Scotland strengthens resilience to major emergencies

The Scottish Government’s Fire and Civil Contingencies Division is to be renamed to reflect its modern role in supporting and strengthening the country’s resilience to major emergencies.

‘Scottish Resilience’ will be formally launched at the end of this month.

Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, said: “Scottish Resilience reflects the new multi-agency arrangements which have been developed in government in recent years to support our colleagues across the country.

“It brings together civil servants and professionals from frontline organisations including blue-light services, local government and health partners.

“This rich mix ensures that I and other ministers get sound, practical advice on emergency planning. It is also a vehicle for supporting our emergency responder organisations in very practical ways.

“The Glasgow Airport incident demonstrated that our emergency preparedness is in good shape. But we cannot be complacent.

“The launch of Scottish Resilience gives us an opportunity to build on existing partnerships within Scotland and across the UK.

“As a government we will respect the role that local government and others play. At the same time we must make the very best use of limited resources by working practically and sensibly towards the shared goal of a safer, stronger Scotland.”

Mr MacAskill added: “Scottish Resilience will be investing over £50 million in the next three years to equip our fire and rescue services with a state-of-the-art radio system. We will also be investing £94 million to build police capacity and recruit an additional 1,000 police officers by March 2011.

“We will examine the role of the Police Inspectorate as part of our review of the scrutiny and complaints landscape, while on health there has already been significant change with a move to single system working.”