The London Borough of Sutton was seeking support from a qualified and highly experienced organisation to design and deliver a series of four linked training events including: An Emergency Control Centre Command Post Exercise, a Multi-Agency Strategic Co-ordinating Group Exercise, a Senior Management Team tabletop exercise and emergency management training to senior management.

Risk and Resilience Ltd was selected to design and develop a programme of training and exercising for the council and its principal multi-agency partners. We undertook a Training Needs Analysis, including interviews and reviewing the plans, policies, resources and outputs from previous exercises, to identify the aim and objectives for each element of a programme. Using the information gained we developed the concepts for each element of the programme, agreeing with the council the format and style of each event. We ensured that the base scenario for each element, which was built on a terrorism incident, was a common one, allowing for easier transition between the phases of the programme and providing a greater sense of cohesion and reality for the participants. Our team produced the materials for the training sessions, including teaching slides, case studies, group work sessions and participant hand out packs. For the exercise elements we developed the sequence of the information injects required to bring the scenario to life, providing those on the day through the use of emails, radio systems, phone calls, verbal briefings and IT systems. We also developed the key question sets, based on the Joint Services Interoperability Decision Making Model, that our facilitators employed to guide the senior teams through their analysis and direction setting in a facilitated discussion format. This provided a great opportunity for senior staff in the SCG and council’s own CMT to grapple with the issues surrounding situational understanding, impact analysis and direction setting. Finally we provided a report to consolidate the observations and recommendations that, when addressed, would enable continual improvement.

The London Borough of Sutton has been able to identify practical and easily implementable improvement opportunities resulting from our support. In addition staff, including senior management, have a greater appreciation of the challenges they will face and the knowledge and competencies they will therefore require.