one of the individual agencies. In terms of planning, and
work on building community resilience, there is a lot of activity that goes on in co-ordination
with local communities and local people who have an interest. LRFs may involve local people
in their training exercises.
But in terms of holding an LRF to account there is not really anything that enables that,
although individual agencies can be held to account and have a range of statutory duties that
they are required to fulfil.
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Accountability could be a good or a bad thing of course. For
instance, if there is a disaster and the response is problematic,
then government could blame the LRF – to hold them to
account – that is, defer responsibility.
In the past, where there have been incidents some local authorities have held scrutiny
committees. They have invited individuals from the LRF to provide an overview, and have
challenged those individuals. But as I mentioned previously the LRF as a body cannot really
be called to account, just the individual agencies who sit on the LRF. So it’s complicated.
In a ‘nuts and bolts’ sense, one response to flooding might be for
the LRF to recommend the construction of a dam. How might
something like that be actioned?
The LRF would not look at it that way. The Environment Agency leads the work on flood
defences, so the recommendation and investment would come from one of the Regional
Flood and Coastal Committees (RFCCs) which were established under the Flood and Water
Management Act 2010. However, the Environment Agency is a Category 1 responder and
would be a part of the LRF, so when it comes to the identification and assessment of risks
within local areas it will work with other agencies sharing flood mapping data. The LRF is
primarily focused on ensuring an effective and co-ordinated multi-agency response irrespective of the type of incident.
So there might be conversations via the risk groups. The LRFs might check with the Environment Agency whether it fits with their programme of work, and this can change response
plans slightly. For example, the Environment Agency focused on the River Severn, and places
like Upton, which have flooded for years and now benefit from flood barriers. The consequence, of course, is that our emergency plans then adjust accordingly to a lower risk of
flooding and the LRFs will work differently according to different thresholds. For instance, the
Environment Agency may advise that certain staff levels are required to operate demountable
flood barriers at particular thresholds. Such revisions are common throughout the River
Severn area.
In general though, I would stress that there is a misconception about what an LRF is. It is not
a statutory body, but is a statutory process. The LRF is a process through which Category 1 and
2 responders come together to co-operate with each other, work to mitigate risks, train and
exercise together. But no one individual is bigger or greater in that collective partnership or
co-operative body; this means that the LRF does not have powers to direct its members. Of
course that can mean that relationships can be quite challenging. But the default position in
response phase is for the Police to chair the Strategic Co-ordination Group, simply because the
Police tend to have a key role in most incidents.
Does that mean that the ‘golden hour’ of the response phase is
led by the Police?
Yes the Police will lead and there are well-understood practices in place. When it comes to
co-ordination of major incidents all the agencies will work on their own issue, but there is also
a need for them all to get together and have the conversation. Nine times out of ten the Police
will have the responsibility for bringing that co-ordinating group together. So there is a move
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from LRFs to Strategic Co-ordinating Group, often chaired by the Police. One counterexample
is a flu pandemic, for instance, which would be chaired by someone from Health where
communication with the public is a key objective.
It sounds like working in resilience is very much about being a
people person, co-ordinating and co-operating with lots of
different types, agencies, and so on?
Yes, I think this is actually where the ‘people’ aspect of resilience work is sometimes misunderstood, because it can be quite difficult to put a value on your relationships and networks.
Having strong relationships through the planning process really helps to support the response
phase. When you have the pressure on, or if there is low situational awareness due to the
speed of the event, strong relationships mean you can ask difficult questions, as people can be
open and honest.
Such relationships are, of course, quite difficult to measure. This can lead to misconceptions
from funding bodies, which tend to think of resilience as important during a disaster, but
something you can devote less attention to when things are quiet. There is sometimes a
perception that those working in resilience and emergency planning are all sitting around
drinking coffee waiting for incidents to happen. This is not the case: planning, training,
exercising and lesson learning are all a continuous process.
Eight years on from the inception of the Act, what shape is UK
resilience now in?
