Agenda item

18.1     The Team Manager, Emergency Planning introduced report. East Sussex County Council (ESCC) is part of the East Sussex Resilience and Emergencies Partnership (ESREP) established in 2013 to provide Emergency Planning services for the partners under a Memorandum of Understanding. The East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service (ESFRS) joined the Partnership in 2015.

18.2     The report gives details of the work undertaken by Emergency Planning Team including responses to local and national incidents and emergency planning exercises which test plans and rehearse responses for major incidents (e.g. exercise Galileo for a mass casualties plan; exercise Snail for a major fire in the Cuilfail Tunnel). There will be a large scale multi-agency Sussex Resilience Forum exercise in February/March 2019 to test the recovery from an adverse weather event.

18.3     The Committee asked why Rother District Council (RDC) is not part of the Partnership as all the other East Sussex councils are members of ESREP. The Assistant Director, Communities responded that when the Memorandum of Understanding was drawn up, RDC decided that they did not want to join as they have their own Emergency Planning officer. However, if there is an incident and RDC request assistance, ESREP members would provide mutual aid (and vice versa). The Team Manager, Emergency Planning added that she would welcome it if RDC decided to join ESREP.

18.4     The Committee enquired about what ESCC is doing to encourage RDC to join ESREP, and what their reasons were for not joining. The Director of Communities, Economy and Transport explained that the Emergency Planning Team have an ongoing dialogue with RDC about joining ESREP, but the RDC staffing structure may be one of the reasons why they do not want to join at this point in time. It is a matter of demonstrating the compelling reasons why RDC should join the Partnership.

18.5     The Committee commented that ESCC local Members are not always notified when an incident has occurred in their Division. It is important that all local Members (ESCC as well as Parish, Town, Borough and District councils) are made aware of incidents and kept updated. It is also import for ESCC Councillors to know what their role is in the response to an incident and where that role ends. For example, it would be helpful to have a point of contract in the Emergency Planning Team to feed information into about reports of an incident.

18.6     The Lead Member for Communities and Safety outlined that the Team is developing a guide, which will include all 3 tiers of local government. So it will be possible to offer guidance in due course and the Team will undertake work to brief ESCC Councillors on their role. The Team Manager, Emergency Planning added that generic plans on what to do will be developed for Councillors.

18.7     Mark Andrews, ESFRS outlined the strong partnership working and support from the Local Resilience Forum (LRF), and assured the Committee that it has robust plans in place to deal with major incidents. He commented that it is important for local Members to know how they can support the work of LRF, and acknowledged the importance of communications.

18.8     The Committee discussed the resolve of the report and the Chair moved a motion to amend the resolve to add that “the Director is requested to encourage Rother District Council to join the East Sussex Resilience and Emergencies Partnership”.  The motion was put to the vote, but was not carried.

18.9     The Committee RESOLVED to note the progress being made in Emergency Planning across East Sussex.