Letter: More resilience needed in these times of war

SIR – Is it me or are things really getting worse for us, despite Hampshire being about 1,500 miles from the escalating horror in Ukraine?

I refer to the knock-on impact which means the brakes are now on the UK economy, inflation is quickly rising and, if this wasn’t bad enough, rocketing energy and food prices in particular are likely to cause widespread social unrest across Great Britain.

Supermarkets have already introduced some rationing, so watch out for consumer panic.

At the same time numerous government reviews all underline the case for rapidly beefing up our national resilience.

We need “a fundamental shift in capability, capacity and resilience” (National Audit Office) and “to create a single dedicated national body to lead and drive the improvements needed… UK resilience today is not fit for future purpose" (National Preparedness Commission). And so it goes on.

We desperately need real commitment to organisational resilience both in our area and across the country that embodies at least risk, contingency planning and crisis management – within a single paradigm aimed at a united, agile and coordinated response to all threats and risks.

Historically, these usually discrete activities have brought about only pockets of improved net resilience by coincidence, rather than objective, where effective connections between them could disappear as quickly as they might have coincidently appeared.

Now is therefore the time for shared doctrines, a united/sustained sense of purpose and clear, attainable and well funded objectives.

I don’t think it’s just me saying this.

Peter Power,
Strategic advisor to the Hampshire-based Resilience Association,
Lyndhurst