Launch of National Consortium for Societal Resilience [UK+] | the Manchester Briefing

Original Thinking Podcast

The response and recovery to COVID-19 has been a whole-of-society effort where every community has played a crucial role. To maintain this outpouring of goodwill, local government and voluntary organisations have been discussing how to renew their efforts on community resilience to ensure that a positive legacy of the pandemic is a more cohesive, risk-aware, and prepared society that can work with local government to enhance its own local resilience.

In the UK, this ambition was galvanised by the government’s recent Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy which outlined ambitions on ‘whole-of-society resilience’ and which encouraged an integrated approach to building national resilience.

In response, a National Consortium for Societal Resilience [UK+], abbreviated to NCSR+, has now been initiated by Professor Duncan Shaw from Alliance Manchester Business School and Ben Axelsen from the Thames Valley Local Resilience Forum to pursue the ambition of whole-of-society resilience outlined in the Integrated Review. Membership of the consortium includes almost all local authorities in the UK along with key resilience partners.

To mark its official launch - which was held on the same day as the UN’s International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction - this special panel debate discusses the reasons behind the launch and hear from members on why it is such an important initiative and what they hope to achieve.

Panellists:

Professor Duncan Shaw, Alliance Manchester Business School

Ben Axelsen, Co-Chair of NCSR+, Thames Valley Local Resilience Forum, England

Joan McCaffrey, Local Government Civil Contingencies, Northern Ireland

Kevin Murphy, The Office of the Committee for Home Affairs, States of Guernsey

Ellie Greenwood, Senior Adviser, Local Government Association

Clare Rudall, Business in The Community Wales

Marie Hayes, British Red Cross, Scotland Director