Government seeks to grasp public perceptions of risk in bid to up resilience to national threats

The government is seeking to “understand current perceptions of risk and resilience’” and to “gauge the UK’s appetite for change,” in its bid to draw up a national resilience strategy.

The Cabinet Office has opened a three-month public consultation with a call for evidence to inform the development of the strategy. The call for evidence is based on six themes: risk and resilience, responsibilities and accountability, partnerships, community, investment and resilience in an interconnected world.

It lays out the objectives for each theme of questions as:

• risk and resilience – improving our ability to “both predict and adapt to identified and unexpected challenges”;

• responsibilities and accountability: – a clear understanding of “when, where and how to apply tools, processes and relationships effectively”;

• partnerships –  parts of society as well as government should “play an essential role in building collective resilience”;

• community – “a whole-of-society approach” to strengthening the UK’s resilience;

• investment – addressing the challenge of where to place investment in the risk cycle across “public and private sectors alike”; and

• resilience in an interconnected world –  addressing “challenges and opportunities” witting the “closely entwined” nature of UK resilience and that of the rest of the world.

In her foreword to the consultation document paymaster general, Penny Mordaunt (pictured), emphasised the scope of the government’s perception of the need for greater resilience: “Recently we have experienced the effects of extreme weather, terrorism and pandemics. We have seen cyber attacks on critical systems ,geopolitical instability, and accidents. We have also seen just how quickly issues arising overseas can impact us here in the UK.

She added: “We need to be better able to deal with ‘whole-system’ emergencies, and we need to foster a whole of society approach to both preparedness and response. All parts of the UK must work together, with better cooperation between all levels of government. We must work with businesses and industry to strengthen the resilience of our systems and infrastructure.”