I believe the world of resilience has changed significantly since the advent of the Civil
Contingencies Act of 2004. In some localities the framework outlined in the Act served to
recognise the good practice that was already embedded, but for some areas it was a very
different case. Prior to the Act members of the public could always rely on a multi-agency
response to major incidents, but this was inconsistent and patchy across the country. The CCA
provides a framework for creating a more consistent planning and response regime. The
Cabinet Office has undertaken a recent review of the Civil Contingencies Act – the CCA
Enhancement Programme (commonly referred to as its 6,000 mile service!). There is a
recognition that the principles contained within the Act are not ‘broken’, but elements need
‘tweaking’ to make them work more efficiently and effectively.
The riots across parts of the UK in summer 2011 seemed to
catch everyone unaware: did they throw up any particular
issues for resilience?
The speed of some events and the weight of media response can be an issue. It can be very
difficult in terms of managing relationships. The civil disorder was a really good learning curve
in terms of the new national structure. It showed us that there is always a thirst for knowledge
and information on what is going on at the local level. So there needs to be a balance between
local control and any central attempts to gather information or data. Equally, the way the
battle rhythm is set up through the Cabinet Office Briefing Room (COBR) can place heavy
demands on local responders if we are asking for information for 7 a.m. meetings.3 It is
important to balance these demands.
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You raise the issue of COBR: how does it relate to local units?
COBR is very important because it brings all government departments together. Effectively
COBR does at the national level what the LRFs do at the local level, for instance when they
become strategic co-ordinating groups.
However, while it’s good to bring departments together through COBR it can bring additional
challenges for local responders because they want information and briefing for situation
reports. We are looking continuously to improve and alleviate demands at the local level, but
it can be challenging. We do ask for exception reporting which we hope helps relieve some
burdens.
One of the challenges, of course, is that COBR will only be sitting when there is a major
incident, which means that the time pressures are far greater.
Sometimes, and this is a personal observation, we are not very good at pulling back and
standing down. Sometimes there might not actually be a need to keep a response operation
running for longer than it needs to. I guess it’s that issue of when exactly an incident is finished
and who is going to call on that.
When is an incident ‘over’?
That’s the ‘$64,000 question’. Some incidents will never be ‘over’ when you think about the
recovery side of things; the impacts on communities and individuals. Others will have a clear
end. It’s an interesting concept to explore and we could perhaps generate case studies on
closing incidents, perhaps comparing different instances. For example, in terms of flooding the
recovery can take years.
Looking ahead, what are the emerging issues for resilience?
The risks we face are continually changing: risks emerge, threats evolve and our ability to
respond to the challenges we face improves. We need to understand these risks and determine
how we want to deal with them. This is absolutely central to the work of LRFs and is
something that has developed into a more rigorous and meaningful process over the years.
New risks and threats are emerging all the time, for example the UK’s first National Climate
Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) sets out the implications of the key risks arising from a
changing climate. Defra (Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs) is developing a
National Adaptation Programme (NAP) to address the risks from the CCRA – we are all
working together to support this. I think this is one of the areas that have improved
significantly over the years, cross-government departmental planning.
Local responders play a crucial role in supporting communities and businesses preparing,
responding and, importantly, recovering from the impacts of current and future severe
weather events. Early planning and preparedness for the consequences of such events should
pay dividends in terms of reducing the impacts on the lives and well-being of local communities and in terms of reduced costs to the responder organisations and those they seek to
protect. While departments and local responders do not always agree on policy or activity, I
have seen over the years more mature and developed relationships where people do work
together on resolving these challenges.
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Would you say that the public are becoming more
central to resilience?
Building community resilience is a significant area of work. This programme of work seeks to
educate and build communities’ understandings of the risks they face and encourage them to
take responsibility to support one another to manage their risks. The handbook produced by
the Carnegie UK Trust in association with Fiery Spirits Community of Practice provides a great
example of communities coming together following a period of turbulence to create more
resilient communities. The National Flood Forum is another community-led group that
focuses on supporting individuals and communities affected by flooding. There are many
other examples of communities taking responsible and active roles in managing the risks they
face and many Local Resilience Forums play a key role in working within communities to
assist this work – initiatives like the ‘Norfolk Prepared Week’, which takes place each year in
October.
Social media is another innovation that responding communities must increasingly recognise
and work with. The ‘golden hour’ has always been a key focus for responders – the need,
within the first hour of an incident, for all responding agencies to have good situational
awareness and understanding of what has happened, understand who has been affected,
respond to media and co-ordinate the multi-agency response. The advent not only of 24-hour
news reporting but also the immediateness of Twitter, Facebook, text messaging and the
public’s keenness to share their experiences if they are caught up in an incident has meant
that emergency services are often reacting to information openly in the public domain
without having the luxury of time to check out sources.
