Responding to a terrorist incident
Exercise programme
The Government and the emergency services regularly train and practice responses to a range of incidents, including natural disasters and accidents.
The Home Office leads and manages the UK’s counter-terrorism exercise programme in co-operation with the Association of Chief Police Officers.
This programme is among the best in the world and is a vital part of resilience and contingency planning. It enables us to test systems thoroughly, train frontline responders, and highlight vulnerabilities.
The Home Office national counter-terrorism exercise programme is dynamic and ensures that exercises reflect the changing nature of the terrorist threat worldwide.
What does the programme involve?
The exercise programme has been running for over 30 years. It forms an important part of counter-terrorism work, and is designed to:
- Test the UK's ability to respond to terrorist incidents and their aftermath
- Identify ways in which our ability to respond can be improved.
The programme is centred on three annual, large-scale live exercises with police forces, other government departments and agencies to test counter-terrorist contingency plans.
There are a number of tabletop exercises that take place involving a number of police regions. Both the live and tabletop exercises cover a range of scenarios.
These exercises are an important part of counter-terrorism, as they ensure that we are prepared to respond to any kind of terrorist attack and our counter-terrorist arrangements are tested.
