Risk Profile Statement for Derby and Derbyshire

Derbyshire (including Derby is a county of 1015 square miles) is in the centre of England and forms the north-west part of the East Midlands region. The total resident population is 956,000, of which 221,000 live in Derby.

The western side of the county is predominantly rural and forms the majority of the Peak District National Park. Predominant industries include quarrying, farming and tourism. The north-east districts of the county along with Amber Valley, Erewash and South Derbyshire are former coalfield areas with a diverse range of industries.

Derby's industry includes aero-engine manufacture and a long association with the railways. The area is well served by road links, including the M1 motorway, the Midland Mainline railway link to London runs through Chesterfield and Derby, and both East Midlands and Manchester Airports are close to the county's boundary.

Emergency Preparedness

Legislation has been introduced with the aim of making the country more "resilient" to any form of disruptive challenge, whatever the cause.

The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 has designated a number of organisations as "Category 1" responders because their services are vital to the response to any major emergency. On a local basis these include the emergency services, the health trusts, local authorities, the environment and health protection agencies.

All Category 1 responders have a duty to carry out Risk Assessments and to work together to formulate a joint Community Risk Register (CRR).

The purpose of the Community Risk Register is:

to ensure that local responders have an accurate understanding of the risks that they may face to provide a sound foundation for planning
to provide a rational basis for the prioritisation of objectives, work programmes and allocation of resources
to enable local responders to assess the adequacy of their plans and identify any gaps
to facilitate joined up planning, based on consistent planning assumptions
to provide an accessible overview of the emergency planning context for the public and officials
to inform and reflect on national and regional risk assessments that support emergency planning and capability development at those levels

The Process

The Risk Assessment process being used follows Central Government Guidance, "Emergency Preparedness", issued in support of the new legislation.

Risk Assessment should analyse the "likelihood and impacts" of a range of potential hazardous events affecting Derbyshire over the next five years.

Overall, there are 14 hazard or threat categories being assessed and approximately 65 individual risk assessments to be carried out. In recognition of the fact that likelihood's and impacts can vary according to local circumstances, some assessments will be carried out for each local authority area within the county i.e. each district or borough and the city council area.

The hazard or threat categories are as follows:

Industrial Accident and Environmental Pollution - will take account of pipelines; chemical production, storage and reprocessing sites along with licensed nuclear installations.
Transport Accidents - will take account of the road and rail networks, proximity of airports and flight paths, and where appropriate the navigable waterways within the county.
Severe Weather - will assess all the severe weather hazards.
Flooding - either from the main rivers or the catchments vulnerable to "flash flooding".
Structural Hazards - will take account of land movements, collapse of structures, dam failures and underground workings.
Human Health - will look at communicable diseases such as influenza at various levels and those associated with "contamination" such as e-coli infections.
Animal Health - foot and mouth, avian flu, rabies etc.
Plant Disease.
Crime - serious crime such as mass murders similar to those in Hungerford or Dunblane.
Terrorism - will take account of the current threats including "conventional" bombing possibly involving simultaneous multiple location threats, CBRN terrorism, unconventional attacks for example using hijacked aircraft.
Public Disorder - these assessments will take account of the presence of prisons, sports stadia, large public events and sites which may be susceptible to any form of protest.
Critical Service Disruption - will identify how essential services and industries such as communications, fuel, energy, water, public and health services could be disrupted due to various causes, including technical failure, electronic attack, industrial action etc.
International Crises - will take account of the impacts caused by war overseas or humanitarian crises.
Miscellaneous - the potential for incidents that do not fit in any of the above categories - such as moorland fires etc.

The Role of the Local Resilience Forum

Each police force area in the UK has now appointed a Local Resilience Forum (LRF) to oversee not only the Risk Assessment process, but compliance with all the duties of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.

Membership of the LRF is set at Chief Officer level with all Category 1 responders represented.

A Risk Assessment Working Group, chaired and facilitated by Derbyshire County Council's Emergency Planning Team is responsible for the ongoing work related to the formulation of a Community Risk Register, and brings together a range of emergency planning expertise.

This work will continue, with the aim of formulating comprehensive and detailed Risk Assessments for all hazards within Derbyshire.

Consultation will take place and regular reviews will be carried out to ensure we take account of new and changing threat levels.

The Community Risk Register (CRR)

The CRRs are designed to show the results of our risk assessments. However, the detailed analysis of the likelihood and impacts of hazards or threats which generated those results are not shown.

The register currently shows the results for hazards i.e. events which are "accidental or naturally occurring", and non-terrorist threats.

The terrorist threats being assessed will be seen on the Register but the results of those assessments or the supporting information, will not be available due to its sensitive nature and the potential for use maliciously.

Existing Emergency Planning Arrangements

There are already extensive and integrated emergency plans in place within Derbyshire. All Category 1 responder organisations have flexible generic plans in place.

These plans are designed to instigate a response to a range of potential incidents regardless of the cause.

Generic plans are also supplemented by a number of specific plans which provide a detailed response to existing known hazards.

These include plans for "hazardous sites" such as chemical plants, large gas pipelines, flood contingencies and plans for response to major incidents in Derby city and Chesterfield town centres.

Plans are regularly updated and staff kept aware of their role through training and exercises run to test the resilience of the plans.

If you want to know more

Should you have any questions about the risk assessment process or the continuing work of the Risk Assessment Working Group:

Contact: Nick Elliott
Tel: 01629 580000 ext 7361
email Nick Elliott