On Tuesday GovNet held its annual Civil Contingencies Conference at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Westminster. I’d be very interested to hear what you thought of the presentations and the day as a whole. Did it meet your expectations? If not, in what areas could it have been better?
(Whitepapers and presentations from GemaTech’s seminar will be distributed by newsletter.)
It was great to see such a full hall for the main talks. After an introduction by chairmain Dr. Tobias Feakin, MP Huw Irranca-Davies (Marine and Natural Environment DEFRA) underlined the fact that flooding will still be a big threat to UK homes and businesses in the coming months and years. His key point was that while we will never be able to prevent flooding we can always improve our flood defences and warning systems. He also spoke of a national flood exercise which is to be held in March 2011, named ‘Watermark’, which will put UK organisation’s resilience plans to the test.
In my opinion, while it is great to plan for future testing, organisations should not wait to plan for present threats. Gloucester, Cumbria, Cornwall could all be repeated at any time in the coming year.
Christine Scott, the new Director, Civil Contingencies Secretariat, Cabinet Office, made her debut appearance and focused on 6 C’s:
1. Compatibility
2. Critical Infrastructure
3. Consistency
4. Community Resilience
5. Corporate Resilience
6. Catastrophes
With the emphasis on cross sector programmes and initiatives, Christine’s approach to her work in leading the National Risk Resilience Framework is hopefully one that will give regeneration to the urgency needed to ensure all public sector organisations are fully resilient across all areas of operation.
The afternoon presentations were not so well attended, but a good turnout at each of the 3 seminars was a welcome sight.
How were the seminars for you? Did you attend GemaTech’s telecoms resilience seminar, and if so, was it what you expected?
All presentations and whitepapers will be available shortly to those people who have signed up to our newsletter.
Tags: civil contingencies 2010
