The government agrees with the need for a greater Cabinet Office role for whole- system civil emergencies. This is in addition to the Lead Government Department model which retains an essential role in preparedness and resilience. In building the resilience of the UK to respond to whole-system emergencies, we are looking across a complex system which involves all of UK society, as well as international actors. The system needs to operate across the whole lifecycle of an extensive array of risks,4 have clarity of roles and responsibilities, and act in an agile and efficient way at each stage of the cycle. Therefore, in improving the leadership of this system for whole-system civil emergencies, we have sought to maximise and best direct the available resources to provide the most effective impact. For these reasons, the government has focused on the most serious whole-system risks with significant cascading impacts which affect the whole of society. These risks are those with a catastrophic impact level in the National Security Risk Assessment (NSRA, further detail about this is included under recommendation 3). To provide a clear line of accountability the UK has a ‘Lead Government Department’ (LGD) model5 to cover all phases of the emergency management cycle for all risks in the NSRA. In the LGD model, designated government departments with the day-to- day responsibility for an issue or sector are responsible for leading work to identify serious risks and ensuring that the right planning, response and recovery arrangements are in place. This ensures that the responsibility and oversight sits with the body with the best understanding, relationships and mechanisms for delivery to identify and address risks. The system is most effective when responsibilities for 4 The emergency management cycle contains: risk anticipation, risk assessment, prevention/mitigation, preparation, validate, response, recovery and learning. 5 LGD list resilience are managed by those most able to discharge them, with central support for cross-system collaboration and information sharing, as no single organisation or government can manage these risks alone. To support that balance, we will retain the Lead Government Department model for catastrophic risks, but with a greater role for the Cabinet Office in driving work to improve preparedness and resilience. Furthermore, the Cabinet Office is expected to provide leadership in responding to catastrophic risks should they arise, working closely with the LGD, to coordinate a whole-system response. This supplements the role of all government departments to prepare for and respond to the cascading impacts of these risks in the areas for which they are responsible. The Cabinet Office will collaborate closely with the LGDs and all departments to place the best available expertise on each catastrophic risk at the heart of our national preparations, supporting departments to identify and plan against a fuller range of cascading impacts. To ensure these capabilities are integrated into the government's approach, we will publish updated guidance for all government departments on catastrophic risk management to ensure all parts of the system understand their roles and responsibilities in delivering whole-system preparedness. This is in relation to the primary risk impacts, but also to ensure preparedness and resilience to the cascading impacts of the risk. The Cabinet Office has already taken steps to strengthen its role on catastrophic risks. Since the pandemic, the department has published a revised Lead Government Department list, which makes clear risk ownership across the UK and devolved governments to ensure that all civil contingencies risks are appropriately and effectively managed through all parts of the risk cycle. These actions strengthen the Cabinet Office’s long-standing role in monitoring, supporting and improving the preparedness and resilience of other departments. This includes leadership of two cross-cutting resilience programmes, the Response Capabilities Programme and the National Exercising Programme (NEP). This programme monitors and identifies possible improvements to the government’s core emergency response capabilities and the NEP delivers an annual national (or ‘Tier 1’) exercise to test cross-government co-ordination. National exercises involve regional/devolved government administrations and local responders, as well as relevant businesses and voluntary and community organisations and culminate in a post-exercise report which makes recommendations to improve the government's capacity and capabilities to prepare for and respond to risks. Further detail can be found in Recommendation 6. For all risks, the decision to move to a centrally-led response remains at the discretion of the Prime Minister when considering the scale, complexity or severity of a crisis. To reinforce this, the Cabinet Office has: ● Developed a substantial update of the Central Government Concept of Operations for Emergency Response and Recovery (HMG CONOPs) which is due for publication in Spring 2025. This provides further detail on the role of the Cabinet Office in the immediate response to whole-of-system crises, and includes information on arrangements for when the Cabinet Office may take on a leadership role. ● Undertaken additional work on planning against defined catastrophic risks. This supplements the HMG CONOPs by creating plans for individual catastrophic risks should a response be required. These plans include trigger points for when a risk might escalate to a catastrophic level, clear decision-making authorities and processes, the activation procedures for acute crisis management structures, and data requirements. To support this the Cabinet Office also works with departments, devolved governments and local partners, where appropriate, to plan and prepare for the cascading impacts of catastrophic risks. ● Updated the governance structures for catastrophic risks to reflect the Cabinet Office’s larger role. In this governance structure, the Cabinet Office supports departments to correct problems, and escalate issues to the UK Cabinet-level National Security Council (Resilience) and supporting senior official groups. The governance for catastrophic risks forms a key part of the wider governance structure set out in recommendation 1.