Emergency planning framework (PRIMER) - Government Communications

Introduction

During times of crisis, the public expects the government to be a fast and reliable source of truth. With the pace at which emergencies can evolve and digital media spreads information in real-time, high quality and timely communication is as important as the management of the crisis itself.

A strong crisis communication strategy can keep stakeholders informed, build and maintain public trust in the government and ensure accurate information is being reported by the media. Without one, the risk is that misleading information can take hold and cause irreparable damage to an organisation and its reputation, as well as raise concern or fear in local communities.

This is why communication is so essential. As communication professionals, your role in a crisis extends beyond media handling and issuing announcements. You are actively safeguarding your organisation’s trust, brand and long-term reputation – all of which are at stake during a crisis or emergency.

Drawing on best practice across the public sector, we have created a package of practical tools and templates for communication professionals showing how to plan, develop and implement an effective response during a crisis.

The PRIMER framework

Our resources are structured around six critical stages that form the PRIMER framework for crisis communications:

Plan: It is essential to have a communications plan, regularly update it and know where it is when you need it.
Rehearse: A crisis response works best if tested in advance, and doing this with partners can ensure you build important relationships in calmer times.
Implement: Getting it right from the start can be critical – this section looks at how you set up your crisis response in the right way.
Maintain: Crisis scenarios can be a test of stamina and character – these resources will help you ensure you maintain quality while supporting your team.
Evaluate: It is crucial to measure what’s getting through and what’s not – this section shows how to measure impact in real time and refine your approach.
Recover: Communication has an important role in rebuilding trust and confidence – this section offers practical advice on how to respond after a crisis.

The key to delivering effective crisis communication is the team you bring with you. When considering how you enact the Primer framework, keep in mind the people, capabilities, and cross-functional skillsets you need. Finally, never forget that an incident takes its toll on a team; a top priority must always be the resilience and welfare of your people.

Plan

When a crisis hits, having a clear, up‑to‑date and adaptable communication plan in place can be the difference between success and failure. While crises are inherently unpredictable, a baseline set of principles will provide you with the structure needed to get to work immediately.

How do you know you are managing a crisis?

A crisis is an unexpected moment, event or series of events which has three related threats: public safety, financial loss and loss of reputation. It is generally characterised by escalating damage, intense scrutiny, high levels of uncertainty, loss of control and insufficient information.

Not all emergencies are crises, but every crisis is an emergency. While an emergency requires a rapid and co-ordinated operational response, a crisis contains distinct reputational damage components. You know you are in a sustained reputational crisis when you can’t close the story down: criticism becomes the story.

The key principles behind any crisis response

Launch quickly: Galvanise your team immediately and establish clear roles and responsibilities so you can respond swiftly. Know your key players in advance.
Identify the facts: Make separating fact from fiction your top priority. Map your internal information flows, monitor external channels like social media, and coordinate with external agencies (for example, emergency services, other government departments, Local Resilience Forums).
Brief senior management: Ensure communications leads are integrated into the first strategic Gold Command briefings to shape key messaging from the outset.
Transparency: Public bodies must remain as open, transparent, and informative as possible throughout an emergency.
Be flexible: Be open with your team about the unpredictable nature of a crisis. Ensure your team is ready to learn as they go and adapt to sudden shifts.

Anticipating crises – Keep one step ahead

While you cannot predict the exact timing of a crisis, you must actively evaluate your organisation’s vulnerabilities. Gather your communication leads regularly to brainstorm potential scenarios by analysing:

Who are the affected stakeholders, and how will you reach them?
What are the absolute worst-case scenarios, and how will you manage them?
What are the core messages required if these risks materialise?

Following these scoping sessions, establish contact with the relevant policy leads to map out internal chains of command before an emergency occurs.

Your emergency strategy checklist

Your communication plan must be the first place you go to during an active hit. Ensure you have this baseline directory prepared and verified ahead of time:

Internal contacts: A verified, out-of-hours chain of command for your organisation’s “Gold Command” leaders, including directors and private offices.
External contacts: A comprehensive, directorate-specific stakeholder directory. Build relationships during peacetime to ensure rapid information sharing and stop misinformation from spreading during a crisis. Identify the most effective direct channels (such as closed online groups, regular bulletins) beyond traditional email.
Trained spokespeople: A pre-identified roster of individuals with proactive media training. Do not wait for a crisis to hit to provide this training.
Resilient infrastructure: Access protocols for fast, effective communication methods and tech tools to establish facts at pace.

