External Red Teams for Resilience

4.19 We agree with the principle and welcome the view that there should be greater external scrutiny and challenge to the resilience agenda and will continue to develop that approach.

4.20 The Welsh Government regularly employs a ‘critical friend’ approach to test, refine and help shape our policy and delivery work in relation to risk management and policy products. In addition, we commission independent experts to quality assure our work and exercise programme. For instance, the Emergency Planning College has been commissioned to independently assess the methodology and data set out in the Wales Risk and Preparedness Register we have developed in conjunction with the four Local Resilience Forum risk groups. Furthermore, we established in 2024 a new Cyber Resilience Advisory Group comprising cyber security experts, from across the UK and independent of Welsh Government, to help shape our policy and delivery programme and advice to the First Minister on this agenda. The Welsh Government will continue to independently challenge and help shape our resilience policies and programmes.

4.21 Our actions outlined in response to recommendations 8 and 9 will increase the scrutiny of the Welsh Government’s actions and plans. There will be greater independent expert advice which will advise ministers, decision makers and policy developers providing input into strengthened emergency preparedness.

4.22 The structures in place in Wales often go beyond consultation with the voluntary and community sector and lead to co-production as we saw in the Covid–19 pandemic.

The Scottish Government accepts the principle of introducing external scrutiny from outside the Civil Service to improve its preparedness for, and resilience to, whole-system civil emergencies. We recognise that it is important for our advice and decision-making to be challenged.

We welcome the prospect of greater scrutiny in our preparations for whole-system civil emergencies, and we recognise the need for structures that will help us avoid ‘groupthink.’ We believe that there is value in external scrutiny which can identify lessons and provide insights that are transferrable and applicable across a range of our work. For this reason, we think it would be impractical to only use one specific form of scrutiny (red teams) and therefore we have considered this in conjunction with options to achieve the overarching aim of this recommendation.

As referenced in our response to Recommendation Three, In August 2021, we established the Standing Committee on Pandemic Preparedness (SCoPP) as an independent advisory group to advise us on the future risks from pandemics. SCoPP published an interim report of recommendations in August 2022, which recommended that a Centre of Pandemic Preparedness in Scotland should be established. The UK Covid-19 Inquiry, in its Module 1 report, recommended that this Centre should be part of a UK-wide endeavour. SCoPP’s final report, published 26 November 2024, reflected further consideration of this approach and recommended that a Scottish Pandemic Sciences Partnership should be established – to create a dynamic network which integrates and connects the diverse expertise essential for Scotland’s preparedness and response to pandemic threats and to build relationships in readiness for future events. SCoPP further recommends that the Partnership should build and maintain connections with UK and international networks, including the UK Pandemic Sciences Network. The Scottish Government has accepted the recommendations in SCoPP’s final report in principle and will work closely with partners to deliver those.

External challenge is already a key step within the methodology we use to develop the Scottish Risk Assessment (SRA). Since 2018, we have produced a Scottish Risk Assessment every two to three years, designed to supplement the National Security Risk Assessment with Scotland specific information and analysis where this adds value. SRAs are produced in collaboration with a wide range of partners from within the Scottish Government and across the wider resilience community. While the Scottish Government policy teams or national agencies lead on the development and assessment of individual scenarios which fall within their remit, these individual risk assessments go through a process of challenge, such as the series of workshops held for SRA 2023 that invited external academics and scientists along with resilience partners to review the assessments and provide additional guidance.

Likewise, our work on understanding longer term trends that might affect Scotland over a 10-to-20-year timeframe has involved over 100 stakeholder interviews and several sense-making workshops with a mix of external and internal stakeholders. Plans for a final workshop early next year are under development, with outputs expected in spring 2025.

We are always looking to improve and will be reviewing how our risk assessment work can have greater scrutiny and challenge as part of our overall commitment to considering a better approach to risk assessment, as outlined under Recommendation Three.

We will also continue where possible to draw on UK-wide capabilities and systems such as training, red teaming and expert advisory groups, and seek to coordinate this external challenge function across the UK where possible. By July 2025 we will have scoped the potential of additional ‘red teaming’, and wider peer review of core plans by experts and non-experts, within the Scottish context. This will ensure that our planning process benefits from fresh perspectives, ask difficult questions and challenge assumptions in relation to devolved aspects of our whole-system civil emergency planning.

Incorporating external scrutiny into our work and increasing the levels of awareness around external scrutiny in government, should lead to an overall significant improvement in the policies and practices relating to preparedness for and resilience to whole-system civil emergencies.

We recognise the importance of assured preparations that have been subject to robust scrutiny and assessment to deliver effective responses to and recovery from civil emergencies. We accept the principle of this recommendation both in terms of utilising red team methodology but also in the pursuit of complementary assurance activities such as challenge panels and peer reviews which we have used recently in the development of the NI Civil Contingencies Risk Register and a review of our winter preparedness arrangements.

