Recommendation 58

HM Government · verbatim extract Accepted in Part

The government partially accepts this recommendation. The government agrees that there is positive learning and engagement to be had with other countries, practitioners, and disciplines, as it has done since the start of the pandemic and continues to do so. The government will do this flexibly, as appropriate and proportionate against other priorities, especially during emergencies. The NSRA process is undertaken by the Cabinet Office and assesses the most significant malicious and non-malicious risks facing the UK and its interests overseas. These risks are presented as reasonable worst-case scenarios and scored by their likelihood and impact. The NSRA is used to inform planning in central and local government and support prioritisation and funding decisions. The NSRA is the basis of the public-facing National Risk Register (NRR). The Cabinet Office works in collaboration with the lead department for each risk and a range of expert bodies, including industry partners, academics, and subject matter experts, to assess existing and emerging risks in the UK. Sound expert challenge is a key element of the NSRA process, providing a means of ensuring the risk scenarios presented are robust and evidence based, incorporating the latest technical knowledge. Ahead of every cycle, the Cabinet Office reviews the methodology of the NSRA. For the first time, the Cabinet Office has commissioned an external group, the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng), to undertake a review of the NSRA methodology. RAEng has drawn on its extensive network of Fellows as well as academic and industry contacts to review the role of expert challenge in the NSRA and make recommendations for how this can be improved. As the methodology review concludes, the Cabinet Office is considering ways to substantially increase the accessibility of the NSRA to external experts and increase the diversity of challenge during and after the process. Learning from and sharing international practice is integral to the UK’s preparedness for and response to emergencies. The UK is a forefront Ally in NATO’s Civil Preparedness work, including meeting the baselines for national resilience, and the government is committed to the UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Sustainable Development Goals. Such frameworks and relationships with partners foster learning from international practice to improve the UK’s own resilience and enable cooperation to address trans-border challenges.