Risk Management as a tool of the Civil Emergency Lanning in the United Kingdom — Comparison with the Polish Approach

Abstract

‘Europe which protects’ is a very important postulate which is presented by politicians, however, it is well known that the full responsibility for the safety and security of the citizens is the domain of each sovereign country. Therefore, international organisations, such as NATO and the EU, associating countries in one, more or less integrated structure, have only a supportive and facilitating role to this highly important process. This basically means that close cooperation between individual countries is a highly important matter in ensuring the vital aim of citizen protection, especially against major threats and hazards, triggered or impacting in the border context. Such cooperation is impossible as long as those nations do not know and understand each other’s systems. Furthermore, in gaining this understanding of the respective systems, the opportunity exists to learn from each other by implementing the best practices of each other’s realities. The article is an effort to contribute to this learning process by comparison of the risk management processes being a part of broader crisis and disaster management systems in the United Kingdom and Poland. The study was conducted by reviewing and analysing formal documentation and guidance as well as selected literature in this respect. Furthermore, the findings are based on many years of the authors’ experience working in these two systems, reinforced by hundreds of discussions with national experts in the field. As supportive input, selected results of a survey on civil emergency planning in Poland are also presented. The two surveyed systems revealed many similarities in the processes in place in both countries. In general, the purpose of their existence is the same, however, in some cases, there are different terms used or they vary slightly due to organisational or administrative reasons. Both adaptations and developments based on the experiences of the other system are possible, and sometimes even recommended.