Research undertaken on the impact and effect of social media during incidents is undoubtedly
assisting responders in their plans to respond to the new pressures these innovations have
created as it is clear that they won’t be going away! More work needs to be done to help
responders rise to this challenge.
Does social media affect how you engage the public?
Government, academia and partners are now in dialogue about how social media is being
used in resilience, as well as researching how it can form part of LRFs’ wider communication
strategies.
We have some excellent examples of building community resilience, which again is an area
that was taboo not so long ago, as there was a real concern that fear of risks and threats would
leave local communities unable to plan to mitigate the risks as they would be alarmed.
Focusing on risks that people are easily able to identify with, for example severe weather, has
led to really positive community engagement in managing local risk. Bristol set up its
Community Snow Wardens scheme. The council used a poster campaign in areas where they
had identified the roads that they may not be able to clear.
The response was phenomenal, with around 50 individuals coming forward. The council
provided briefing sessions, explained the role in more detail and issued protective clothing and
equipment. Building on the initial snow warden work, an additional wardens scheme has
now been launched for local businesses, encouraging businesses to work together to clear
routes to allow their customers to get to them. Many other councils have set up local
initiatives, with volunteers and residents equipped and ready for action. For example, in
Sandwell, 2,500 snow champions had been recruited and issued with snow-clearing kits and
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it was not long before they were needed and the snow in February saw people clearing
their local streets. Sandwell also made good use of social media, Twitter and Facebook to
keep in touch with residents, providing rapid responses to any questions and well-deserved
recognition.
How are current changes in the UK affecting resilience?
People will often comment that the only constant is change and a further challenge to
resilience is the impact the structural changes taking place across Category 1 and 2 organisations will have on capability, capacity and ultimately the collective ability to respond and
recover from major incidents. Will the impacts only become evident when we are faced with
an incident and organisations are found wanting?
A further challenge facing resilience is funding. What is clear is that we are in tough economic
times and difficult decisions are being made at the top of organisations; measuring the impacts
of this will be challenging.
What role do you think academics might play in the future of
UK resilience: what are the burning areas for future research
and how might we collaborate more effectively?
Key areas for future research would be community resilience, funding and finance impacts,
international comparisons and the impact of social media on response and recovery.
Other improvements over the years have been the links made between academia and policy.
One of the reasons for this development is because of the increase in universities offering
resilience and civil contingency-related courses. We have many examples across the country
of students enjoying placements within Emergency Planning Units which provides them with
additional experience but also provides a unique opportunity to give something back to the
academic community and develop our potential workforce of the future. Finally, circulating
academic research, such as the product of this special issue, will give resilience practitioners
the chance to reflect critically on the wider context of their work.
About the Authors
James Brassett is Reader in International Political Economy in the Department of Politics and International Studies,
University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
Nick Vaughan-Williams is Reader in International Security in the Department of Politics and International Studies,
University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
Notes
1 This interview was conducted at the University of Warwick on 10 October 2012. A range of minor revisions were
made in the following period before acceptance for publication on 28 May 2013.
2 According to the Civil Contingencies Act there are two categories of responder: ‘Those in Category 1 are organisations at the core of the response to most emergencies (the emergency services, local authorities, NHS bodies). ...
Category 2 organisations (the Health and Safety Executive, transport and utility companies) are “co-operating
bodies”. They are less likely to be involved in the heart of planning work, but will be heavily involved in incidents
that affect their own sector’ (Cabinet Office, 2013).
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3 COBR – Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms – are central to the government’s crisis management arrangements. The aim
of COBR is to provide effective decision-making and rapid co-ordination of the central government response. The
exact make-up of the Strategy Group in COBR will depend on the type of incident.
Reference
Bulley, D. (2013) ‘Producing and Governing Community (Through) Resilience’, Politics 33(4), pp. 265–275.
Cabinet Office (2013) ‘Preparation and Planning for Emergencies: Responsibilities of Responder Agencies and Others’.
Available from: https://www.gov.uk/preparation-and-planning-for-emergencies-responsibilities-of-responder
-agencies-and-others [Accessed 28 August 2013].
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