Testing London's Command and Control arrangements - Exercise Capital Ingot
On 15 February 2008, around 200 participants from the Emergency services, central and local Government, public utilities and other organisations were put through their paces. They took part in an exercise to test the command and control (Gold) arrangements for dealing with a major emergency in London.
The objectives of the exercise were to:
- Demonstrate an understanding of London Resilience Partnership Plans and Procedures.
- Exercise the strategic decision making process.
- Demonstrate effective handover procedures.
- Exercise the integration of the Scientific and Technical Advice Cell (STAC).
- Exercise existing logistical arrangements within the Strategic Coordination Centre (SCC) to inform further development of the SCC.
- Test external communications arrangements and the effectiveness of the Media cell.
The exercise scenario was a sudden onset of fluvial and localised surface water flooding, caused by heavy rain. Organisations had to work together to deal with the consequences which included transport and utilities disruption, flooded homes and businesses and impacts to the Olympic Park at Stratford.
The lessons identified from the exercise are feeding into ongoing planning, these included:
- Holding an exercise at this level at least every 18 months.
- Developing Gold familiarisation training and extending STAC familiarisation training to a wider audience.
- Acknowledgement that exercising with Central Government is beneficial and therefore an exercise should be held with COBR in the run up to the Olympics.
- Recommending further refinements to the SCC facility to help facilitate future responses.
For any comments or queries concerning this page, please contact the London Resilience Team via ENQUIRIES-LRT@gol.gsi.gov.uk.