The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 places a duty on all Category One responders to "assess the risk of an emergency within, or affecting a geographical area for which each Category One responder is responsible". 

 

The Act defines an emergency as "an event or situation which threatens serious damage to human welfare in a place in the United Kingdom, an event or situation which threatens serious damage to the environment of a place in the United Kingdom, or war or terrorism, which threatens serious damage to the security of the United Kingdom".

 

This definition has two qualifying criteria which much be fulfilled, which are:

 

a)        The threat or hazard is of a sufficient scale and nature that it is likely to seriously obstruct a Category One

          responder in the performance of its functions.

b)       The threat or hazard requires the category one responder to exercise its function and undertake a special mobilisation.

 

For ease of reference, whilst compiling the Community Risk Register, it was agreed that a literal meaning would be adopted.  Therefore, the focus of the Community Risk Register is upon those hazards that may present risks that "could impact the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Resilience Forum emergency planning priorities in the next three years".

 

 

The Guidance from the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 recommends that the compilation of the Community Risk Register should go through six stages.  These are:

 

1.                  Contextualisation (Background)

2.                  Hazard review and allocation for assessment.

3.                  Risk analysis

4.                  Risk evaluation

5.                  Risk treatment

6.                  Monitoring and reviewing.

 

This report, along with the first publication of the Community Risk Register will focus on steps 1-5.  Following its first publication in November 2005, a multi agency Risk Assessment Working Group will regularly assess the register to ensure that it remains current and relevant.  This will be done through regular pre-arranged meetings.  Meetings of this group will also be held if new information comes to light that may change the likelihood or impact rating of an identified hazard.  This group will continuously horizon scan to ensure that any new hazards which may  present themselves are included in the register at the earliest opportunity.