Traditionally, resilience in the UK has focused on response and recovery. However, current threats such as conflict, cyber attacks, terrorism, and climate change show that true resilience is about more than just bouncing back. It’s about the whole of society being able to anticipate, prepare for, respond to, recover, adapt, and learn from adverse events.
The UK Government Resilience Framework, published at the end of 2022, is the first articulation of how the UK government will deliver a new strategic approach to resilience. It sets out three core principles: a developed and shared understanding of the civil contingencies risks; prevention rather than cure wherever possible; and resilience as a whole of society endeavour.
Strong collective resilience ultimately requires a level of preparedness that robustly tackles threats – even if they never come to fruition. It demands that ministers and civil servants invest time, resources, and money into exploring the threat landscape and develop policy for a variety of unknowns. It’s difficult to balance preparing for unknowns with addressing the very real issues that face society today. However, tackling underlying societal stresses is proven to reduce the impact of shocks (for example, better societal health would reduce the impact of a pandemic). It is also true that the most vulnerable people are disproportionately affected in crises, underscoring the importance of tackling both unknowns and knowns as part of national resilience.
In delivering its new approach, the UK government can adopt approaches from other nations, particularly Sweden’s Total Defence policy. While deeply rooted in preparing for war, Total Defence has helped to build resilience capabilities that reach far beyond dealing with conflict.
Prioritise trust in government
Total Defence duty is mandatory for Swedish citizens, either through military, civilian, or public service. Sweden’s established approach means that when the highest state of threat is declared, the whole of society understands its role and is prepared to take action. And it’s something that citizens are willing to do – according to a report published in December 2021, 49% of Swedish respondents said they would take a combat position to defend Sweden, 77% would risk their lives in a non-combat role, and 84% would take on a non-life-threatening, non-combat role. This understanding underpins the country’s resilience in the face of threats, including those of a non-combat nature.
Swedish society showed remarkable resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Across the country, restrictions remained relatively low compared to the UK, and citizens were mostly encouraged, rather than mandated, to make adjustments to their lives. Research from the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) showed that almost the entire population changed their behaviour; a crucial factor in ensuring that Sweden’s total excess deaths between 2020 and 2022 were among the lowest in Europe.
Exactly how does a government build this level of unyielding resilience among its citizens? Trust, of course. The first line of the Swedish constitution states that ‘all public power in Sweden proceeds from the people’; a powerful marker of the status quo. It’s no coincidence that trust in the Swedish government is at its highest since 2014, at a time when the country has risen to fourth position on the World Happiness Report.
Conversely, according to a National Centre for Social Research report, 58% of UK citizens would ‘almost never’ trust politicians to tell the truth when in a tight corner. Laying the foundations for whole society resilience in the UK starts with rebuilding trust through listening to communities and citizens to understand what matters to them.
Contextualise the threat landscape
Since Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, Sweden has bolstered resilience efforts on all fronts, from securing the supply of food across the country to accelerating its energy transition. In October 2022, Swedish government agencies accelerated these efforts through the introduction of a new structure for civil defence and crisis preparedness. This includes six specific geographic areas for civil defence at a regional level and 10 different sectors for important societal functions at a national level. Government communications contextualise threats in a way that empowers, rather than frightens, citizens. For example, in 2018, the government issued ‘If Crisis or War Comes’ leaflets to 4.7 million households across the country, explaining how to best prepare for events such as conflict, cyber attacks, and natural disasters. Updated versions of the leaflets are due to be sent to citizens before the end of 2024.
Then there’s Sweden’s Psychological Defence Agency, which was formed in 2022 to tackle misinformation campaigns from foreign territories. Not only does the agency have a website packed full of information to help citizens stay alert to these types of campaigns, but it also works with local municipalities and businesses at a regional level.
The UK government has set up its ‘Prepare’ website to inform citizens, which is accessible to those with internet access but not to those who don’t. Other options for the dissemination of important information could include national surveys and community town halls. In order for citizens to own their resilience, it has to be meaningful for them.
Bring in the wider community
Sweden doesn’t rely on top-down engagement alone. The country has 18 voluntary defence organisations, with approximately 350,000 members, offering training to volunteers in specialist areas such as radio communications, transport, and logistics. The UK is making inroads in this area, particularly with the Stronger Local Resilience Forums (LRF) programme and the appointment of a Chief Resilience Officer for each region. These officers will be responsible for bringing local leaders together and ensuring resilience initiatives are led effectively.
However, citizen engagement in resilience in the UK tends to be top-down and narrowly focused on cyber security measures. In a recent survey, we asked UK citizens about the biggest threats to national security over the next decade. Despite the prevalence of ongoing international conflicts, a third of respondents chose cyber attacks on critical national infrastructure – more than for any other threat.
An all-encompassing approach casts a wider net through holistic engagement. And it works. PA recently hosted a ‘whole of society’ community resilience event in Greater Manchester, where local and central government, community leaders, volunteers, and local businesses met to discuss how to link top-down and bottom-up resilience. Together, we explored opportunities, set out design principles for societal resilience, and paved the way for a pilot programme.
Rather than choosing a purely top-down approach, nations can draw on grassroots and community structures to create the strongest resilience posture. In the UK, this can be facilitated by the regional Chief Resilience Officer for each LRF.
Define roles with standards, incentives, and outcomes
For society’s infrastructure to remain resilient, organisations need to know exactly how to play their role. This requires three things: standards, incentives, and outcomes. However, if you can’t guarantee that the threat you’re preparing for will happen, it’s difficult to make a strong business case. That said, investing in resilience has proven to be at least six times more cost-effective than recovering from disaster.
Sweden has adopted several financial incentives targeted at resilience. Municipalities can, for example, apply for state grants for preventive measures that reduce the likelihood or consequences of natural disasters. County councils, responsible for specialised healthcare, can apply for state grants to increase the robustness of healthcare properties to better withstand crisis and war. In addition, a targeted investment aid will be established to make agriculture more resilient to shortage of inputs, improving Sweden’s food security. Sweden is also implementing the Critical Entities Resilience (CER) Directive. This European framework holds member states accountable for adopting a national CER strategy and ensures those entities have a resilience plan to follow before, during, and after an incident.
In the UK, the only legal mechanism in place for resilience is the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, of which LRFs are central. While LRFs are broadening their focus, they are fundamentally designed to deal with sudden emergencies. However, threats to a nation’s resilience can often bubble away under the surface.
To tackle hidden threats, the UK government needs to accelerate its reform of the UK Governance Resilience Framework. With a more strategic, joined-up, always-on approach to resilience, the public and private sectors can align activities with evolving threats. Standards and measurement tools are critical in tracking progress. The six dividends of resilience model, for example, uses real-world data to assess considering benefits that occur if a threat materialises, but also value delivered now. It considers investment in risk reduction, reducing chronic stresses, and increases in adaptive capacity (characterised by good leadership, collaboration, trust, learning and partnerships).
The civil service is at the heart of national resilience, as are the people that public services and systems serve. By adopting and refining holistic, whole-of-society strategies, the UK will not only withstand threats but thrive in the face of them. The UK can build on its existing resilience structures, sharing insights with other nations to support broader resilience at a local, national, and international scale.
About the authors
Left to right: PA Consulting’s national resilience expert Caroline Field, Total Defence expert Martin Allard, and security expert Micaela Bodelius