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Responding to a terrorist incident

The national response

Most emergencies in the United Kingdom are managed at a local level by the emergency services and by local authorities, however the response to acts of terrorism will always be overseen on a national level.

The management of terrorist incidents is led by the Home Secretary as minister responsible for counter-terrorism across England, Wales and Scotland.

Separate arrangements exist for dealing with terrorist incidents in Northern Ireland, where the Northern Ireland Office will take the lead.

Responding to an incident

The response to any terrorist incident relies upon a coordinated approach.

  • If the police suspect they may be dealing with a terrorist incident they will immediately notify the Home Office. Once it has been agreed that the Chief Constable needs government support to deal with the incident, all key government players are then notified and a decision is made on whether to convene the government’s crisis committee.
  • The Home Office leads and coordinates the response from the crisis committee, which is chaired as required by a senior official or minister. The committee assumes strategic control of the incident, and draws upon the resources of other government departments, including the security and intelligence agencies, the police, military, scientific and other specialist advice, local authorities and the emergency services.
  • In order to establish an effective link between the crisis committee and the police command centre at the scene, a government liaison team (GLT) is immediately deployed to act as a single point of contact.
  • The GLT is headed by a government liaison officer (GLO), and will support the police commander on a 24/7 basis for its duration, reporting back regularly to the crisis committee to ensure that all decisions are based on accurate and up-to-date information and take into account both operational and political implications.
  • A key consideration in the response to any incident concerns the need for regular public information updates via the media, and where necessary specific instructions issued by the government or police, where the public may be directly affected by an incident. 

Learn more

These plans are regularly tested and reviewed, and updated in the light of changing domestic or international circumstances with lessons learnt incorporated into future contingency planning.

Learn more about public information and communication in a crisis.

Learn more about counter-terrorism exercises.

Managing the crisis 

In the event of a terrorist incident in the UK, the Home Office would take the lead during the crisis management phase.

If matters move to the stage of managing the consequences of a terrorist incident, the lead is transferred to the Civil Contingency Secretariat (CCS).

Civil Contingency Secretariat (CCS) 

The CCS was established in July 2001 with the aim of improving the UK's resilience against disruptive challenges through working with others to anticipate, assess, prevent, prepare, respond and recover.

The secretariat is part of the Cabinet Office and reports to ministers through the security and intelligence coordinator and the permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office.

The Cabinet Office minister answers for the work of the Secretariat in Parliament.

Learn more on the UK Resilience website.

Management by region

  • Scotland - Consequence management following an act of terrorism in Scotland is handled by the Scottish Executive.
  • Wales - Consequence management following an act of terrorism within Wales is handled by the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG).
  • Northern Ireland - Consequence management following an act of terrorism in Northern Ireland falls to the Northern Ireland Office.

Home Office websites