Agenda item

ES 18005

The report dealing with the Emergency Planning and Business Continuity Service Update was drafted by Paul Lehane (Head of Food Safety, Occupational Safety and Licensing). The update on the night was presented jointly by Mr Lehane and Laurie Grasty-- Emergency Planning and Corporate Resilience Manager.

The report had been written to update Members on the Emergency Planning and Business Continuity Service following an earlier report to the Committee on 18^th January 2017. The previous report had highlighted the limited resources allocated to the function and the need to review the Council’s business continuity arrangements.

Members were asked to note and comment on the report.

Mr Lehane stated that since the previous report, LBB was in a better place with respect to Business Continuity and Emergency Planning, and that much had been learned. LBB had provided assistance to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea after the Grenfell Tower fire, and Ms Grasty had grown into her role as Emergency Planning and Corporate Resilience Manager. She was being assisted in this role by Sophie Olive, who was previously a graduate intern, but who was now employed on a full time temporary basis as Business Continuity Officer.

Mr Lehane said that a number of Bromley staff had volunteered to provide assistance with Ms Grasty at the West Way Assistance Centre, and that it was an awful experience and very stressful. The Grenfell incident had shown how a Council’s reputation could be destroyed with just one event where there was an inadequate response.

Recruitment had been undertaken for volunteers to help if an incident occurred; training was ongoing and crucial. The BRF (Bromley Resilience Forum) would co-ordinate local responses and would be chaired by the Chief Executive and by the Executive Director for Environmental and Community Services. The BRF is a multiagency forum that meets 3 times a year to ensure that known risks can be planned, and trained for in the borough with relevant training exercises.

The Chairman referred to section 3.12 of the report that outlined a series of exercises that had been undertaken to assess LBB’s practical ability to respond to incidents. She asked how the exercises went and what was learnt. Ms Grasty explained that one of the exercises had been run directly by LBB, and that was the table top exercise to set up and run a rest centre. LBB had been participants at the other exercises. Subsequent to each exercise, a debriefing report was produced, and any lessons learnt were incorporated into LBB’s emergency planning documentation. 

A Member asked if training was undertaken with the local emergency services and with other boroughs. Ms Grasty explained that London Resilience co-ordinated pan London exercises for all 33 London boroughs. Some joint borough training was undertaken for standardisation.

A Member asked if there was an incident that LBB would not be able to deal with. Mr Lehane responded that it was unlikely that any local authority would be able to respond to an incident of the magnitude of Grenfell. It was also asked if LBB liaised with GPs or the PRUH with respect to a possible flu pandemic. It was noted that a representative from Public Health and NHS England sat on the BRF.

A Member asked Ms Grasty what was the most serious incident that she had been involved in, and the response to this was that it was the Grenfell Tower fire. The most serious local event was probably the previous gas leak in Penge. Ms Grasty continued by emphasising that LBB needed the practical capability to respond, and that volunteers needed training and to feel valued. 

It was noted that every Chief Executive in London would be on call for two weeks throughout the year to Chair the LLAG (London Local Authority Gold Command) if required.

The Committee noted that other boroughs still employed more resilience staff than LBB. A Member stated that the report was an important one, and it was clear that the department had progressed since last time. It was noted that the mechanisms used for emergency planning and business continuity were similar, as were the skill sets, but they were separate in their very nature.

A Member asked if a volunteer rota existed that could be used to assess the number of volunteers available at any given time. Ms Grasty assured that she had a large number of volunteers that could be called upon at any time, and that many of these had assisted at Grenfell. The only person that was formally on call was the Emergency Planning Manager.

Councillor Cartwright had several other questions that he wanted to ask. As time was getting on, it was agreed that he would email the questions directly to Ms Grasty. 

Post Meeting Note:

The questions were emailed to Ms Grasty on January 17^th 2018.

RESOLVED that the Emergency Planning and Business Continuity report be noted.