Civil Contingencies Secretariat

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The Civil Contingencies Secretariat, created in July 2001, is the department of the British Cabinet Office responsible for emergency planning in the UK. The role of the secretariat is to ensure the United Kingdom’s resilience against disruptive challenge, and to do this by working with others to anticipate, assess, prevent, prepare, respond and recover. Until its creation in 2001, emergency planning in Britain was the responsibility of the Home Office.

Bruce Mann is the current head of the secretariat. He reports directly to the Cabinet Office's Security and Intelligence Co-ordinator, currently Sir Richard Mottram.

The Secretariat is organised into three divisions: Assessment; Operations; and Policy.

The Central Government War Headquarters, at Corsham, Wiltshire, was the site of the highest level administration in the event of a catastrophic emergency. Since 1991 this has been run down, and is now on a care and maintenance basis. At a lower level, Regional Emergency Committees, and (in the event of nuclear war) Regional Commissioners, provided the apparatus of constitutional government.

[edit] Head of the Civil Contingency Secretariat

Bruce Mann 2004-
Susan Scholefield, CMG 2002-2004
Mike Granatt, CB 2001-2002

Until 2001 the Home Office carried out emergency preparedness planning through its Emergency Planning Division, which in turn replaced the Home Defence and Emergency Services Division. From 1935 to 1971 a separate department, called the Civil Defence Department (in the early years the Air Raids Precautions Department, Ministry of Home Security), existed.