LOCAL LEVEL MULTIAGENCY ARRANGEMENTS – EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS GROUPS
Local Resilience Team
There are three Emergency Preparedness Group areas (Belfast, Northern and Southern) in Northern Ireland.
Each Emergency Preparedness Group is jointly chaired by a Senior Police Commander and Local Government Chief Executive/Senior Officer. The purpose of each Emergency Preparedness Group is to ensure an appropriate level of preparedness to enable an effective multiagency response to emergencies, which may have a significant impact on the local community.
Representation on these Groups broadly includes senior officers from all the emergency services, health trusts, councils, government departments, Education Authority, NI Housing Executive, NI Environment Agency, Met Office, Utilities Organisations, Voluntary Sector, Ministry of Defence, Airports, Ports, Translink and other relevant organisations essential to ensure an integrated approach to emergency management. This composition ensures a robust and co-ordinated response to emergency management, combining a wealth of knowledge, skills and resources.
Emergency Preparedness Groups are not legal entities, but many of the partners have statutory duties to respond to emergencies.
MULTI AGENCY PARTNERS
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SEPG Seminar
The SEPG Seminar is an annual event, which takes place each year in March and is open to all EPG partners to attend. This includes representatives from the emergency services, government departments, health trusts, local councils, utilities, telecoms, education, housing, airports and the voluntary sector.
The theme of the 2026 Seminar was ‘Resilience’, encompassing organisational, community and societal resilience.
Speakers included representatives from the Executive Office, NIE Networks, The Red Cross, the National Consortium for Societal Resilience (NCSR) and the Building Resilience in Communities (BRIC) Project.
Planning is currently underway for the 2027 SEPG Seminar!
EXERCISE ASH BREEZE
Building on the lessons identified from Dumfries & Galloway’s Operation Waypoint exercise, ‘Cruise Control’ which took place in September 2025, a multi-agency planning team was established across the resilience community in both Scotland and Northern Ireland to plan and develop the tabletop, Exercise Ash Breeze.
Exercise Ash Breeze took place on Thursday 30th of April 2026 at Belfast Harbour Commissioners Office with the following objectives:
- Explore and identify methods of notification and information sharing between partner agencies between both jurisdictions.
- Gain an awareness of roles & responsibilities and actions & objectives of each partner agency.
- Explore and identify co-ordination responsibilities at sea and ashore.
- Discuss the suitability of existing plans and arrangements and any potential gaps for the future.
A total of 68 attendees across a wide and varied range of multi-agency partners and responders participated from both Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The exercise was designed to discuss and explore the activation of Operation Waypoint arrangements for a mid-channel ferry incident, focusing on the effectiveness of multi-agency notification, information sharing and co-ordination across Scottish and Northern Ireland jurisdictions.
The scenario and presentations delivered, examined how partner agencies identify, prioritise and share critical information at pace, clarified respective roles, responsibilities and decision-making objectives, explored co-ordination requirements at sea and ashore under HM Coastguard lead arrangements. It provided assurance on existing Operation Waypoint planning, JESIP and mass rescue plans, while identifying areas where cross-jurisdictional interfaces, escalation routes or planning assumptions may require further development to strengthen preparedness for complex maritime major incidents.
A multi-agency debrief took place on Friday 5th of June, where a number of lessons were identified and recommendations discussed. A particular focus identified was the strategic co-ordination of a single shared incident across both jurisdictions and how this would be delivered and led in practice.
The exercise has continued to strengthen relationships across the resilience community and the planning team will meet regularly to review the progress of the recommendations identified.
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