Strategic crisis plan template

This practical template will help you when drafting a live response strategy.

Title	Specific, brief, and context-relevant.
Background and aim	A brief paragraph summarising the operational activity and the specific problem to be solved. Note any cross-departmental dependencies.
Objectives	Clear and actionable driven entirely by SMART criteria: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.
Target audience	Precise, segmented groups (such as partners, opinion formers, internal staff) – avoid overly broad categories like “the general public”.
Key messages	Factual, pre-cleared generic lines to convey initial information quickly without prejudging the issue. Segmented by operational phase (before, during, after) and audience type (internal vs. international).
Channels	Targeted deployment of specific capabilities (for example, text alerts, social media, bulletins, or direct door-knocking and public meetings for high-vitality alerts).
Spokesperson plan	Clear assignments mapping specific trained individuals to response vs. recovery phases, ensuring long-term continuity.
Coordination	Clear mechanics for system-wide alignment with other affected departments, such as Local Resilience Forums (LRFs), and the Cabinet Office News Co-ordination Centre (NCC).
Timescales	A time-specific deployment matrix and a master operational timeline.

The items highlighted below are not essential, especially in the first version of your plan and during the initial moments of a crisis. However, as the incident progresses and a fuller plan strategy is developed, these should be included.

Resources and budget

Have budgets been pre-identified to manage this work?
Who would a budget requirement need to be highlighted with?

Research

Are these plans and proposals supported by research?

Review, evaluation and exercising

What mechanisms are in place to evaluate or review progress of implementation of the plan?
Have you tested the plan (perhaps as part of a wider exercise)?
How often will the plan be reviewed to cope with changes such as staff turnover?

Gaps and risks

Are there any specific gaps that have been identified as a result of developing your crisis plan?
Are extra capabilities required?
Has a communication risk register been established to identify and mitigate any associated risks?

Rehearse

Until a crisis plan has been formally tested, it is impossible to guarantee its effectiveness under the pressure of a live crisis. Practicing all aspects of your plan addresses structural weaknesses in advance and ensures your staff are confident in their individual roles.

The value of exercises

Emergency exercises serve to validate response frameworks, test logistical capabilities, and build staff competence. By regularly practicing designated roles in simulated environments, communication teams can proactively identify structural weaknesses, sharpen their tactical skills, and ensure operational readiness before a live crisis occurs.

Choosing your exercise format

Exercise Type	Description	Pros	Cons
Discussion-based	Structured group walkthroughs of operational plans	Inexpensive, quick, and simple to configureIdeal for refining early-stage strategies Aligns all teams on emerging plans	Cannot easily simulate real-time logistical or operational hurdlesDoes not test active system or staff behaviour under live pressure
Table-top	Scenario-specific simulated exercises testing an incident response	Excellent for stress-testing and uncovering structural gapsPragmatically strengthens partner relationships	Requires comprehensive, tailored scenario designSecuring proper formats and venues can be challengingLimits live operational tracking
Live rehearsal	Full, active execution of an emergency plan	Teams gain direct, first-hand experience by doingAccurately measures physical, digital, and structural readiness	Highly resource-intensive and time-consuming to configureCan inadvertently undermine team confidence if unmanaged

We have created a ‘Live rehearsal exercise checklist’ to help you plan your rehearsals and test your plan. Visit the emergency planning checklists page, where you can view all the checklists associated with this framework.

Implement

When an emergency hits, the speed and accuracy of the communication response dictates public confidence. This phase addresses the immediate steps required to establish unified, robust and structured processes from the very first hour.

Initial response framework

When a crisis hits, use this framework to instantly audit and align the four pillars of your initial response. You must assess these core areas simultaneously to form a unified approach from day one.

Audience: Identify who is immediately affected. Map how their information needs will change under pressure and verify alternative routes if primary channels are disrupted.
Message: Establish what needs to be said immediately, to whom, and why. Focus exclusively on verified facts, leveraging trusted policy leads and partner agencies to separate reality from fiction.
Channels: Deploy the fastest, most effective communication vectors available based on current circumstances. Partner with adjacent bodies to exploit secondary routes into target groups.
Spokespeople: Confirm the availability of pre-identified, trained spokespeople. Ensure they are immediately briefed on verified facts alongside senior command teams.

