Strengthening Local Resilience Forums: The England Pilots

Local Resilience Forums are the partnerships that plan for emergencies in your area, and in England they are being strengthened through a programme of pilots and trailblazers. In December 2023 the government confirmed eight pilot areas for the Strengthening LRFs Programme: West Mercia, Suffolk, Gloucestershire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Northumbria, Thames Valley and London¹. That work has since been taken further, with Stronger Local Resilience Forum Trailblazers launched in April 2025 with £2.55 million of funding for 2025 to 2026, in five of those areas: Northumbria, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Suffolk and London².

For your household, none of this changes who to call in an emergency. What it changes is how well the organisations around you, the council, the police, the fire and rescue service, the NHS and the utility companies, are organised before anything happens. A Local Resilience Forum is a multi-agency partnership that brings together Category 1 and Category 2 responders under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 to coordinate planning, preparation and response for emergencies and major incidents within a specific geographical area³. The pilots are about making that partnership better at its job.

This page explains the pilot programme, what your own forum does for you, how to find it, and how to use the two things it publishes that matter most to a household: the Community Risk Register and local emergency alerts.

The Strengthening LRFs Programme: eight pilot areas

The Strengthening LRFs Programme was confirmed in the UK Government Resilience Framework 2023 implementation update, published in December 2023. The eight Local Resilience Forums selected to take forward a pilot were West Mercia, Suffolk, Gloucestershire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Northumbria, Thames Valley and London¹. The selection drew on areas that had already been involved in earlier work on strengthening local resilience, and the pilots were intended to test what a better-resourced, better-led forum could actually do differently.

The programme has since developed into something more concrete. The UK Government Resilience Action Plan, published in July 2025, records that the Stronger Local Resilience Forum Trailblazers were initially launched in April 2025 with £2.55m of funding for 25/26, in five local areas: Northumbria, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Suffolk and London². All five were among the original eight pilot areas. The most significant change the trailblazers introduce is a new leadership model: permanent Chief Resilience Officers will oversee work to "mainstream" thinking about resilience, so that preparing for emergencies becomes part of how local services plan their ordinary work rather than a separate exercise done on the side².

The wider context is a government commitment to place-based resilience. The UK government has provided £200 million over six years to help over 25 local areas in England take forward wider place-based work⁸. The trailblazers sit within that broader effort, which also covers community engagement programmes such as a regional programme run by the Department for Infrastructure in Northern Ireland, engaging over 30 local areas to improve their resilience to flooding⁸.

If you live in one of the pilot or trailblazer areas, the practical effect you are most likely to notice over time is better local information: clearer risk registers, better publicised plans and more visible local preparedness work. That emphasis on publishing information about risk assessments and plans, and on arrangements to warn and inform the public, is what local resilience forums are expected to deliver more systematically⁴.

What your Local Resilience Forum does for your household

Your Local Resilience Forum is not an emergency service and it is not somewhere you call when something goes wrong. It is the body that gets the emergency services, the council, the NHS and others working from the same plan before an emergency arrives. Surrey Local Resilience Forum, for example, brings together local public services, including the emergency services, local authorities, NHS England and the Environment Agency, all Category One responders under the Civil Contingencies Act, to plan and prepare for local incidents and major emergencies⁹. It is supported by Category Two responders, such as National Highways and utility companies⁹.

For a household, the forum's work shows up in three main ways:

• It assesses the risks where you live. Local Resilience Forums identify potential risks and produce emergency plans to either prevent or lessen the impact of any incident on their local communities⁶.
• It publishes those risks. Your Local Resilience Forum will publish information online about the risks in your local area⁶.
• It helps coordinate the response. Lincolnshire County Council describes working closely with its LRF partner organisations, including the emergency services, voluntary groups, community groups and local authorities, to coordinate a fast, effective response¹⁰.

The forums also play a role in raising public awareness about potential risks and encouraging community resilience, including providing information to the public on how to prepare for emergencies and what actions to take during specific incidents³. The government's national preparedness advice has been shaped with this in mind: the government has worked closely with local resilience forums across the UK to root its household advice in what works for local communities¹¹. So when you follow official advice on preparing a household plan or an emergency kit, the local dimension of that advice comes through your forum.

38 forums in England, 4 in Wales: finding yours

There are 38 Local Resilience Forums in England and four in Wales⁴. The four Welsh forums complement the oversight and leadership provided through the Wales Resilience Forum and the Wales Resilience Partnership¹², and the Welsh Government works with its four regional Local Resilience Forums to bring together all responder organisations who have a duty to assess risks and plan for emergencies⁵. Details of the Welsh Local Resilience Forums and their Community Risk Registers are published online⁶.

