The Cabinet Office has released the UK Government Resilience Action Plan, which sets out a strategic approach to increasing the UK’s national and community resilience.
New developments signposted in the document include:
Chronic Risks Analysis (CRA)
A publicly available version of the previously classified Chronic Risks Analysis will be made available, with the aim of helping UK organizations plan for long-term, systemic threats.
Cyber Resilience Index (CRI)
The Resilience Action Plan includes a commitment by the Government to develop a cross-sector tool to help assess cyber resilience in critical national infrastructure (CNI).
Increased ‘red teaming’ capability
The Government commits to building a dedicated red teaming capability in the Government Office for Science. This will:
- Red team the next National Capabilities Assessment, providing structured critique of how suitable the capabilities for responding to crisis situations are to address the risks faced
- Offer a red teaming tool to test planning for specific risks
- Introduce a new peer review protocol for Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) to assess their planning, response, and recovery activities, including training
Extending the scope of the National Exercising Programme
Individuals, the private sector, and the voluntary, community, and faith sectors (VCFS) will be involved in every phase of the National Exercising Programme, including during the planning of exercises. This aims to ensure that the needs of these groups are considered when setting the national exercise objectives.
National CNI Knowledge Base
The Resilience Action Plan commits to developing the CNI Knowledge Base, which will create an interactive map of all CNI in the UK. This will enable the identification of cascading vulnerabilities across CNI sectors.
Strategic Resilience Forum
The Government will establish a Strategic Resilience Forum to bring together the UK Government, devolved governments, LRFs, the VCFS sector, and businesses to “build relationships and work together to strengthen the UK’s resilience.”
