Main navigation

Civil Contingencies Secretariat

Aims and Objectives

The Civil Contingencies Secretariat was established in July 2001. Since then, CCS has worked to improve the UK's preparedness for and response to emergencies.

CCS aims to ensure that the UK and its communities remain a safe and secure place to live and work, by effectively identifying and managing the risk of emergencies, and maintaining world-class capabilities to respond to and recover from emergencies.

We have a number of specific objectives:

1. Spotting trouble, assessing its nature and providing warning
   Not all emergencies are predictable. But, for those that are, the earlier we detect an emerging crisis, and the more accurately we assess its likely size and shape, the better the response we will put into place. This objective covers the measures needed to ensure that, working with Departments and a wide range of other organisations, we can spot, assess and warn of trouble and thus facilitate the provision of the most effective response, drawing on lessons from past experience.

1. Being ready to respond
   This objective covers the preparedness of all of those who might have a role to play in the response to a major disruptive challenge. As well as ensuring that we ourselves are ready, it is also about tracking the preparedness of organisations at national, regional and local levels, in the public sector and outside, using the Civil Contingencies Act to develop and embed performance audit and management regimes across all responders, rooted in formal preparedness assessments. We also aim to ensure mechanisms are in place so that the UK is as well placed as it can be to respond to threats which horizon-scanning shows may be at higher risk of occurring.

1. Building greater resilience for the future
   This objective covers action at all levels, from local to international, to build stronger resilience capabilities. It thus covers the processes led by the CCS to drive the delivery of resilience capabilities. It also covers international work to develop closer relations in the resilience field through which we can build mutual resilience. This includes bilateral work, and action in the EU and in NATO to seek to build greater resilience capability in partner countries, as well as the EU's own ability to manage a crisis.

1. Providing leadership and guidance to the resilience community
   We aim to tell those involved in delivering and building resilience across the UK what we are trying to do, where we are trying to get to, how we will get there and how we will know that we have succeeded - in short, to build consistency and coherence across the UK. Some key means are already in place, especially via the Capabilities Programme and its outputs and the Civil Contingencies Act. We will be focusing on the development of a 'National Resilience Strategy' and reviewing our national exercise programme.

1. Effective management
   This objective covers the way in which we manage ourselves, and our effective management of Cabinet Office processes. Some of it is routine but nonetheless important. We aim to sustain our reputation as effective managers of people and money, and as efficient operators of Cabinet Office processes.

Wider context

CCS carries out this work within the overall framework of the Cabinet Office.

The Cabinet Office sits at the very centre of government and, with the Treasury, provides the 'head office' of government. The Cabinet Office has an overarching purpose of Making government work better.

The Department has three core functions that enable it to achieve this overarching purpose:

1. Supporting the Prime Minister - to define and deliver the Government's objectives.
2. Supporting the Cabinet - to drive the coherence, quality and delivery of policy and operations across departments.
3. Strengthening the Civil Service - to ensure the civil service is organised effectively and has the capability in terms of skills, values and leadership to deliver the Government's objectives.

Click here to go to the Cabinet Office website [External website].

[return to top]