The single most useful thing to know when searching is that forum boundaries follow the police. The geographical area the forums cover is based on police areas⁷, and most follow police force boundaries¹³. The forums were formed in the police area boundaries of England and Wales by key local emergency responders and specific supporting agencies for the purpose of fulfilling their duties under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004¹⁴. In Wales, the four forums are based on the police force areas of South Wales, North Wales, Dyfed-Powys and Gwent¹⁵.

London is a special case. Each of the 33 Borough Resilience Forums in London uses its local context to develop its own risk assessments¹⁶, so if you live in the capital your most local risk information may sit at borough level beneath the London-wide arrangements.

To find your forum, search for your police area plus "Local Resilience Forum", or start from the official contact page, which provides contact details for Local Resilience Forums throughout England and Wales¹⁴. Northumbria Local Resilience Forum, for instance, is based in the Northumbria police area, where Category one and two responders come together to form the forum¹⁷, and its membership is made up of responder organisations found within the Northumbria Police area boundary¹⁸. In North Wales, the Local Resilience Forum is likewise based on the local police force area and brings together all the organisations that respond to emergencies there¹⁹.

Your Community Risk Register: what it tells you to prepare for

Every Local Resilience Forum across England is responsible for publishing a Community Risk Register which sets out the specific emergencies that their region is most at risk of²⁰. Each register sets out the different risks most likely to cause disruption in your region⁶. This is the document that turns national risk planning into something you can act on at home: it tells you which of the risks in the National Risk Register actually matter where you live, and therefore what your household should prepare for.

The registers focus on the highest priority risks in each local area, and the National Risk Register should be read in conjunction with the Community Risk Register for the relevant local area²¹. Some forums publish their register on a fixed cycle: Surrey Local Resilience Forum is responsible for publishing the Surrey Community Risk Register every year⁹. The West Midlands register is designed and produced by the West Midlands Local Resilience Forum to inform people and better prepare them for risks where they live or work²². In Northumbria, the Community Risk Register is the responsibility of the Northumbria Local Resilience Forum²³.

How to use your register as a household:

1. Find it. Search your police area plus "Community Risk Register", or follow the link from your forum's site⁶.
2. Read it alongside the National Risk Register, because the local register focuses on the highest priority local risks while the national one covers the wider picture²¹.
3. Match your preparations to the risks listed. If flooding appears, start with our flooding guide; if storms and snow, start there; if cyber or infrastructure risks, see cyber attacks and power cuts.
4. Check the resilient behaviours it suggests. The Community Resilience Development Framework asks forums to develop and publicise Community Risk Registers including a core set of resilient behaviours for the public to take, relevant to the risk context²⁴.

The framework behind the registers also asks that they be developed with non-statutory partners, such as voluntary, community and faith organisations, and businesses, so the register you read reflects more than just the blue light services' view of your area²⁵.

Signing up for local emergency alerts

Some Local Resilience Forums offer a sign-up option for alerts to receive news and information about emergencies in your local area²⁶. This is separate from the national Emergency Alerts system that reaches mobile phones: the forum schemes are typically email or message lists run by the forum or its partners, giving local incident news and preparedness information. Check your own forum's website for a sign-up page, because provision varies between areas.

Local resilience arrangements also feed into how warnings reach you. Each region across the country has a Local Resilience Forum in place, made up of local authorities, the emergency services, the NHS and health bodies and environment-related government agencies, and the forums were set up to warn, inform and advise the public in the event of an emergency²⁷. For weather warnings specifically, official guidance on early warning and weather forecasts explains how the Met Office warning system works and how alerts reach the public⁷.

For a fuller household approach to staying informed, including which alerts to enable on your phone and what to keep working when the power is out, see our guide to staying informed in an emergency.

How forums warn, inform and advise the public

The duty to warn, inform and advise the public is one of the core expectations on a forum. Forums are expected to deliver a systematic, planned and coordinated approach across risk assessment, planning for emergencies, business continuity planning, publishing information about risk assessments and plans, and arrangements to warn and inform the public²⁸. In an emergency, forums work with partners in a local area to alert people²⁷.

What this means for you in practice:

• Before an emergency: published risk registers and preparedness advice, as covered above⁶.
• During an emergency: public information through local media, official channels and alert schemes, coordinated across the responding organisations²⁷.
• After an emergency: information on recovery, such as Devon's flood recovery guidance, produced with the Devon, Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Resilience Forum, a multi-agency partnership of local public services²⁹.

The government has also taken forward work to offer better guidance and support to LRFs for working with vulnerable persons in their communities, including a review and update of current guidance to support identification of vulnerable persons during an emergency, and the development of an off-the-shelf exercise for LRFs¹. The resulting guidance for English LRFs on identifying and supporting persons who are vulnerable in an emergency was published in April 2025; it was written with English LRFs in mind, though there may be elements relevant to emergency responders in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland subject to devolution variations³⁰. If someone in your household needs extra help in an emergency, it is worth knowing that this identification and support work is now an explicit part of what your forum is expected to do, and our guide to extra help in an emergency sets out the practical steps, including the Priority Services Register.