In pursuit of this recommendation, we will engage with Cabinet Office and the Crisis Management Excellence Programme to enhance our proficiency in red team methodologies in conjunction with a CCG(NI) commissioned sub-group tasked to report on methods of delivering assurance opportunities.

We have introduced a new learning and development approach. This has various levels of activity and is available to our departments and operational colleagues. Implementation of our learning and development strategy includes the provision of seven introductory level courses open to all civil contingencies partners. These include planning and exercising, operations centres, decision logging and the three coordination levels – Operational, Tactical and Strategic.

The government agrees that red teams are an effective means to scrutinise and challenge preparedness for and resilience to whole-system civil emergencies.

The Secretary of State’s Net Assessment and Challenge team within the Ministry of Defence brings together a cross-government red teaming community, which works to expand the use of red teams as a tool to challenge conventional thinking. The Cabinet Office also organises red teaming activities targeted at emerging threats and risks.

To go further, the Cabinet Office, working with the Government Office for Science, will strengthen central HMG red teaming capability, and clarify the expectations on departments to use red teams in their risk preparations. Specifically, this will form part of the next government-wide Capabilities Assessment.

Red teaming is an intrinsic part of the Crisis Management Excellence Programme, the government’s new crisis training curriculum for Civil Servants, including those working in the devolved governments. The purpose of this training is to ensure that participants are aware of the critical importance of red teaming, challenging assumptions, and avoiding cognitive biases and fallacies such as groupthink. Over the last six months, the Crisis Management Excellence Programme (CMEP) has delivered this free training to over 680 civil servants. The wider CMEP training offer - including training in crisis leadership for Director Generals and Permanent Secretaries, and training in crisis management basics for all civil servants - has already reached over 2,100 delegates and aims to expand capacity significantly over the next year.

External challenge is an established part of the government’s risk assessment process. With the move to a dynamic NSRA (described in the response to Recommendation 3), this expert challenge will be expanded and made permanent. The government will establish eight standing advisory groups of technical and scientific experts, each led by an independent chairperson. The programme is being designed to learn lessons from the Covid-19 Inquiry, for example allowing experts the freedom to advise by setting the agendas, and building in two-way feedback between experts and lead officials.

Red teams are one of many ways to bring expertise into decision-making on risk and resilience. The government also agrees with the Inquiry’s broader finding that the timely provision of expert advice is essential to prepare for and build resilience to whole-system civil emergencies.

UKHSA’s exercise and preparedness activities include expert challenge and red teams. The forthcoming Tier 1 pandemic exercise (described in the response to Recommendation 6) will use a variety of mechanisms, including a red team component, to provide this challenge to current arrangements for pandemic response.

Recognising the importance of scientific advice in planning for and responding to a crisis, the government will build on improvements already made to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), including the transparency of SAGE; its ways of working; and the recruitment, induction, diversity and support of SAGE experts. The Cabinet Office and the Government Office for Science will strengthen expectations and guidance for government departments to bring the best scientific evidence to bear on planning for emergencies before they happen. The Government Office for Science will also play an enhanced role in the development and co-ordination of pre-crisis science advice, including supporting departmental Chief Scientific Advisers and other relevant scientific leads to identify and deploy the relevant scientific evidence and expertise to support resilience planning.

Adjacent to these improvements to SAGE, a group of Chief Scientific Advisers from across government and the devolved governments was established in 2023 to ensure that strong and independent scientific evidence, capability and analysis underpins decision making on Biosecurity.

The Scottish Government is working with NHS Highland to develop red team resources for use across the civil contingencies landscape. A delivery session for colleagues involved in the Crisis Preparation Oversight Programme will be held during August 2026 to help disseminate learning.

Scottish Government officials have developed an internal suite of resources that can be used to support whole-system critical challenge.

The National Centre for Resilience has now finalised its reports following its series of round-table workshops on emergency planning policy. Workshops were attended by individuals with academic expertise, policy leads, people with lived experience, and practitioners. A range of topics were discussed at workshops, including mis- and dis-information, strengthening the civil contingencies resilience system with disabled people, and the role of educators in supporting the development of emergency resilience in younger people. Key learning points from the report include that: trust must be actively built on sustained relationships, especially with local communities, trusted messengers, and underrepresented groups; inclusion improves outcomes, and leads to more practical, credible, and usable resilience systems; and that resilience to emergencies is a system, which requires continuous investment in skills, infrastructure, partnerships, and learning.

trust must be actively built on sustained relationships, especially with local communities, trusted messengers, and underrepresented groups;

inclusion improves outcomes, and leads to more practical, credible, and usable resilience systems; and

that resilience to emergencies is a system, which requires continuous investment in skills, infrastructure, partnerships, and learning.

