Agenda item

Report of the Town Clerk.

The Committee received a ‘deep dive’ risk review report of the Town Clerk in respect of Corporate Risk CRO1 (Resilience: an event or situation related to terrorism or other serious event/major incident).  The report was presented by the Town Clerk, Assistant Town Clerk and the Resilience Manager.

During the discussion and questions the following points were noted:

• The role of the Police, as the likely initial Gold Command, was separate to that of the City of London Corporation.   Members noted that the role of the Town Clerk and his Resilience Team would largely come into effect after the initial response to an incident; i.e. during civilian recovery although it was recognised now that Local Authorities should be engaged from the outset.  However, Members also noted that, during a recent mock exercise, the Town Clerk had taken over the chair of the Gold Group within 24 hours.   The Town Clerk advised that the City of London Corporation enjoyed a very good working relationship with the City of London Police; the Protocols were well developed and available in the public domain. 

• The Town Clerk had a high profile role in resilience in London and was Chairman of the London Local Authority Panel and Deputy Chairman of the London Local Resilience Forum and on a callout rota as London Local Authority Gold.; the Assistant Town Clerk supported him in this role.   Members noted that this forum met  quarterly in order to agree and sign off the programmes and exercises.  The Town Clerk and the Resilience Team were building staff capacity and capability in order to develop generic response skills.  Members noted that this skills set should equip the Resilience Team to deal with 90% of all incidents, including the impact of a cyber-attack.

• The Chief Executive on call during a major incident would have a delegation to authorise spending for another authority; i.e. Westminster.  Members noted that a sub-regional approach might be adopted in the longer term.  The City of London’s Co-ordination Centre would support the emergency services. 

• There was a new, emerging risk in respect of solar flares (particularly in parts of North American and Northern Europe) and the potential failure of electrical infrastructures.  The City of London Corporation had hosted the first multi-table event three months ago, which started discussions. Members noted particular implications for the City; i.e. the impact of the loss of refrigeration and water supplies. 

• In order to raise staff awareness, Project Griffin and Argus sessions had been offered to key staff, along with the ‘run, hide, tell’ campaign.  Plans were underway to replace the door entry system with new cards, gates and readers.  A Member suggested that staff ID cards carry the emergency response telephone number.

• Whilst remote and home working had improved considerably since 2012, the risk of low temperatures and heavy snow had remained high following an incident 5 years ago, when some local authorities ran out of grit during a particularly harsh winter. 

Members commended a thorough and robust report and were satisfied that, given the measures in place as set out above, the City was in as strong a place as it could be. 

RESOLVED, that – the report be noted.