Lesson 1 – Emergencies in Scotland
Scotland is a relatively safe country with excellent emergency services. However, we have experienced significant challenges in recent years including severe weather, cyber incidents, flooding, landslides and the COVID-19 pandemic. In future, Scotland could also be faced with new challenges which we must also be ready for.
Well established, robust arrangements and partnerships already exist across a number of organisations to manage these kinds of incident.
Emergencies and resilience
You will see two terms used a lot in this module: emergencies and resilience.
Emergencies are defined by the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (CCA) as “an event or situation which threatens serious damage to: human welfare in a place in the UK, the environment of a place in the UK, or war or terrorism which threatens serious damage to the security of the UK”. You may also see the terms “major incident” or “disruptive challenge” used.
Resilience is the ability to adapt to a crisis and return to relative normality. In the context of emergencies, we use this term to describe a process of partners working together to carefully plan for emergencies, work together effectively to manage the emergency and lessen its impact, and to support communities in recovering. You will find out more about this process later in the module.
Types of emergencies
Emergencies can be natural or can be caused by people. Those caused by people can be accidental or malicious.
In the early 2020s Coronavirus was a significant focus for responders, but other viral respiratory and infectious diseases have also challenged Scotland.
Severe weather can regularly cause disruption across Scotland with the unpredictability that it can bring.
Flooding affects communities all over Scotland and can be life-threatening, as well as causing severe damage to homes and infrastructure, leaving psychological and physical impacts.
Widespread animal diseases such as Foot and Mouth Disease and avian influenza (Bird Flu) can have a devastating impact on our rural communities.
Wildfires are an increasing risk to our rural communities and the impact on the environment is significant.
Some of these emergencies might seem far removed from Scottish households and communities but we know that the impact of events like these can affect everyone.
Being better prepared for disruption and in a position to work with others enables us all to achieve better outcomes from emergencies, no matter how big the challenges.
You can find out about the national risks which the UK faces in the National Risk Register on GOV.UK.
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has information on regional community risk registers for Scotland.