FOI - Multi-agency emergency preparedness [Jun 2025]

Your request 

Under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I am writing to request the following information:

1. How many multi-agency exercises have been conducted by your organisation within the last 3 years (1st May 2022 to 30th April 2025 inclusive).
2. What proportion of these multi-agency exercises were: i. Tabletop / Scenario Based ii. Live Exercises iii. Other (please state).
3. Please detail how post-exercise findings are fed back into the organisation and how any changes to policies and procedures are implemented as a result of this feedback.
4. What proportion of multi-agency exercises in the last 3 years: i. Involved more than two CCA 2004 category one responder organisations (please detail) ii. Involved CCA 2004 category two responders (please detail) iii. Involved organisations from the voluntary and faith based sectors (please detail).
5. Please detail how the aims and objectives of the exercise are determined and communicated to the parties involved.

Our response

1. There have been eleven multi-agency exercises over this period that London Resilience Unit either led or co-led elements.
2. All eleven were scenario/risk based. Five of the eleven involved a live exercise component as well as tabletop simulations. The other six were tabletop only.
3. Feedback from all organisations involved in each exercise is gathered, multi-agency lessons are extrapolated and then ratified by at multi-agency learning group. Those specific lessons are allocated to partnership workstreams to inform further development of multi-agency plans (shown here Planning for emergencies in the capital | London City Hall)
4. All eleven exercises over this period involved more that two Category 1 responder organisations, Category 2 responders and organisations from voluntary and faith sectors. Category 2 responders would have included utility and transport companies, Health organisations and other specialist agencies such as the Health and Safety Executive and the Met Office. Voluntary organisations would have been represented locally and by the London Communities Emergencies Partnership. The faith sector would have been represented as a minimum by the Faith Sector Panel.
5. Draft aims and objectives would have been crafted by the lead organisation(s) and shared with relevant partners brought together in an exercise planning group. Those partners would have the opportunity to comment, suggest amendments and additions to the overarching aim and objectives, as well as generate sub-sets for particular exercise activities and/or organisation specific objectives.