Resilience and civil contingencies: tensions in northeast and northwest UK (2000–2008)

This paper draws on research funded by the ESRC New Security Challenges Programme covering a period between 2000 and 2008. The paper reflects on restructuring under the resilience agenda for all-hazards approaches to disaster and civil contingencies. The broad context of increased natural disasters and a perceived heightening of the threat of terrorism contributed to a widespread overhaul of the formal structures of emergency planning and a shift towards integrated emergency management (IEM). However, this process of step-change towards a more resilient structure was fraught with tensions between competing interests at national, regional, and local levels. This paper expands upon these tensions, explaining the national strategic platform, the regional agenda and context of civil contingencies and tensions between the push for regionalisation, and the local practice of ‘blue-light’ agencies in the northeast and the northwest of the UK (focused on Tyne and Wear and Greater Manchester). It concludes that despite the tensions these have been overcome to offer a more comprehensive approach to all-hazards management of disaster.