Emergency plan

4. The Cabinet Office defines a major incident as:

An event or situation, with a range of serious consequences, which requires special arrangements to be implemented by one or more emergency responder agencies.

1. ‘Emergency responder agencies’ describes all Category one and two responders as defined in the Civil Contingencies Act (2004) and associated guidance;
2. A major incident is beyond the scope of business-as-usual operations, and is likely to involve serious harm, damage, disruption or risk to human life or welfare, essential services, the environment or national security;
3. A major incident may involve a single-agency response, although it is more likely to require a multi-agency response, which may be in the form of multi-agency support to a lead responder;
4. The severity of consequences associated with a major incident are likely to constrain or complicate the ability of responders to resource and manage the incident, although a major incident is unlikely to affect all responders equally; and
5. The decision to declare a major incident will always be a judgment made in a specific local and operational context, and there are no precise and universal thresholds or triggers. Where LRFs and responders have explored these criteria in the local context and ahead of time, decision makers will be better informed and more confident in making that judgment.

Declaration of a Major Incident is an important indication to other responding agencies that an incident has met the defined threshold and in many plans the term acts as an important trigger point for agency actions.

Any Category 1 responder can declare a Major Incident. However, it is good practice to have agreement from senior officers.

In practice, the emergency services usually take the lead in declaring a Major Incident, however Reigate & Banstead Borough Council has this prerogative, which may be used for slower build incidents, such as flooding.

Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP) has been set up to ensure joint working works effectively. There are five principles:

• Co-location,
• Communication,
• Co-ordination,
• Joint Understanding of Risk,
• Shared Situational Awareness and should be used in all civil emergencies.

For more information see the JESIP website or for quick access see Appendix J.