The UK Parliament was provided with the first annual update to the UK Government Resilience Framework (UKGRF) in early December 2023. In the Foreword to the update, the Deputy Prime Minister, also the Cabinet Minister with responsibility for risk and resilience, said: ‘we are making substantial and rapid progress towards building a more resilient United Kingdom’. He highlighted two key approaches: one was the adoption of a whole-of-society approach to resilience, the other was the focus on delivering prevention.
The update described some positive developments. Organizationally, a small Resilience Directorate in the Cabinet Office is responsible for planning while a COBR Unit now deals with immediate crises. In addition, there is an established UK Resilience Forum (meeting biannually), a new UK Resilience Academy (scheduled for 2025), and a new Ministerial sub-committee of the National Security Council to oversee resilience. Subsidiarity through 42 Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) in England and Wales provides ground-level response. The lead government department (i.e. DLUHC) has oversight of the LRF network and has a strengthening programme underway, along with providing £22m funding for the LRFs over three years. These enhancements and aspirations are all welcome in the hope that they deliver the desired outcomes.
Yet, in a report from the National Audit Office, the independent of government public-spending watchdog, delivered just two days after the update, a less upbeat assessment was conveyed and some serious issues were raised. The report on government resilience (albeit addressing extreme weather) stated that the UKGRF: ‘does not set out a well-defined vision for what a resilient UK looks like, including targets and standards for the desired level of national, local or sectoral resilience.’ … ‘Without these, government cannot make informed decisions about trade-offs between long- and short-term priorities, investment or funding allocation of priority areas. It also makes it difficult for government or other stakeholders to track progress and evaluate how effectively and efficiently government is using public funds to improve national resilience.’
These are not the only criticisms. The chair of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy (JCNSS) asked the responsible Minister back in June about the government’s plan to translate ‘the objectives outlined in the Resilience Framework into clear plans with specific, measurable outcomes?’ The official reply offered some reassurances and spoke of future commitments. Not all are convinced, however. The Shadow Defence Secretary has said that the framework: ‘falls far short of a proper defence or resilience plan for the UK’. Clearly, if policy and priorities are not matched by capabilities then they amount to little more than well-intended aspirations.
Resilience architecture
The new layers of bureaucracy, the retained risk ownership by the lead government departments, the functional split between the DLUHC and the Cabinet Office, as well as the manning and seniority levels in the Resilience Directorate, do raise questions about the overall effectiveness of the government resilience policy to deal with a severe and prolonged nationwide crisis. Is it now time to look at how best to bring co-ordinated central leadership to the resilience portfolio? The need is for coherence and focus.
One answer could be the appointment of a ministerial-level department, potentially a Ministry for Civil Defence or Civil Protection. While this is unlikely to come about in an election year, it is something to which the next government should seriously give consideration. Such an organization could plan and co-ordinate the implementation of a fully integrated resilience strategy but it must have the staff and resources to direct (top down) and manage the delivery of resilience across the UK (bottom up). It could be closely aligned to the UK MOD or even a discrete department with it.
We have walked the path of civil protection before with the Royal Observer Corps, the Civil Defence Corps, and the Home Service Front – all long since disbanded. Certainly, other countries currently have such a ministry. The Nordic countries have ministers with a resilience portfolio as well as ‘total defence’ strategies that amalgamate the many actions and capabilities under that rubric.
The notion of a suitable ministry in the UK has received support from the JCNSS. That committee said in a report in late 2022 that: ‘It appears that no Minister is taking responsibility for this topic [critical national infrastructure (CNI) in an age of climate change], and there are no cross-Cabinet Committees driving forward the Government’s work on adaptation and CNI resilience. It recommended therefore that: ‘the government establishes a Minister of State for CNI Resilience and a team within the Cabinet Office to focus on this issue.’ A first deliverable of any new ministry should be the passage of a National Resilience Act in Parliament to ensure long-term, cross-party endorsement, an idea voiced by a former Cabinet Office minister.
Whole of society resilience
Whole of society resilience
As the UKGRF openly and rightly acknowledges, preparation is crucial especially in the face of increasing complex and unpredictable challenges: it is that proactive element that resilience requires. Preparation gives one the wherewithal to be on the front foot when a crisis strikes and have a plan to deal with any disruption.
