Risk register
What is Risk Assessment and why is it important?
Risk assessment is the first step in the emergency planning process and aims to identify those risks which could result in a major emergency. Each risk once identified is then quantified on its likelihood to occur and the probable adverse conditions/impacts which could result.
Risk assessment is important as it enables us to ensure that our plans are sound and proportionate to the risks that exist, and enable us to take preventative action where appropriate.
The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 places a statutory obligation on all Category 1 responders to carry out risk assessments and to maintain a 'community risk register' (i.e. a register of assessments carried out). The West Midlands Local Resilience Forum has adopted a multi-agency approach for this work and has engaged a wide range of stakeholders and partner organisations in the process.
Community Risk Register - How it was developed
The generation of the community risk register has been subject to a six-stage process as recommended in the document Emergency Preparedness (guidance document produced by central Government to support Part 1 of the Civil Contingencies Act).
Briefly this process consists of the following steps:
- Contextualisation - (i.e. defining how the process will be undertaken)
- Hazard Review and Allocation for Assessment
- Risk Analysis
- Risk Evaluation
- Risk Treatment
- Monitoring & Review
Download a PDF version of the West Midlands Community Risk Register
The Government have published a National Risk Register which sets out our assessment of the likelihood and potential impact of a range of different risks that may directly affect the UK on a National scale. The National Risk Register is designed to increase awareness of the kinds of risks the UK faces, and encourage individuals and organisations to think about their own preparedness. The register also includes details of what the Government and emergency services are doing to prepare for emergencies.
West Midlands LRF Risk Profile
The West Midlands conurbation is made up of 7 metropolitan councils with a total population of over 2 million people, with nearly half being within Birmingham. It border 3 counties Warwickshire, Staffordshire and Worcestershire. The West Midlands conurbation is associated with a high density urban nature, with key rail routes, a number of major roads and a complex motorway network. There is also a significant number of flight paths in the region due to Birmingham International Airport. There are also some heavily industrialised sites with 9 top tier and 26 lower tier COMAH sites. There are also exhibition centres such as the NEC, NIA and International convention centre and finally several football stadiums.
Wolverhampton specifically is in the northwest of the conurbation; it covers 26 square miles and has a total population of 239,100. Running through this area are the Birmingham, Shropshire Union and Staffordshire and Worcestershire canals.
Wolverhampton LRF Risk Scenarios
As part of the hazard review process we have been considering a range of scenarios which can be assessed for both the likelihood of them occurring and the impact that would result were it to happen.
The inclusion of these hazards or particular scenarios (i.e. the outcome description) do not however mean that the LRF believes the risk will materialise, or that if it were to do so, it would be of that scale. The risk scenarios are reasonable worse case scenario assumptions upon which we have based our risk assessment work.
The work is an ongoing process. It is our intention to make further details for all of the hazards identified available via this website as and when it is practical and sensible to do so.
All of the scenarios have one thing in common in that they are incidents that would occur as a result of an accident rather than deliberate or malicious action, for example terrorism. Despite this however malicious scenarios have also been subject to further consideration for example:
- Conventional explosions
- Chemical / Biological / Radiological attacks
- Transport incidents
- Electronic attacks ? e.g. affecting utilities, communications or other services
Given the sensitivity of the information supporting these risk assessments and the potential for use by terrorist organisations, specific details will not be made available via this website, however, we wanted to highlight that both non-malicious and malicious incidents have been considered as part of the risk assessment duty.
Review
This work is an ongoing process and the timescales involved in the production of the final community risk register (a template for which can be found in annex 4E of the Emergency Preparedness cannot be underestimated. The work to date is however provided here to illustrate the assessment work that has been completed so far, and it is our intention to make further details of all the hazards identified available via this website as and when it is practical to do so. Please refer back to this page regularly to keep up to date with our progress.
Risk assessment is by no means a static process and is subject to constant review as local and national circumstances dictate, though we do intend to undertake a formal review of our risk assessment work every 4 years.
Contact Us
The Wolverhampton Local Resilience forum welcomes your comments and feedback on the register and should you wish to contact them please email: emergency.planning@wolverhampton.gov.uk
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