Glossary and Acronyms

• Capability – The expertise, ability and experience required to deal with a range of consequences, the demonstrable ability to respond to and recover from a particular threat or hazard.
• Capability Gap – The gap between the current ability to provide a response and the actual response assessed to be required for a given threat or hazard. Plans should be made to reduce or eliminate this gap, if the risk justifies it.
• Capacity – The measure of an organisation’s ability manage the consequences of an emergency, the level of resource available to sustain a determined response.
• Category 1 and Category 2 responders – A person or body listed in Part 2 of Schedule 1 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.
• Civil Contingencies Act 2004 – (the Act) – An Act to make provision about civil contingencies.
• Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (Contingency Planning) (Scotland) Regulations 2005 (as amended) – (the Regulations) – The regulations under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.
• Consequences – The outcome of an event, expressed qualitatively or quantitatively. Expressed in the SRA as the overall impact of a risk.
• Emergency – as outlined in the Civil Contingencies Act, an event or situation which threatens serious damage to human welfare, an event or situation which threatens serious damage to the environment or war, or terrorism, which threatens serious damage to the security of the United Kingdom.
• Hazard – An accidental or naturally occurring (i.e., non-malicious) event or situation with the potential to cause death or physical or psychological harm, damage or losses to property, and/or disruption to the environment and/or to economic, social and political structures. Additional note: Traditionally risks have been divided into hazards (non-malicious activity) and threats (malicious activity). There is a move away from this as reflected in the National Security Risk Assessment which now provides an assessment of both non-malicious and malicious risks.
• Integration Joint Boards – (IJB) - were created as a new legal entity that binds the Health Board and the Local Authority together in a joint arrangement (Health and Social Care Partnerships). The membership of an Integration Joint Board reflects equal participation by the Health Board and Local Authority to ensure that there is joint decision making and accountability. More information on IJBs can be found here: Integration Joint Board: roles, responsibilities and membership - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .
• Impact – The scale of the consequences of a hazard, threat or emergency expressed in terms of a reduction in human welfare, damage to the environment and loss of security.
• Likelihood – Chance of something happening, whether defined, measured or estimated objectively or subjectively, or in terms of general descriptors (such as rare, unlikely, almost certain), frequencies or mathematical probabilities.
• Reasonable Worst Case Scenario – (RWCS) – Defined as a “plausible and challenging expression of a risk to inform scalable and agile emergency planning”.
• Regional Resilience Partnerships – (RRPs) – The structures which support multiagency co-operation.
• Regional Resilience Partnership Risk Preparedness Assessment Coordinators – Nominated representative of an organisation (generally a Category 1 responder) who coordinates the regions’ multi-agency response to complete the RRP RPA.
• Regional Resilience Partnerships’ Risk Preparedness Assessment – (RRP RPA) – The process used by RRPs to assess risks within their region and their level of preparedness to deal with the consequences of the identified risks and communicate this to the public. The RRP RPA focuses on developing resilience and dealing with consequences of rather than causes of emergencies.
• Risk – Measure of the significance of a potential emergency in terms of its assessed likelihood and impact.
• Risk Assessment – A structured and auditable process of identifying potentially significant events, assessing their likelihood and impacts, and then combining these to provide an overall assessment of risk, as a basis for further decisions and action.
• Risk Management – All activities and structures directed towards the effective assessment and management of risks and their potential adverse impacts.
• Risk Priority – The relative importance of the treatment(s) required for the management of the risk, based on the risk rating and the additional capabilities required to manage risk.
• Reasonable Worst Case Scenario – is defined as a plausible yet challenging manifestation of the risk. It is the worst manifestation of the generic risk it represents from a civil contingencies planning and capability building perspective.
• Scottish Resilience Partnership – (SRP) – the SRP is a core group of the most senior statutory responders and key resilience partners.
• Threat – Intent and capacity to cause loss of life or create adverse consequences to human welfare (including property and the supply of essential services and commodities), the environment or security. Please see Additional Note under ‘Hazard’.

Acronyms

More resilience-related definitions can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/emergency-responder-interoperability-lexicon