Consultation | Building resilience skills

Have your say on how the government can help support the development of resilience skills and capabilities across industries.

The Workforce Development Trust, in partnership with the UK Government, has launched a public consultation on the civil contingencies suite of National Occupational Standards (NOS) in support of the UK Government Resilience Framework.

What is resilience?

Resilience is the capability to plan, prepare, and respond to adverse events (ie anything out of the ordinary). These could be things such as extreme weather, fire or other emergencies, pandemics, or something smaller like power outages or seasonal trends.

We need resilience to ensure our society has a way to predict and prevent adverse events, and to make sure that they are ready to respond if they do happen.

Why do we need to build capabilities in this area?

Against the backdrop of climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic enquiry, and rapid technological advancements, there is a need to increase the ability to anticipate, assess, prevent, mitigate, respond to, and recover from a variety of direct and indirect civil contingency risks.

What are National Occupational Standards?

NOS are agreed definitions of core and transferable skills that are adopted by employers and qualifications bodies across the four nations of the UK to guide and promote skills development. The current set of civil contingencies NOS applies to both the public and private sector and outlines the knowledge and skills that individuals need to perform effectively and safely in any given role.

Have your say in the consultation

The consultation aims to assess whether 17 of the National Occupational Standards under the civil contingencies suite are fit for purpose or require updating. The Workforce Development Trust is asking for a wide range of sectors involved in or affected by civil contingencies planning to give them their feedback.

Respond to the consultation using the online survey.

First published 20 August 2024