A series of National Occupational Standards for Resilience and Emergencies have been published by the UK’s Cabinet Office through its new standard setting body The Workforce Development Trust.

Announced this week to coincide with the launch of the UK Resilience Academy, the NOS for Resilience and Emergencies have been developed to strengthen organisational and societal resilience by guiding recruitment, training and performance management activities in organisations with statutory and non-statutory responsibilities for emergency planning and disaster preparedness.

Specialists in resilience and emergency planning and preparedness from across central and local government, civil society, the NHS and operators of key strategic infrastructure led the project to design the NOS.

Commenting on the launch, Alex Stafford, North Somerset Council’s emergency and business continuity manager, said the NOS will help ensure that category one and two responders receive the same standard of training as those in local authorities, ensuring a common language and approach.

“In practice this means that wherever you are in the country, if you're affected by a major incident, whether that's a flood, fire or industrial accident you’ll effectively get the same response regardless of local authority area," he added. "The NOS will strengthen professionalism across the resilience sector and in turn that's going to lead to improved standards in terms of training and ultimately lead to greater societal resilience overall.”

Dave Walton, deputy chief fire officer at West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service, and co-chair of the West Yorkshire Local Resilience Forum, added that resilience looks different for every organisation, and thus the NOS represents a baseline to work from.

“The Resilience and Emergencies NOS will therefore be vital for supporting interoperability and [interoperability] in fire and rescue and the wider emergency services, providing recognised standards we can all train our staff towards,” he said. “Society presents us with dynamic and complex challenges, some are predictable, some are less so, which is why effective emergency response is an integral part of strengthening our resilience overall.”

The NOS for Resilience and Emergencies contain 11 separate standards, which can be used alongside a series of generic NOS supporting streams, including management, project management, governance and IT.

The standards are recognised by the Scottish Qualifications Authority, Qualifications Wales, and the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment in Northern Ireland. In England, NOS are part of the Regulated Qualifications Framework, which regulates general and vocational qualifications.

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