Community resilience: the six-step framework forums follow

Alongside planning for emergencies, forums are expected to help communities prepare for themselves. The Cabinet Office published the Community Resilience Development Framework in June 2019 as a reference tool for the delivery of strategic approaches to community resilience development at the Local Resilience Forum level, in collaboration with non-statutory partners such as voluntary, community and faith organisations, and businesses²⁴. The framework outlines six steps for Local Resilience Forums and emergency responders to develop community resilience²⁴.

For a household, the framework matters because it is the mechanism by which your street, parish or neighbourhood group can become part of local planning rather than an afterthought. The National Risk Register describes the framework as a reference tool for the delivery of strategic approaches to community resilience development at the local level in collaboration with non-statutory partners²⁵. Practical routes in include:

• Develop your household emergency plan, the first step recommended in community resilience guidance for individuals³¹.
• Join or start a community emergency plan. A community emergency plan toolkit exists to help groups do this, and the same official contact page covers Local Resilience Forums throughout England and Wales, which is where to start¹⁴.
• Take part in a recognised community scheme. Firewise Communities, for example, makes your own home and neighbours more resilient to wildfire, helps build community resilience, gives the community a plan to work to, and creates opportunities to connect with Firewise Communities in other areas and countries³².
• Ask your forum directly. After Storm Arwen, one county's Civil Contingencies Unit responded to 31 requests to develop local community resilience plans³³, which shows both that demand exists and that forums respond to it.

In Wales, Natural Resources Wales notes that your local resilience forum can tell you about the local arrangements for flooding, as well as other emergencies, and supports communities in producing flood plans³⁴. Our community resilience guide walks through the neighbourhood-level steps in more detail.

Cyber incident readiness

Cyber risks now appear in local risk planning, and some forums publish how they would handle them. Wiltshire and Swindon Local Resilience Forum has created a cyber guide for partner organisations to use in response to a cyber attack, which includes arrangements to secure partner and wider support to mitigate the effects of the attack³⁵. Consideration of cyber activity is built into its major incident guide and is the subject of monitoring across all partner agencies³⁵.

For your household, this is worth checking in your own forum's Community Risk Register: if a cyber attack or major IT failure is listed as a priority local risk, that is a signal to prepare for power cuts, payment systems being down and loss of internet access, and our cyber attacks guide covers the household steps.

Scotland and Northern Ireland: the equivalents

The arrangements differ outside England and Wales. The equivalent of Local Resilience Forums in Scotland are Regional Resilience Partnerships⁶, of which there are three⁴. Scotland has three levels of Resilience Partnerships: national, regional and local³⁶. The 12 Local Resilience Partnerships include the blue light agencies as well as local authorities, the NHS, coastguard agencies, key voluntary sector organisations and other partners as required, and together they support local resilience planning, response and recovery arrangements³⁶.

The equivalent of Local Resilience Forums in Northern Ireland are Emergency Preparedness Groups⁶, which play a critical role in bringing local responders such as the emergency services together with other partners²⁵. The Strengthening LRFs pilots and trailblazers described on this page apply to England only, so if you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland the same practical steps, finding your local partnership and reading its published risks, apply through these equivalent bodies.

Utilities, the military and the wider response

Two groups sit alongside the core responders. First, utility companies. Forums are partnerships made up of representatives from local public services, including the emergency services, local authorities, the NHS, the Environment Agency and other organisations involved in emergency preparedness, such as utilities providers⁶. LRFs are supported by organisations known as Category 2 responders, such as the Highways Agency and public utility companies, who have a responsibility to cooperate with Category 1 organisations and share relevant information with the LRF⁷. Surrey's forum lists its Category Two sectors as government agencies, transport companies, utility companies covering electricity, gas, water and telephone, other health partners and others⁹. This is why, in a power cut or water supply failure, the companies responsible are already part of the coordinated local response. Our guides to backup power and water in an emergency cover the household side.

Second, the military. LRFs may coordinate with the military in certain circumstances where specialised capabilities are needed, through Military Representatives where required³. Military assistance is not the first response: it is called on when a local response needs particular capabilities. Our page on when the armed forces help in a civil emergency explains the arrangements.

Where to go next

If you take three things from the pilot programme, take these. Find your Local Resilience Forum by searching your police area⁷. Read its Community Risk Register and prepare for the risks it lists⁶. Sign up for its alerts if it offers them²⁶. Then, if you want to go further, ask about a community emergency plan: the framework your forum follows has six steps for exactly that²⁴, and the experience after storms such as Arwen shows forums will help when communities ask³³. For the national picture behind your local register, see the National Risk Register and the UK Government Resilience Framework.