The Heathrow fire shows Britain has a resilience problem

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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favorite tales on this weekly publication.

The author is head of danger administration coverage at The Centre for Lengthy-Time period Resilience

Investigators will probably want a while to grasp the reason for the fire that closed down Heathrow airport on Friday, disrupting greater than a thousand flights and affecting some 200,000 travellers. However it doesn’t take lengthy to see how weak the UK is. On this case, {an electrical} substation in a close by suburb supplied a single level of failure for Europe’s busiest airport.

Hub airports have the vitality calls for of small cities whereas, fairly rightly, prioritising security. Heathrow claims that it’s not doable to have in place the vitality era backup required to run its operations safely. That’s not ok. It wants to ascertain that various provide is obtainable from the grid and might be switched in seamlessly if wanted. Extra broadly, regulators ought to require that every one suppliers of important infrastructure frequently assess vulnerabilities and stress take a look at their means to get well shortly.

As the worldwide outlook continues to darken, policymakers are waking as much as the UK’s lack of resilience — not solely within the nation’s infrastructure, however extra broadly throughout the economic system and society. From undersea cables to vitality grids, the UK is uncovered.  

The pandemic ought to have targeted minds, however plainly few classes have been realized. A report final week from the Centre for Lengthy-Time period Resilience reveals that the UK is in a worse place to answer organic threats than earlier than Covid-19. Right now, the federal government has very low cross-departmental visibility of key details about the place we supply pharmaceutical components. It makes taking co-ordinated motion very difficult.

Nonetheless, with the proper imaginative and prescient and path, we are able to construct up resilience. Within the Thirties, the federal government noticed by means of an intensive reorganisation of the state, as specified by Whitehall, Peter Hennessy’s historical past of the civil service. We’d like the identical ambition proper now — good rewiring on the prime of presidency, a elementary change of mindset within the civil service and a response that encompasses all of society.

Resilience should be made a prime nationwide precedence, accompanied by correct governance. The Nationwide Safety Adviser, renamed the Nationwide Resilience and Safety Adviser, ought to take cost, reporting to the prime minister. We should be taught from enterprise and introduce a specialist Chief Resilience Officer to supervise a strengthened danger administration course of throughout Whitehall. As well as, as really helpful by the Covid Inquiry, an impartial exterior statutory physique needs to be established to scrutinise the federal government’s work on resilience and problem groupthink.

Pat McFadden, who leads the Cupboard Workplace, should drive an entrepreneurial strategy to danger all through Whitehall, making certain that civil servants be taught to embrace, perceive and handle danger. As quite a few critiques over the many years have all agreed, the civil service must draft in personal sector expertise, reward innovation and agility, and incentivise officers to work throughout departments. The authorities has promised reform. It actually should now ship. 

However authorities doesn’t have all of the solutions. Society additionally has a half to play. Following Sweden, which has launched a new obligatory civic obligation, the UK might create a civil reservist cadre throughout the nation, specializing in emergency response and cyber defence coaching. These measures wouldn’t solely assist construct the foundations for the nation’s resilience, but in addition give younger folks much-needed expertise and foster a tradition of nationwide accountability.

The authorities has pledged to spend extra on the UK’s armed providers and put money into navy industrial capability. That is mandatory however not adequate for the vary of utmost dangers we face. We have to construct a resilient nation, simply as now we have previously. Fortuitously, the fire affecting Heathrow has been extinguished and providers have resumed. We might not be so fortunate subsequent time.