Essex Resilience Forum

COPE Document

Coping with Loss

Emergency Assistance Centre Guidelines

Keeping Essex Safe

Package of Care

Environment Agency Preparing for a flood

Environment Agency During A flood

Environment Agency After a flood

ERF - Coastal Flooding – Who can Help

ERF - Notifiable Animal Diseases Operational Procedures – Avian Influenza

ERF - Group Structure

ERF Governance Flow Chart

ERF Templates

Related Documents

Avian Flu

Pandemic Flu

UK Resilience

Safety at Public Events

Preparing for Emergencies

Government Office for East of England

Links

Essex Resilience Forum (ERF)

The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 requires local responder bodies to co-operate in preparing for and responding to emergencies through a Local Resilience Forum (LRF). Essex has always recognised the importance of multi-agency working and has addressed this for many years by engaging in a range of formal and informal groups and networks. These now operate under the Essex Resilience Forum.

Aim

The Essex Resilience Forum sits at the apex of Essex's local civil protection arrangements. Its overall purpose is to ensure that there is an appropriate level of preparedness to enable an effective multi-agency response to emergencies which may have a significant impact on the communities of Essex.

Objectives

The Essex Resilience Forum's specific objectives are:

to agree on joint strategic and policy approaches relating to Essex's preparedness and response;
to approve the Community Risk Register, and ensure it provides a robust basis for planning;
to ensure that appropriate multi-agency plans, procedures, training and exercises necessary to address identified or foreseeable local and wider area hazards are in place and outstanding gaps identified;
to direct and oversee the activities of working groups as they are established and allocate tasks to them as appropriate;
to receive reports from the working groups on current threat levels, gaps in planning and progress on actions tasked;
to ensure that appropriate resources are made available to working groups to fulfil statutory and task-based responsibilities;
to co-ordinate the individual approaches and responsibilities of each organisation to ensure that they complement each other and dovetail with partners' arrangements, and
to consider the implications of legislation, national initiatives and decisions of the Regional Resilience Forum for the Local Resilience Forum area.

Meetings

The Essex Resilience Forum meets every six months and attendance is open to all partners engaged in emergency planning in Essex. In order to support this large group, the Essex Resilience Forum Management Group (ERFMG) has been constituted. This is a smaller, strategic decision making group for resilience matters in the county which meets on a quarterly basis, or more frequently if required.

Membership of Essex Resilience Forum Management Group (ERFMG)

Working Groups

A number of working groups and sub-groups have been formed to take forward action points from the main LRF, undertake development work and discuss specialist civil protection topics. They also refer matters for information, decision and endorsement by the strategic group.

The following working groups are currently in place: Local Authorities; Risk Assessment; Voluntary Sector; Planning Training & Exercise; Media & Public Information; Health; Emergency Services; Flood Liaison. There are also some sub-groups addressing the following areas: Business Continuity; Crisis Support Team; Chemical, Biological, Radiological & Nuclear; Category 2 Responders.