Part of that preparation is about mustering adequate people and resources to manage and support any national response. This is about a surge capacity from current finite levels – one that could be measured in hundreds of thousands if not millions of people from around the UK. Such a surge was witnessed in the COVID-19 pandemic and could easily be required again for a systemic threat.
Talk of a ‘whole-of-society’ response or civil mobilisation is therefore appropriate in such circumstances.
Several ideas for a national, civilian cadre have been proposed in the past. Former Prime Minister David Cameron introduced a National Citizen Service in 2009 while Danny Kruger MP proposed a National Volunteer Reserve in 2020 but the idea was rejected by the government. Whatever version, it is all about providing a social-value purpose and strengthening social capital across the UK. Evidence from the Fukushima nuclear disaster (2011) showed that communities with deeper reservoirs of social capital have higher survival
Engaging the whole nation needs careful forethought and preparation, and resourcing. It cannot be achieved with a few civil servants in Whitehall or even 42 Local Resilience Forums across England and Wales. It also goes beyond issuing warning leaflets to households and asking people to ‘prep’. It extends beyond well-intentioned local projects to bring local citizens together to improve their local environments. A planned government website (‘one-stop shop’) may be able to advise citizens and seek volunteers but it cannot fulfil the critical functions of a mass call-out, namely organization, command and control, training and resourcing.
What is needed is a central government function that can mobilise large number of volunteers and reservists quickly and effectively based on need and skill sets. This means creating, managing and updating a database of registered citizens that lists contact details, in-date skills, available transport, etc. These volunteers will come from not just the existing voluntary and community sector but also the wider public and private sectors, the charity sector, the educational sector, NGOs, religious groups, and trade unions. The effort will require a national recruitment drive, one that needs to be part of preparation and not crisis response when it will be too late to organize. Refresher training may be necessary for some individuals. Some reimbursement of expenses and a small remuneration or tax dispensation for time given could provide an added incentive.
While talk of a return of full-scale national service (conscription) is wide of the mark and is likely to be rejected in the UK for the foreseeable future, there may be some merit in looking beyond volunteering for people aged 16 to 18. There is considerable support for training young people in resiliency-based skills which could also bring benefits of better social cohesion as well as enhanced self-esteem. Short courses with a strong practical focus on personal and community resilience could be character building at a time when many youngsters are feeling anxious and disconnected. A report by the think-tank Onward in 2023 looked at how mandatory service could develop skills, improve mental wellbeing, and increase a sense of belonging among Britain’s youth, while a House of Lords report recommended, for instance, ‘adding emergency response skills to the post-16 curriculum, with schools and further education colleges providing volunteering opportunities to students’.
Other countries are making better headway here. The French Service National Universel (SNU) engages all 15 to 17-year-olds. It includes a two-week cohesion stay and a two-week general interest mission. Each young person can then, until they turn 25, continue a commitment period of at least three months. The service can be performed in both civil and military facilities. According to an official survey, 85% of participants felt the SNU had had a positive impact on social cohesion in France while a similar percentage reported having developed new personal skills such as teamwork, communication and problem-solving.
For UK youngsters, organized but compulsory service in the community or abroad for a year could be an alternative to military duties but would still allow the passage of essential team- and character-building skills. If the UK were to form a similar targeted and selective form of training, whether voluntary of mandatory, the military and business would need to play an active role. In return, the military may be able to increase recruiting figures while businesses could benefit for employing better-prepared junior staff. The service would come at a cost – small in comparison to the overall defence budget – but the benefits to the country as a whole could be enormous and long term.
The way forward for national resilience
There is much more to do to ensure that national resilience is ready to cope with national challenges, accepting that resilience is a journey and not a destination. It does not require a large budget or massive architecture. It does, however, require increased resourcing and afforded a commitment with the right level of governance.
The vision should be reflected in a fully-fledged strategy and implemented in a way that is suitable for a whole-of-society activity. Ideally, it should attract cross-party support to ensure longevity. As Lord Hague wrote recently: ‘There is a future form of service that combines resilience with personal opportunity and fortified national identity.’ We need to find that form and deploy it sooner rather than later.
The author
Robert Hall is cofounder and former executive director of Resilience First Ltd. His book ‘Building Resilient Futures’ was published by Austin Macauley in 2023. The original version of this article was published as a RUSI Newsbrief on 29th January 2024.
