The CCU
The Civil Contingencies Unit (CCU) is a small team of specialist planners based in Stafford that ensures preparations are in place to support the people of Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent in an emergency or major incident such as a flood.
It is a public sector partnership, working at a local level, consisting of twenty four public sector organisations. These are the Emergency Services, all Local Authorities, Health organisations, Highways England and the Environment Agency. The CCU supports these public services in meeting their obligations under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.
The CCU sits at the heart of the SRF partnership and has four primary roles:
- To write and maintain the Staffordshire Prepared Multi-Agency plans on behalf of the Staffordshire Category 1 responders as defined by the Civil Contingencies Act 2004
- To provide multi-agency training and exercises for the SRF
- To offer 24-hour, 365 days a year operational call-out capability to support emergency responders in the discharge of their statutory duty in the event of an emergency
- To deliver the secretariat and administrative support functions for the SRF and its supporting meetings.
In an emergency, any SRF partner can contact the CCU’s Duty Officer to request specialist advice and support them to deal with what can at times be very complex and dynamic situations. This assistance ranges from providing useful contact numbers over the telephone to deploying to the scene of the incident. The CCU can also provide support to partners through the deployment of a Mobile Control Unit (MCU).
The CCU’s main day to day role are to produce multi-agency response plans for the risks identified in the area and to provide high quality training and exercises to all organisations of the SRF partnership. The exercises range from one-to-one coaching for Chief Executives, up to the RAVEN or Response Assessment Venue exercises which require partners to work together to respond to and recover from a credible risk within Staffordshire.