Five questions to ask when mobilising your crisis team

Does everyone understand the background to the incident? Encourage immediate information sharing across officials and media monitoring cells. Ask the critical baseline question: Is this a crisis, and is it our crisis to manage? This establishes your exact institutional remit.
What range of expertise and knowledge do you need right now? Map required capabilities across all phases of the emergency. Ensure your cell structure accounts for reactive media handling, proactive content generation, stakeholder alignment, target audience insight, and continuous media and social tracking.
Who else beyond your organisation has a stake in this response? Emergencies rarely impact a single entity. Rapidly activate pre-existing protocols and relationships established during your peacetime planning and rehearsal phases to build an integrated response.
Is everyone clear about who is leading what aspect of the response? In fast-moving, complex environments, prevent overlap by establishing consensus on individual remits and setting a clear structural direction for the entire team.
Have you established a reliable way of keeping track of progress? Avoid losing control as the pace quickens. Set up a proportionate, structured information-sharing loop that ensures visibility without detracting from active delivery.

Use the ‘Assembling your crisis team checklist’ on our emergency planning checklists page for more detailed guidance on instantly mapping capabilities and assigning emergency cell roles when mobilising your initial response.

Activating the reporting and governance infrastructure

Communications must tie directly into the broader operational command machinery:

Tracking remits: Formally assign media and social monitoring remits, clarifying reporting frequencies, output formats, and baseline escalation criteria.
Central liaison: Determine communications representation at official or ministerial briefings. If the crisis escalates to a Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms (COBR) activation, coordinate all media lines directly with No10 communications.
On-site handling: Establish active media handling protocols for ministerial meetings, including dedicated support cells to manage potential journalist “door-stepping”.
Horizon scanning: Evaluate external operational variables, including parliamentary sitting schedules, the geographic location of key political leaders, concurrent major national events, and the activation status of the central News Coordination Centre (NCC).

Maintain

Once your emergency communication framework is operational, you must deploy strict structural discipline to sustain quality delivery for the entire duration of the crisis.

The operational battle rhythm

Establish a predictable daily schedule to maintain a proactive posture and control the information flow. Below is the standard timeline framework, adaptable based on the severity of the incident and active COBR configurations:

Time	Core operational activity
05:30 – 06:00	Finalise and clear messaging lines; execute breakfast broadcast interviews and press briefings.
08:30	Morning update and alignment call with the Chief Executive.
10:00 – 10:45	Respond to urgent questions or parliamentary business; receive updated operational slide packs, communication rolling briefs, and cleared flood or incident guidance statements.
11:00 – 11:15	Coordinate with No10 on lobby updates; ingest formal Situation Reports (SitReps) from the Lead Government Department or response centre.
12:00 – 14:00	Execute lunchtime broadcast media rounds and interviews.
14:30 – 15:30	Process revised incident statements; compile updated SitReps and re-brief senior leaders ahead of committee meetings.
16:00	COBR meeting elements.
17:00 – 17:30	Ingest late-afternoon communication brief updates; execute secondary alignment call with the Chief Executive.
18:00 – 19:00	Coordinate national and regional evening news broadcasts; execute secondary COBR briefings.
21:00 – 22:00	Issue the finalised cross-government communications rolling brief; manage late-evening news updates and broadcast interviews.

Managing social media: The SPEAK and FACT models

Modern digital communication requires an agile, highly adaptable approach to keep pace with rapid online shifts. Use these two structural frameworks to guide your digital output:

The SPEAK model (Channel optimisation)

S – Speed: Respond quickly but never thoughtlessly; balance urgency with rigorous factual accuracy.
P – Position: Establish your channels as the authoritative, credible source of truth to maintain narrative control.
E – Empathy: Present operational data in the exact format the audience needs to hear it, prioritising human clarity over strict corporate messaging.
A – Admit: If an error is made, acknowledge it immediately, detail the corrective actions underway, and maintain regular updates.
K – Kosher: Keep responses authentic, genuine, and brief to reinforce public trust and advocacy.

The FACT model (Misinformation response)

F – Find: Actively discover and isolate instances of misinformation or disinformation.
A – Assess: Rapidly evaluate the threat level and clear targeted response tactics with command leads.
C – Create: Draft native, organic corrections and configure necessary creative assets.
T – Target: Publish content utilizing precise organic tagging or sponsored demographic targeting to reach impacted cohorts.

