GB-London: case studies

The Government has recently undertaken a post-implementation review of the Civil Contingencies Act and is currently developing a new national resilience strategy. Alongside this, the National Preparedness Commission undertook its own independent review of the Act. The LGA's input to these reviews highlighted our view that the Act needs to reflect the legitimate role of elected councillors in local resilience work: currently, there is no reference at all to local politicians within the Act.

We are pleased that the reviews recognise this democratic deficit in the Act, but it is likely that it will be several years before the Act can be amended to address this. The aim of this work is therefore to highlight and promote existing best practice working that ensures appropriate democratic oversight of and engagement with local resilience activities at each stage of the emergency planning cycle: preparedness, response and recovery.

We are seeking a provider to:

a)Work with the purchaser to identify 8-10 examples of democratic involvement in local resilience work, whether internally within councils or with wider LRFs.

b)Ensure that the examples reflect a broad spread of council types and regions, and different stages of the emergency planning cycle: preparedness, response and recovery.

c)Undertake interviews with representatives of case study areas, including elected members, to understand members' roles in resilience activity and why/how this has been successful.

d)Develop a set of case studies for review and sign off by both the case study area and the LGA.

e)If possible, analyse and summarise in a short introductory note any similarities and underpinning principles relevant to the collective group of case studies which could help other areas to design their own approaches.