Wales Resilience Forum: terms of reference

The primary purpose of the Wales Resilience Forum (WRF) is to provide a forum for strategic leadership, assurance and challenge to the Wales Resilience Partnership (WRP) (and its supporting subgroups) in relation to emergency preparedness and strengthening Wales’ resilience.

Each member has a role in promoting communication and collaboration between and across all partners within the responder community for the enhancement of risk management and emergency preparedness in Wales.

The WRF has the following main responsibilities:

• Overseeing the development of, and endorsing the pan-Wales work programme, which is aligned to the core principles and outcomes contained in the Wales Resilience Framework.
• Ensuring priorities are clearly defined and communicated to the WRP.
• Seeking assurance in respect of multi-agency resilience planning and preparedness across Wales.
• Providing coordinated agreement on pan-Wales products.
• Considering risks, issues and barriers to delivery which have been escalated to WRF and, which require a strategic decision.
• Each member is responsible for communicating messages and strategic decisions within respective areas of responsibility.

In addition to the above, Annex A describes additional responsibilities for specific members of the Forum, particularly where they represent more than 1 responder agency.

• Chair: Prif Weinidog, the First Minister of Wales.
• Deputy Chair: Director Risk, Resilience and Community Safety.
• Secretariat: Resilience Unit, Welsh Government.

Members

Executive level representatives from all Category 1 and Category 2 responders, and selected non-responder bodies, as required. All members should have appropriate authority, experience and expertise of civil contingencies and resilience within their respective organisations, to enable the WRF to fulfil its strategic responsibilities.

A list of the full membership is at Annex A. Additional representatives, advisors and observers may be invited to attend meetings on an ad-hoc basis to support the business of the Forum.

The WRF will meet 3 times each year. This will include an annual WRF Summit chaired by the First Minister and 2 meetings chaired by the Deputy Chair.

It may be necessary for ad hoc business to be conducted outside of the agreed meeting structure. Where this is the case, an extraordinary meeting may be convened, or business may be conducted via correspondence.

The meeting agenda and relevant papers will be circulated a minimum of 5 working days in advance of each meeting. Papers will be circulated to all resilience partners in Wales.

Important messages and strategic decisions will be circulated to WRF members. An agreed summary note of each meeting will be published on the Welsh Government website. 

The terms of reference for the Wales Resilience Forum will be reviewed on an annual basis.

• Army
• Fire and Rescue Services (Chief Officers from each of the 3 fire and rescue services in Wales)
• Local authorities (1 locally agreed representative to act on behalf of the local authorities within each local resilience forum (LRF) region):
  • To act on behalf of all local authorities within their respective LRF area
  • To act on behalf of Port Health Authorities within their respective LRF areas (where applicable)
• Local Resilience Forum Chairs (Chairs of each of the 4 local resilience forums in Wales)
• Maritime and Coastguard Agency
• Natural Resources Wales
• NHS Executive:
  • Represent Health Boards and Trusts in terms of:
    • system resilience planning and response
    • NHS Emergency Planning
    • engagement with NHS organisations
    • NHS readiness and response to civil contingencies and national security risks
  • Act as a conduit between Health Boards and Trusts and the Wales Resilience Forum, ensuring important messages and strategic decisions are communicated
  • Identify areas for alignment of work programmes to ensure resources are allocated effectively.
• Police (Chief Constables from each of the 4 police forces in Wales, and a relevant senior officer from the British Transport Police)
• Public Health Wales
• Royal Air Force
• Royal Navy
• Wales Council for Voluntary Action:
  • To represent all voluntary and third sector organisations in Wales
  • Act as a conduit between the voluntary and third sector organisations in Wales and Wales Resilience Forum, ensuring important messages and strategic decisions are communicated
• Chair of the Wales Resilience Partnership:
  • Report on delivery against the pan-Wales work programme
  • Escalate risks and issues from the Wales Resilience Partnership that require strategic decisions
  • Act as a conduit between Wales Resilience Forum and Wales Resilience Partnership, ensuring important messages and strategic decisions are communicated
• Welsh Ambulance Services University NHS Trust
• Welsh Government:
  • Act as a conduit between Welsh Government policy teams and Wales Resilience Forum ensuring important messages and strategic decisions are communicated
• Welsh Local Government Association
• Category 2 responders:
  • Government agencies:
    • Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA)
    • Health and Safety Executive (HSE)
    • Met Office
    • The Mining Remediation Authority (formerly the Coal Authority)
• Transport:
  • Airports
  • Harbours and Ports
  • Network Rail
  • Train operating companies (passenger and freight) including Transport for Wales
• Utilities:
  • Electricity distributors and transmitters
  • Gas distributors
  • Telephone service providers (fixed and mobile)
  • Water and sewerage undertakers
• Observers:
  • UK Government:
    • To provide insights from a UK Government perspective to ensure resilience planning and preparedness across Wales supports the resilience of the United Kingdom