Voluntary civil resilience force could boost national resilience

The coronavirus pandemic has shown that the UK is currently woefully unprepared for a range of disasters on a national scale and experts believe that a new voluntary civil resilience force could be the answer to boosting national resilience.

This was one view emerging from an expert panel discussion on the subject of the UK’s national resilience planning and preparedness led by Resilience First and co-hosted by PA Consulting.

In addition to the current pandemic, the UK faces a range of large-scale and complex threats from natural disasters and accidents to deliberate attacks by our adversaries. A range of measures including a civil resilience force, citizen education and new compliance requirements for business should be considered in a forthcoming Integrated Review.

Elisabeth Braw, Senior Research Fellow, Modern Deterrence, Military Sciences, RUSI, opened the discussion saying: “National resilience is important because without it we are completely exposed to calamities heading our way either from mother nature or from our adversaries. For military aggression the UK is very well prepared but below that threshold we are underprepared. A lack of forward thinking and planning has been exposed by Covid-19. Our adversaries will have noted this and are ready to exploit it. It is just unsustainable for the wider public in the UK to have been so unprepared as they were for the impact of Covid-19.

“We need opportunities for people to play their part in national security other than joining the armed services. We need a reserve for other critical functions as well. It would be a phenomenal resource allowing the government to surge in a crisis. We need to view the public as a crisis resource not a burden that the government needs to look after. Young people could be selected for their talent and skills with resilience training between their A levels and university including first aid, survival skills and disaster preparedness. This would create a critical mass of the population who could act as a surge resource for first responders.”

Commenting on the scope of the government’s on-going Integrated Review, Alex Ellis, Deputy National Security Adviser at the Cabinet Office, said: "The Integrated Review will define the government’s ambition for the UK’s role in the world and the long-term strategic aims for our national security and foreign policy, setting out the way in which we will be a problem-solving and burden-sharing nation. It will set a strong direction for recovery from Covid-19, at home and overseas, so that together we can ‘build back better’. Increasing our collective domestic resilience will of course be a key consideration of the Review as a whole."

Robert Hall, executive director of Resilience First, summed up the argument saying: “The UK needs to urgently consider how to improve significantly its national resilience in the face of a range of threats, some of them malicious. The government is already committed to a review of this area and they should be considering a number of radical ideas already implemented by other countries.

“These ideas should include new resilience compliance reporting requirements for business and total defence exercises including business and citizens as well as government and first responders. The idea of using young people as a reserve force in different areas is also worth looking at. During the pandemic several public services, including the NHS and the police, have called in surge reserves from their retired employees. Why not consider training young people to be ready to offer this support if needed.”