Operational digital rules:

Secure 24/7 account access and clarify clearance remits ahead of time.
Deactivate all pre-scheduled campaign posts or automated messages immediately.
Use social channels for primary two-way updates rather than treating them as passive mirrors for traditional web stories.

Planning and managing ministerial visits

Visits provide a powerful platform to demonstrate operational grip and engage directly with affected communities, but a poorly managed deployment can cause severe reputational damage. Communication leads must guide leadership on timing, transport viability, safety risks and controlled interview locations.

Match the seniority of the representative directly to the incident trigger points:

Incident looming (no current impact): No ministerial deployment.
Localised impact (small business and community footprint): Operational Director or specific Flooding or Policy Minister.
Sustained, major disruption (widespread evacuations and prolonged threat): Sequential ministerial visits led directly by the Secretary of State or Chief Executive.

Preparing and briefing your spokespeople

All departments must maintain a clear, overarching crisis strategy agreed upon by ministers and the Executive Committee. When executing this strategy during prolonged operations, use the following best-practice guidelines to brief, prepare, and support your spokespeople before any media appearance:

Focus on verified facts

Stick to the truth: Presenting confirmed, verified facts emphasises that your organisation has a firm grip on the situation. Never speculate; guessing leads to sensationalist headlines and a total loss of narrative control.
Never Say “No Comment”: If you do not have the information during the early stages of an emergency, say so openly. Answering with “no comment” is universally interpreted by the public and media as a sign that you are either hiding the truth or hiding your own failure. Be honest on media and social channels about what you currently know and what you are still working to find out.

Demonstrate control and care

Communicate action: Keep the focus on the concrete, practical steps your organisation is actively taking to manage the crisis.
Show commitment: Reiterate your absolute commitment to finding out exactly what happened and why.
Prioritise humanity: Above all, demonstrate genuine concern for those affected. Be human, show authentic empathy, and completely drop all corporate jargon and acronyms from your vocabulary. Always adapt your tone and approach depending on the specific audience you are speaking to.

Interview preparation and delivery

Anticipate and rehearse: Plan your core messages well ahead of time. Actively practice and rehearse with press officers and colleagues to anticipate tough lines of questioning. If a fact is vital to public safety or trust, do not be afraid to repeat it multiple times.
Control the environment: Plan interview locations in advance whenever possible. Be hyper-aware of the background scenery, your own appearance, and the surrounding environment, ensuring they do not inadvertently contradict or undermine your spoken message.
Manage body language: Communicate calm control through your tone of voice and physical delivery. Be confident without appearing overly confident, look your audience directly in the eye, and ensure your body language matches your words.

Maintaining team resilience and welfare

Sustained crisis operations place immense strain on personnel. Protecting your team’s welfare is vital to maintaining operational capacity.

Establish strict on-call shift rotas to manage early-morning and late-night broadcast requirements safely.
Secure logistical baselines for out-of-hours staff, including safe transport home, food provisions, and emergency overnight accommodation.
Proactively activate mutual aid protocols, drawing on the broader Government Communications community to surge resources when internal cells face exhaustion.

Case study: High-stake stakeholder engagement

Serving as an example of the framework in action, the joint response by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the Department for Transport (DfT) to the Monarch Airlines collapse provides the ultimate real-world proof point for operational endurance, tactical consistency, and scalable resource management under the ‘Maintain’ stage of this framework.

The “Maintain” stage focuses on a communication team’s stamina and character. It outlines the structures required to keep a high-quality, high-pressure response going over several days or weeks without experiencing message drift, structural breakdown, or staff burnout. The Monarch repatriation operation was a grueling, two-week operational marathon that required the CAA and DfT to flawlessly run a massive cross-government apparatus around the clock.

