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The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it will trace, for the first time, the historical events which have progressively influenced emergency training. Second, it will evaluate the design considerations and delivery of strategic training to participants attending a multi-agency gold incident command programme. Finally, it will make recommendations about the suitability of training approaches for different aspects of emergency training.

This research used a mixed methods study design involving a longitudinal literature review of disasters which influenced training; and a case study of multi-agency training.

Guidance for major incidents developed in a relatively ad hoc manner until consolidated by the Civil Contingencies Act (2004). In addition, health and safety considerations prevent on-the-job training during major incidents. Furthermore, different forms of training would appear to be more suited to training for the different stages of a major incident.

The European Union delegates responsibility for emergency planning to individual nations. Although the findings relate to this UK case study the lessons learned would appear to be generic and may be applicable in other countries.

Emergency training is a statutory requirement and therefore needs to be systematically organised. Different types of training are suited to different stages of a major incident.

Emergency training is a statutory requirement and therefore needs to be systematically organised. Different types of training are suited to different stages of a major incident.

This is the first paper charting the historical development of emergency training. There is a limited base of literature for emergency training.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to review the changes made to civil protection in the UK, both legislative and capacity building, that aim to make the UK more resilient.

Reviews the background to changes in UK civil protection and compares these with the work being done by the broader disaster management community on the meaning and development of resilience to a range of threats.

Finds that the UK approach has been deflected by the terrorist attack of 11 September 2001 and is clearly focused on organisational resilience. This top‐down approach does not augur well in terms of promoting a more resilient society. The paper also questions if it is time to take a broader view of what constitutes an emergency.

The recent changes in UK civil protection are in many ways welcome. But the promotion of more resilient communities requires a bottom‐up as opposed to a top‐down approach. Government funding is aimed mainly at institutional resilience. This raises the question of how to promote a broader agenda of more resilient societies able to respond to a broad range of threats.

This paper explores how fire and rescue services in England responded to the challenges and opportunities presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. It examines the form and nature of fire and rescue services’ collaborations with the ambulance, police and other services and how effective their emergency planning arrangements prepared them for the pandemic.

The authors briefly set out the background to the emergency services response to recent events of national significance in the UK and North America, focussing on the collaborative aspects of the emergency services response. The authors then examine three sets of secondary sources, namely documents specifically related to Fire and Rescue Services’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK.

All three investigations found that the pandemic had provided an opportunity for issues relating to planning and collaboration to be re-examined and for the emergence of new innovations (both technological and organisational) to provide new responses and solutions. Although the Inspectorate found that the services had generally responded well, it controversially criticised the role of the Fire Brigades Union in the national and local response to the pandemic.

The research is situationally bound to England although there may be transferable lessons to other services and jurisdictions.

Potential future improvements are identified at national and local levels for policy and for the operational response to widespread and long-term emergencies.

England has had very few contemporary public health emergencies on the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic; this research presents an important opportunity for seeking to understand what is working well and where improvements are required to improve both the local and national response in relation to such a complex and dynamic environment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine access for disabled people to emergency rest centres (ERCs) provision in the UK. ERCs are premises used for the temporary accommodation of evacuees during an emergency situation. They form an important part of emergency response, by providing a focal point for receiving people and providing food, shelter, information and support.

Three case studies of ERCs that were established in different local authority areas within the Yorkshire and Humber region in the UK, during a flooding event on 25 June 2007, were used to determine the level of accessibility and inclusion of disabled people at these centres.

While uncovering many instances of good practise, the results from the research identified lessons to be learnt, in particular the main barriers to access were: facilities and elements that did not comprise part of the building's normal operation, such as the provision of bedding, medical assistance and effective communication; and facilities that would not normally be expected to be used to the extent, or duration, whilst the ERC was in operation, such as the adequate welfare facilities. The research found that the civil protection legislation within the UK contains limited guidance for those with responsibility for ERC provision, and little impetus for emergency planners to consider the needs of disabled people.

