Managing for local resilience: towards a strategic approach

Abstract

The term resilience is increasingly being used to capture the challenges involved in managing in ‘hard times’. This article aims to provide one of the first empirical studies of the term’s application to local authority interventions around emergency planning and climate change: two areas in which resilience has been particularly emphasised in local policy making. Drawing upon research undertaken in the north east of England, the article considers how local managers have understood and applied the term, the extent to which it has been developed as a coherent policy agenda, and its strategic significance. In reframing the debate on resilience in terms of discourses of ‘recovery’ and ‘transformation’, the article examines how, in addition to informing policy realities on the ground, resilience is also a normative, politically laden term, within which conservative narratives of uncertainty, vulnerability and anxiety compete with a more radical focus on hope, adaptation and transformation. The study reveals concerns over the term’s longevity, tensions between the different interpretations of resilience, and the lack of a coherent strategic framework within which the different discourses on resilience could be considered and reconciled. However, the article also captures the growing importance of a resilience narrative that is seen to add value in a period of austerity, integrate key features of climate change adaptation and emergency planning, and act as a ‘strategic lynchpin’ in relation to other policy areas, such as economic resilience.

Resilience assessment: a useful approach to navigate urban sustainability challenges

“…Furthermore, it confirms the findings of Shaw and Maythorne (2012) that a resilience discourse could potentially integrate short-to medium-term emergency planning with medium-to long-term climate adaptation. The bridging function of the resilience assessment implies that it has the potential of providing local authorities with common strategies to handle change across sectors, in line with Shaw and Maythorne (2012).…”

Unpacking resilience policy discourse

“…For example, climate change adaptation is not really touched upon, but as Shaw and Maythorne (2011) argue, LRFs (and emergency managers) have nothing to do with climate change (i.e. as a potential cause of a disaster); this issue is dealt by special climate change officers based within more local authorities.…”

Assessing the Extent to Which the UK’s National Risk Register Supports Local Risk Management

“…Although the UK has a recommended system for emergency planning and engagement between stakeholders at the national level, grounded in the Civil Contingencies Act [28], emphasis of translation to local level actors is predominantly undertaken by Local Resilience Forums who are expected to work in unison to shape local risk registers. Limited academic literature exists on the success of these forums in enabling risk awareness and management beyond the multi-agency partnerships themselves [29][30][31]. Once frameworks and processes for risk management are in place at a local level, the quality and effectiveness of such measures vary considerably.…”