Preparing for extreme risks: Building a resilient society

This report explores the challenges faced by the United Kingdom (UK) in tackling unforeseeable and challenging risk scenarios. The parliament considers that generalised resilience is the right response to the threat of increasingly unpredictable risk. The Government’s risk management system should change from attempting to forecast and mitigate discrete risks, towards a more holistic system of preparedness. Reframing risk management through the lens of resilience would produce a risk management system that ties all sectors of society together. The UK would then be better prepared to defend against the wide range of emerging threats and hazards that confront us, with all elements of society able to mobilise and respond to events when they occur.

The report finds that many of the risks facing the UK are likely to increase both in magnitude and frequency as a result of climate change, and risk assessment cannot be conducted without acknowledging this fact. Climate change is an ever more significant risk facing the UK and action to address it needs to be undertaken rapidly and as a priority. It adds that the Government’s risk assessment process should not shy away from politics, including in its content, meaning ministerial engagement, parliamentary scrutiny and participation by the devolved administrations.