The paper has broad implications for local authorities and national government representatives. It identifies a need for those with responsibility for emergency planning and response to strengthen their knowledge of disabled people, and to adopt a more holistic approach to the provision of emergency planning and response.

The study of access issues in ERC situations, as far as the authors are aware, has not been studied previously.

This paper aims to argue that to address the consequences of climate change and variability a greater focus on pre‐emergency planning that engages a wider stakeholder group must be adopted.

The paper discusses UK emergency management and approaches to climate change and climate variability risk.

The internal focus of UK emergency management inhibits the contribution that it can make to societal resilience and public preparedness. Effective risk reduction requires that all actors, including the public, are engaged in the social learning process. From a UK emergency management perspective this requires a culture shift to an outward proactive focus.

This paper offers insights into emergency preparedness in the UK.

The aim of this paper is to develop a discussion of the production of community resilience to extreme weather during the first years of a new national government, one which is cognisant of the political change and uncertainty, the legislative framework and the institutional complexity that defines the adaptation scenario in the UK and London specifically.

Qualitative semi‐structured interviews and group interventions were conducted amongst regional and local authority decision‐makers in London in the period from late 2010 through to early 2011.

Hazard experience and political will were found to be important, interrelated drivers of community resilience. Adaptation work was found to face a tangibility problem that challenged stakeholders to make the case for its higher prioritisation in a highly economistic decision‐making process. Citywide resilience‐building schemes were observed of increasing organisational sophistication, and remained difficult to test and largely disengaged from the general public.

The paper offers tools to understand movement in the administrative architecture of adaptation, probing the associated inter‐agency workings. It introduces the idea of the epistemic ecology to describe and explain the multiple kinds of knowledge employed by stakeholders in the adaptation scenario, and anticipates the impacts of localism and insurance policies currently in the pipeline.

Professions involved with the construction industry need to become more aware of disaster risk management (DRM) activities if lessons are to be learned from the past and a resilient built environment attained in the future. This study aims to focus on identifying which construction‐associated stakeholders should be involved with DRM initiatives in the UK, and when these stakeholders should be involved. This research is thereby unique and a key step in the longer‐term aim of identifying how stakeholders should be involved and what issues they need to address regarding the integration of DRM into construction decision making.

This paper presents the findings of a UK‐wide questionnaire survey, semi‐structured interviews and a validation exercise involving a range of professionals from construction, planning, insurance, emergency management and local/national government agencies.

This research identifies the key construction stakeholders that should be responsible for ensuring that resilience issues become integrated and ensuring the key stages of the design‐construction‐operation process where their inputs are required.

The finding presented are an important and logical step in the longer term aim of identifying how stakeholders should be better involved and what issues they need to address regarding the integration of DRM into construction decision making.

Threats of extreme events, such as terrorist attacks or infrastructure breakdown, are potentially highly disruptive events for all types of organizations. This paper seeks to take a political perspective to power in strategic decision making and how this influences planning for extreme events.

A sample of 160 informants drawn from 135 organizations, which are part of the critical national infrastructure in the UK, forms the empirical basis of the paper. Most of these organizations had publicly placed business continuity and preparedness as a strategic priority. The paper adopts a qualitative approach, coding data from focus groups.

In nearly all cases there is a pre‐existing dominant coalition which keeps business continuity decisions off the strategic agenda. The only exceptions to this are a handful of organizations which provide continuous production, such as some utilities, where disruption to business as usual can be readily quantified. The data reveal structural and decisional elements of the exercise of power. Structurally, the dominant coalition centralizes control by ensuring that only a few functional interests participate in decision making.

Decisional elements of power emphasize the dominance of calculative rationality where decisions are primarily made on information and arguments which can be quantified. Finally, the paper notes the recursive aspect of power relations whereby agency and structure are mutually constitutive over time. Organizational structures of control are maintained, despite the involvement of managers charged with organizational preparedness and resilience, who remain outside the dominant coalition.

The paper constitutes a first attempt to show how planning for emergencies fits within the strategy‐making process and how politically controlled this process is.