No formal response published by this government.

No formal response published by this government.

The government agrees with the Inquiry's insights, and they align with our own reflections. The government is therefore implementing a common strategic approach to preparing for and responding to whole-system civil emergencies, which will form part of a refreshed resilience strategy. The resilience strategy will be developed and published in spring 2025 following the resilience review and will set out the government’s vision for a stronger and more resilient UK.

Alignment and interoperability across the UK and devolved governments is absolutely critical to our ability to effectively respond to catastrophic risks. However, all governments agree that a single UK-wide strategy which covers all of the sub-recommendations would be unwieldy and would not be appropriate given devolution arrangements, responsibilities and accountabilities. We agree that risk planning should be done jointly or in concert, and we will cooperate closely as we develop the approach to a new resilience strategy.

Risk profiles vary greatly for different whole-system risks; to create long-term improvements the government has strengthened risk-specific strategies to drive forward meaningful change. Risk-specific planning documents can be refreshed more frequently, enabling greater agility in the face of a changing risk landscape. The UK Biological Security Strategy was published in June 2023 with a renewed vision, mission, outcomes and plans to protect the UK and our interests from significant biological risks, no matter how these occur and no matter who or what they affect. It provides the overarching strategic framework for mitigating biological risks to the UK and sets the framing for several threat and disease specific UK strategies (such as the recently published Antimicrobial Resistance National Action Plan, and the new strategic approach to Pandemic Preparedness). This government has adopted the Strategy in full and committed to ensure we have the capabilities we need to protect the public from a spectrum of biological threats.

To fulfil a commitment in the Strategy, the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) is publishing a government health and care pandemic preparedness strategy that will set out how the health and care system is implementing the principles of the new strategic approach to pandemic preparedness.

DHSC is also leading work to complete a UK-wide respiratory response plan for health and care, followed by response plans for all other routes of transmission: oral, blood and sexual, contact and vector. In the autumn 2024 budget, the government announced it is strengthening the UK’s pandemic preparedness and health protection with £460 million of investment.

The government also agrees that having clearly defined and well-understood roles and responsibilities is a pre-requisite for an effective UK-wide response. Following the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic, the government implemented a programme of substantial change to how it plans for and responds to whole-system risks. This includes:

- A substantial refresh of the government’s risk-agnostic framework for how we collectively respond to crises - the Central Government Concept of Operations for Emergency Response and Recovery (HMG ConOps). This will be published by spring 2025.

- Risk-specific operational plans which reflect the leadership role for the Cabinet Office in whole-system emergencies. These will be delivered by spring 2025 and will be scalable and adaptable, clarify roles and responsibilities (departments, agencies and devolved governments), and set out triggers and thresholds for moving to a centralised response.

- Improvements to the National Security Risk Assessment (NSRA) where assessments will be based on published modelling, where available, and will include the potential health, social, environmental and economic impacts of the emergencies as well as potential impacts on critical infrastructure and services. The assessments will also aim to evaluate the impacts of potential response options on the population and, in particular, on vulnerable people.

- Building on the National Response Capabilities Programme, which provides oversight of the government’s ability to respond to civil emergencies through a set of emergency response capabilities (including plans, personnel, legislation, training, equipment, data, infrastructure, technology and skills).

- Completing mapping of key cascading impacts of catastrophic risks to support departments in their planning and response and ensure a more developed and whole-system approach to risk planning. Crucially this includes identifying gaps where further work is required, which will then be escalated through refreshed governance structures.

- Establishing and building the skills needed to respond effectively across the UK through the UK Resilience Academy and the Crisis Management Excellence Programme.

We welcome the Inquiry’s emphasis on a whole of society and whole system approach to resilience. The multi-agency partnership role of Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) is key to local areas better preparing for, responding to and recovering from incidents. This government will continue to strengthen local resilience working closely with LRFs and wider local partners, and will work with local leaders to consider the role of Strategic Authorities in building resilience across their areas.

[IN PROGRESS] Resilience Action Plan published July 2025. Pandemic preparedness strategy targeted for autumn 2025 release. Respiratory response plan due summer 2025.