Government agrees with infrastructure advisor on need for resilience and pledges new strategy
The Cabinet Office has said it agrees with the three primary recommendations from the National Infrastructure Commission’s May 2020 report Anticipate, react, recover: resilient infrastructure systems, which collectively suggested the government’s “framework for resilience should deliver infrastructure that is resilient to a range of future challenges”.
In a policy paper setting out the government’s response, it explained: “As outlined in the Integrated Review, HMG has committed to “improv[ing] our ability… to anticipate, prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from risks to our security and prosperity. This will be delivered through the development of a comprehensive National Resilience Strategy which is underway.”
It said the strategy will establish an enduring framework to improve the UK’s resilience to emergencies and adapt to new and/or evolving risks – including climate change, emerging technology, state threats, cyber attacks and interdependencies between sectors on both a national and global scale.
Moreover: “The National Resilience Strategy will specifically consider the roles and responsibilities of critical national infrastructure (CNI) owners and operators to ensure high levels of resilience across our most essential sectors. The strategy will also consider how to integrate the roles of CNI owners and operators within a wider framework that also incorporates all levels of government, the wider private sectors, civil society and the public.”
The NIC report dealt with a subset of CNI sectors: water, energy, digital, road and rail.
Comments