Introduction

Emergencies disrupt communities. They may be caused by failure of essential services or technology failures, the extremes of nature, exotic diseases, acts of violence, human action or any other event.  The emergency may occur overseas but impact on UK residents or nationals, or the environment of the UK.

Purpose of Recovery

 The purpose of providing recovery support is to assist the affected community towards management of its own recovery.  It is vital that a clear recovery strategy is developed and agreed prior to any emergency, where the Local Authority will usually lead the recovery process.

 Definitions

 Recovery is an integral part of the emergency management process.   It can be defined as ‘the process of rebuilding, restoring and rehabilitating the community following an emergency’. (Emergency Response and Recovery Guidance, HM Government). It is distinct from, but will usually overlap with:

 Response phase which can be defined as ‘The actions taken to deal with the immediate effects of an emergency’. [Note:  If the emergency occurs overseas, there may be a need for recovery even if there was no real ‘response’ phase].

 Regeneration will usually involve local communities looking upon an emergency as an opportunity to regenerate an area. Again, this regeneration phase may overlap with the recovery phase, with regeneration being defined as ‘transformation and revitalisation - both visual and psychological. 

In many scenarios, the response phase to an emergency can be relatively short in contrast to the recovery phase. Recovery usually takes years rather than months to complete as it seeks to address the enduring human, physical, environmental and economic consequences of emergencies.

The graph below shows the activity of certain category one responders over time in a typical emergency.  The arrows show the relative length of time response and recovery phases may last.

Further information can be found @ http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/ukresilience/response/recovery_guidance.aspx