The operational challenge: Sudden administration left 110,000 passengers stranded overseas and invalidated 300,000 future bookings, requiring the immediate configuration of a temporary repatriation airline.
The communications strategy: A 24/7 cross-government communication hub was launched immediately, embedding DfT and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office staff directly into active operational cells. Key delivery components included a dedicated customer microsite, a specialised contact center designed to operate for up to three weeks post-repatriation, a standardised airport toolkit (posters, scripts, announcements), and structured, factual media briefings.
Stakeholder mechanics: The hub coordinated immediate briefings with hundreds of multi-sector stakeholders (aviation leads, consumer groups, foreign embassies, and parliamentarians) via daily industry calls.
The outcome: Consumer advocacy groups (such as Which? and Money Saving Expert) amplified accurate advice. Competitor airlines safely promoted low-cost alternative fares and fast-tracked recruitment for impacted staff. Adjacent transport systems managed passenger expectations, preventing any major operational incidents or logjams across UK airport terminals.

Evaluate

Continuous evaluation keeps your emergency response on track by validating whether your messages are successfully penetrating the media and stakeholder landscape, allowing you to refine your tactics in real time.

Setting SMART Objectives

Your evaluation plan must derive from clear organisational goals. Define your parameters by establishing:

Who are the primary and intermediate target audiences?
What do they fundamentally need to know and feel about the situation?
What specific actions do they need to do as a direct result?

Drive these goals using strict SMART criteria (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, Time-bound), leveraging peacetime research to understand what a “normal” baseline looks like.

Data tiering

Using our Evaluation Cycle, align your reporting metrics across three distinct performance tiers, keeping your data gathering proportionate to your active staffing capacity.

Inputs: Videos, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), web feeds, on-site content officers
Outputs: Volume of updates published, unique page views generated
Outtakes: Public reception, keyword sentiment tracking, content engagement
Outcomes: Real-world behaviour – reduction in untargeted calls to emergency lines

Below is a practical example demonstrating how to map a live digital crisis communication strategy across the core tiers of the Evaluation Cycle.

Core campaign parameters

Target audience: Members of the UK and international public concerned for family members and friends living in the affected area.
Digital objectives:
- Deliver 3 core messages across the department’s owned digital communication channels that communicate specific management actions, emphasise a commitment to finding out what happened, and demonstrate concern for those involved.
- Drive 10,000 unique user views to a bespoke landing page (gov.uk/xxxemergency) providing the latest up-to-date crisis information.
- Streamline incoming public communication to ensure only targeted queries reach the specialist contact centre, enabling a 50% reduction in untargeted calls within 5 hours of activating the digital strategy.

The evaluation matrix

Framework tier	Operational metrics and tracked ingestion data
Inputs	Expert spokesperson video Ticker-tape web feed Social media posts and real-time live feed of the press conference Frequently asked questions (FAQs), photographs, and operational videos Dedicated digital communications officer deployed on-site Continuous updates to bespoke GOV.UK landing pages
Outputs	25 tweets and 6 Facebook posts published 9,000 unique user views driven to the bespoke GOV.UK landing page on day one Regular multimedia content (photographs and recorded video of engineers and emergency services working on-site) pushed every 20 minutes Web FAQs systematically updated every hour to reflect live public queries
Outtakes	A 75% increase in traffic to the bespoke GOV.UK landing page within the first hour of active digital media coverage Facebook engagement tracking: 300 likes with public sentiment measured at 70% positive Twitter engagement tracking: 600 retweets and 800 likes User attention metrics: Average time spent on page measured at 3 minutes, with a 25% bounce rate.
Outcomes	A 25% reduction in untargeted public calls flooding the emergency contact line within the first hour of activation
Organisational impact	The number of experts required to staff the call centre was safely reduced by 25% in the first 6 hours, allowing for better-paced shift patterns and rota scheduling during the emergency Mainstream media reports explicitly highlighted the “confident handling” of the crisis by the organisation, driven by the proactive digital information strategy.

Reporting mechanics: Simple dashboards

When enlisting third-party media evaluation or market research firms, provide explicit briefs defining data formats, collection ownership, and reporting frequencies.

Present all data using high-level, clean, visual dashboards. Senior leaders and strategic stakeholders do not have the cognitive capacity to digest exhaustive slide packs or long text reports during an active crisis.

Recover

Recovery is a crucial operational phase that formally begins once the immediate emergency has been stabilised. It must not be overlooked in the rush to resume standard routines.

Helping your team recover

During a prolonged emergency, communication professionals are often on the front lines – working grueling hours, sacrificing personal time, and managing intense pressure to protect the organization’s reputation.

Managing the aftermath of an emergency requires shifting your focus from the narrative back to your people. Use the ‘Crisis leader’s post-incident team recovery checklist’ on our emergency planning checklists page to ensure staff welfare is protected, commitments are honored, and exceptional performance is formally recognised across the wider organisation.