Status: OPEN Introduction We continue to accept the principle of this recommendation of using Red Teams in the NI Executive Departments both in terms of utilising red team methodology alongside complementary assurance activities such as peer reviews and challenge panels. Progress update Departments and Policy and Technical Advisers here participated fully in Exercise Pegasus. Red Team methodology is being used for the ongoing independent evaluation of the exercise and involves academia and key sectors. In September 2025, representatives from seven NI government departments and agencies completed the UK Cabinet Office Crisis Management Excellence Programme (CMEP) Foundation Pathway, which helped support overall understanding of crisis management, provide awareness of some of the key roles, challenge assumptions, and identify faulty reasoning and bias. We continue to deliver training as part of the NI Civil Contingencies Learning and Development Strategy.

The use of red teams to scrutinise and challenge the principles, evidence, policies and advice relating to preparedness for and resilience to whole-system civil emergencies is a core feature of our exercising programme and the Welsh Government continues to explore suitable opportunities for increasing red teaming capability. In parallel, we are securing independent scrutiny for all our major projects to help refine our approaches.

Our aim is to ensure there are sustainable red teaming capabilities within the Welsh Government and within the response community. We are working with government partners, the statutory responder and voluntary sector community to identify the most appropriate mechanisms to build this capability. A component of the work programme of the Wales Resilience Partnership is to explore existing independent assessment and auditing processes (including red teaming). In addition, to identify options for regular independent auditing of the effectiveness of preparedness structures and frequency and quality of training and exercising in Wales.

We are establishing independent assessment and auditing processes for our activities, including an independent review of our Crisis Management Concept of Operation once it has been finalised. We have drawn on the lessons learned from more than 30 separate incidents in 2025 to develop our new crisis management processes and further stressed tested these during Exercise PEGASUS.

Work to pilot the use of red teaming and expand the availability of scientific and technical advice has been undertaken, including as part of the 2026 National Capabilities Assessment and the ongoing Capabilities Programme more generally. GO-Science continues to make improvements to the operation of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) as well as expand the support and advice available to lead government departments to prepare for and respond to a crisis.

The cross-government red teaming pilot was delivered in October 2025. The learnings are being applied so red teaming can be effectively included as part of the 2026 Capabilities Assessment which is currently underway. GO-Science has established a red teaming function focusing on national security and resilience.

The scope of the Crisis Management Excellence Programme has expanded to include regular ministerial training. Work continues on developing training for Special Advisors with the first session having taken place in January 2026.

The remaining advisory groups of technical and scientific experts as part of the Cabinet Office and Government Office for Science Expert Advisory Programme are being stood up. All eight groups will meet throughout 2026 to review risks during the NSRA update cycles.

The SAGE Continuous Improvement programme continues to develop. Recent projects have covered expert selection, the role of chief scientific advisors in SAGE and ways of working with key stakeholders. The Continuous Improvement programme is intended to be an enduring function of the secretariat, and thus there is no end date. Individual projects within the wider programme have concluded such as the ones mentioned in the response. New projects will be initiated as further lessons are identified and prioritised.

An update on the Lead Government Department Expectations guidance can be found under recommendation 2. GO-Science continues to work with other government departments to support the use of scientific evidence and expertise in emergency planning, including providing cross-government guidance, advice on specific risk areas and strengthening the role of the Social and Behavioural Science for Emergencies Group in filling evidence gaps and coordinating expertise. GO-Science is also expanding its work on pre-crisis science advice to more effectively link policy teams to sources of scientific expertise within and outside of Government.

Implementation update for recommendation 9 - regular use of red teams (updated June 2025)

23. The Government Office for Science (GO-Science) continues to improve the way the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) provides scientific advice and supports resilience efforts across government more broadly. For example, updated SAGE guidance was published in December 2024.

a. The Cabinet Office and GO-Science are working closely together to integrate Red Teaming into the 2025/26 Capabilities Assessment. A pilot will be delivered during autumn 2025, before a full assessment of response capabilities takes place during January and February 2026. This will inform the development of a broader red teaming capability, led by GO-Science, that can be drawn in on a case by case basis by Cabinet Office and LGDs to test risk planning, due autumn 2026.

b. The Cabinet Office is holding the first sessions of Crisis Management Excellence Programme (CMEP) training for ministers in July. We are exploring options for further widening the scope of CMEP training over the course of 2025/6.

c. To date, we have stood up five advisory groups of technical and scientific experts as part of the Cabinet Office and GO-Science Expert Advisory Programme. These groups meet regularly to review risks during the NSRA update cycles and will be meeting again in the coming months. We are in the process of standing up the remaining three groups which are expected to be ready by early 2026. Further detail on the role of these groups can be found at recommendation 3.

d. The SAGE Continuous Improvement programme is ensuring that our processes and guidance remain fit for purpose and align with good practice. Recently completed work has covered engagement of experts outside of emergencies to support preparedness and the use of new technologies to support the SAGE secretariat.

e. Work between the Cabinet Office and GO-Science to strengthen expectations and guidance on the use of science to support resilience and emergency response is in development. It will form part of the broader suite of guidance for LGDs published by the Cabinet Office later this year. As part of this, GO-Science will include guidance on how to identify and access relevant expertise and how science can be used in the risk assessment, planning, mitigation and response stages.