What is the West Midlands Conurbation Resilience Forum (WMC RF)?

The West Midlands Conurbation Resilience Forum is a statutory multi agency partnership organisation. It was set up to ensure the local authorities, emergency services and the environment agency (known at Category 1 or Cat 1 responders) in partnership with other organisations such as gas and water companies (see Category 2 Responders) fulfil their duties under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. The Act is important because it establishes a consistent level of civil protection planning and preparation activity between these organisations across the UK.

The network of Local Resilience Forums covers the whole of the UK. The purpose of our West Midlands Conurbation Resilience Forum is to ensure that, from a conurbation-wide level, the agencies are working together to fulfil their duties under the act. This may sound bureaucratic, but it should be remembered that ultimately the Act aims to improve the protection of the citizens of the UK in the event of major emergency. The WMC Resilience Forum therefore has the protection of our citizens at the forefront of its business.

When was the WMC Resilience Forum established?

The first meeting of the Forum was held on 5 March 2005. It established the terms of reference of the group, how often it would meet and structured how work would be delivered throughout the Conurbation. A look at the structure chart might help get an idea of how the Forum is set up.

How does the WMC Resilience Forum decide what work to do?

The Forum is made up of a 3 tier structure. Work and information flows both ways through the structure. The middle tactical tier, known as the General Working Group, receives strategic direction from the higher strategic tier of the Forum governance board and commissions the work out to the lower operational tier of themed sub groups. In turn, it feeds the results of this work up to the higher strategic tier of the Forum’s governance board for decision and acceptance.