The UK Government has pledged to transform crisis training for thousands of public and private sector workers with its “cutting edge” Resilience Academy, launched this week. At least 4,000 people are set to be trained at the Academy’s North Yorkshire campus every year, it says, on business continuity planning, crowd management and crisis communications.

The UK Resilience Academy, which will train citizens, businesses, the emergency services, the Armed Forces and the Civil Service, will be part of a newly formed network of public and private sector organisations, including the College for National Security and the Defence Academy.

To bolster its defences, the Cabinet Office has also announced the launch of a new tool that it hopes will help decision makers identify groups that are vulnerable to particular risks by mapping crisis and demographic data. The Risk Vulnerability tool has been made available to some 10,000 ministers and civil servants, and was developed by the National Situation Centre and the Office for National Statistics.

Pat McFadden, chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said: “Our first duty is to keep people safe. and through our Plan for Change, we are creating strong and resilient communities across the country. Today, we’re making a generational upgrade to crisis training for thousands of workers, and helping decision makers identify vulnerable groups in a crisis.”

The Cabinet Office said it hoped these new tools would improve its approach to crisis management, informed by lessons from past events, including the Covid-19 pandemic.

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