Agenda item

The Board considered a report of the Strategic Director, Policy & Resources which informed Members of the roles and responsibilities of the Risk and Emergency Planning Team.

The Board was advised that the Emergency Planning Team currently consisted of three staff (Principal Emergency Planning Officer (currently vacant due to a recent retirement) and two Emergency Planning Officers).  The team provided services to the whole Council and was the initial contact for any Major or Serious Incident within Halton.  When a call was received from Cheshire Police, the Emergency Planning Officer (EPO) on call made an initial assessment of the situation and then, if necessary, would contact a First Responder. First Responders were essentially all Operational Directors (OD) and Divisional Managers (DM) from across all departments who would take it in turns (on a monthly basis) to be on-call to respond to the EPO and subsequently instigate various processes to enable the Council to respond positively and quickly to the incident. 

The Board was further advised that during office hours this could be the most appropriate OD or DM for the incident, but outside of office hours this would be from the list of available First Responders.  Strategic Directors also took it in turns to be available for calls from the EPO. In addition, it was reported that, in consultation with the First Responder a decision may be taken to open a Local Authority Emergency Centre (LAEC) to respond to the incident.

It was reported that the Risk Management Team prepared, co-ordinated and monitored all the Risk Registers for the Council, highlighting particular risks to the Authority to ensure approach measures were implemented.

The Board noted the numerous responsibilities of the team set out in paragraphs 4.1 – 4.7 of the report.

In conclusion, it was reported that it was not possible to give the Board an update on Creamfields as the briefing had not as yet taken place.

The following comments arose from the discussion:-

·       It was suggested that Members of the Board observe a test/exercise in the future to obtain a greater understanding of how the Emergency Centres operated;

·       The Board noted the sequence of events that would take place when there was an major incident;

·       The chairman suggested that a seminar be arranged for all Members in order to raise their awareness on the risk and emergency planning service;

·       It was reported that good working relationships were in place with cross border agencies / organisations. Recently, emergency planning had scheduled a cross border multi agency meeting with Cheshire to review the Cheshire roles and responsibilities within the COMAH (Control of Major Accident Hazards) Pentagon Fine Chemicals Multi Agency Response Plan.  It was also reported that as the site was based in Merseyside, it had a predominantly SE wind, which in the event of a major accident happening on the site, would impact on the Halton community i.e Widnes.  Therefore cross border roles and responsibilities needed to be agreed and in place; and

·       It was agreed that the designated telephone number for Members to ring in an emergency would be circulated to all Members of the Board.

RESOLVED: That the report and comments be noted.