Saving lessons and getting expert advice

Formal wash-ups: Conduct structured “lessons identified” debriefs and group wash-ups with all active participants as soon as possible after the event while insights are fresh. Document all findings, assignments, and progress tracking.
External advisory panels: Convene an independent board of external crisis communication specialists quarterly to audit the performance of your resilience framework against modern benchmarks.
CONOPs alignment: Coordinate all captured data with central resilience leads to formalise and embed structural upgrades into future iterations of the overarching crisis CONOPs (Concept of Operations) framework.

Do not allow critical insights to slip away once the incident concludes. Use our ‘Post-crisis learning and application ledger’ on our emergency planning checklists page to formally capture structural lessons from your operational wash-up.

The six pillars of strategic reputation repair

Following a crisis, communication is likely to play an important role in helping your organisation reset relationships with those affected and rebuild any reputational ground that may have been lost. Below are six crucial elements that will help you and your team to rebuild and repair your organisation’s reputation and or relationships.

1. Think recovery from the outset

Recovery should be on the agenda from the start of a crisis. If a crisis comes to an end and you have not thought about recovery you may lose the immediate opportunity to affect any lasting impact on your organisation’s reputation.

Practical tips:

Think about assigning one or two people from your team to work closely with policy colleagues to work on recovery while the crisis is still ongoing.
Establish some clear objectives around rebuilding reputation may even help inform actions whilst the crisis is still being managed.

2. Build trust through actions not words

A crisis may fundamentally change a stakeholder’s opinion of your organisation, and rebuilding this trust means demonstrating that performance is once again meeting their expectations.

Practical tips:

Reputation is best demonstrated in actions, not promises alone. The best way to recover is to show how you are delivering on your commitments.
For communicators, this means showing and telling whilst you are doing – getting the right messages with the right proof points into your communication with stakeholders.

3. Engage your own staff

Recovery starts within your own organisation. Internal trust might have been damaged and morale might be low, which can affect business performance and undermine wider efforts to rebuild confidence with external stakeholders.

Practical tips:

Make sure internal communication is an integral part of any recovery plan – your people are often your strongest advocates.
Speak to senior managers about the challenge of engaging and reconnecting with staff after a crisis – their visibility is vital.

4. Reset the agenda through proactive communication

It is important that you don’t allow your organisation to become defined by a crisis, and that means skillfully and tactfully using communication to move the media agenda on, and help to rearticulate what your organisation stands for.

Practical tips:

Develop a coherent, proactive communication plan to support your organisation’s future priorities.
Think about how your organisation can show leadership and direction in moving beyond the crisis by redefining what is important to it.

5. Make good on your promises and keep a watchful eye

During a crisis, organisations and senior leaders can often make promises or guarantees in order to reduce the criticism that is being levelled at those seen as responsible for the crisis – and while communicators are often not responsible for delivering these promises it is our job to remind those for whom it is.

Practical tips:

Keep track of all public commitments made during a crisis, paying particular attention to any deadlines for delivery.
Ensure that your teams maintain contact with those responsible for delivery so that they can promote milestones proactively, and manage any reputational risk if timelines slip.

6. Use the window of opportunity to deliver lasting change

A crisis also naturally provides a window of opportunity for an organisation to change, whether that be in direction, values or strategy – and the far-sighted communicator can make the most of this opportunity to support the organisation’s development.

Practical tips:

Think about whether there are unintended consequences you might exploit – for example a drought may be an opportunity to change public attitudes to water consumption.
Take some time out to consider how the crisis has changed the communication landscape – tools like PESTLE framework can give you a good structure to work with (PESTLE analysis of the key factors: Political, Economic, Sociological, Technological, Legal and Environmental).

Further learning and resources

Members can visit the Crisis Communications Hub for more resources on preparing for, responding to, and recovering from a crisis. We also have a list of essential contacts from across government and to speed up communication responses during critical moments.

For active skill development, members can also browse our dedicated Learning Hub (opens in new tab) for crisis communications courses, interactive tabletop simulations and webinars.

Further professional training:

COBR Excellence Programme: Centralised foundational modules covering civil contingencies legislation and response structures.
EPC Command courses: Accredited external training pathways covering certified Gold, Silver, and Bronze crisis command structures.