Emergency planning in Newham has been left “very lean” and “below the London average”, it’s been revealed.
A report to councillors highlighted “vacant posts” and “knowledge gaps” among incident commanders that meant there was a “significant risk should an incident occur”.
A Newham Council spokesperson said the size of the emergency team had been affected by “financial pressures” but that new staff were being recurited and officers were being trained.
The town hall’s emergency planning and resilience team is responsible for co-ordinating its response to emergency situations such as fires, floods, storms, power cuts and public health crises.
The council’s website says that the authority is a “category one responder” which means that it has to “collaborate with emergency services to carry out essential on-the-ground tasks” and “lead recovery efforts”.
However a “risk register” presented to the council’s audit comittee last Wednesday (16th) said the council had a “very lean” emergency planning function “which benchmarking has shown is well under the London average, particularly for the size and risk profile of the borough”.
It added: “In addition, there [are] knowledge gaps amongst incident command trained officers which creates a significant risk should an incident occur and adverse impact arises.”
The register states the situation poses a high risk that would have a major impact on the council.
It said that the council had worked to mitigate the risk by launching a recruitment campaign to fill “vacant roles” with “additional staff” and offering training courses to officers.
A council spokesperson said it had “sufficient officers” to cover gaps in its 24-hour emergency planning staffing rota.
They added: “Financial pressures over recent times have impacted on the size of the emergency planning and resilience team and its ability to grow.
“The team has however seen growth of an additional manager during the last few months and a further officer will be joining the team from August 2025.”
They continued: “The council’s response to emergencies is not solely limited to the emergency planning and resilience team.
“To ensure we can respond effectively to major and other significant incidents, we operate a 24/7 rota of staff across roles. We have sufficient officers to cover gaps in the rota when they occur, for example when someone leaves, and regularly recruit for new officers to join the rota cohort.”
The spokesperson also said that making sure senior commanders have the right skills and knowledge is a “continuous process”, responding to changes in the law and learning from incidents elsewhere.
They said: “Over the past twelve months, particularly recognising leadership changes within the council, we have delivered a range of in-house and external, accredited training. We have also introduced regular sessions to share peer learning and key updates.”
