Relevant City Context

The outcome from this case study is likely to help cities and towns develop their own resilience teams with confidence by reference to an established British Standard, which can easily be translated into a European context.

This was a national case study, but every city should be considering standards. Every city should be looking at consistency at a local and national level and ensuring they are working alongside city stakeholders and city partners to ensure they are all considering resilience in a holistic manner.

Goal

To support the development of other city resilience plans aligned, integrated & connected with regional, national & international management guidelines, and so increase the European Resilience Backbone L1T1 creating a standard that will ensure consistency at a local, regional and national level to ensure cities are working in the same way and so that good practice is shared amongst cities.

One city cannot necessarily be resilient on its own. This project aimed to address issues around consistency of terminology and best practice in building resilience. This was also expected to address challenges faced by cities nationwide who are looking to start their resilience journey.

The British Standards Institution (funded by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy) is working with the UK Cabinet Office Civil Contingencies Secretariat to develop a BS guidance standard on city resilience. The cities of Bristol and Glasgow have participated in the engagement workshops which are informing the development of the standard and Bristol have a representative on the relevant BSI e-committee.

The intention is to create a single British Standard (BS) guidance standard which is part leadership guide, part management framework which facilitates coordination and collaboration between city leaders and other stakeholders, and provides the business case for resilience. Aimed at city leaders and senior managers the standard should assist development of appropriate city resilience governance structures for tackling both acute shocks and chronic stresses.

Development of such a standard is linked to the policy:

L3T1 Promoting leadership for knowledge and sharing among global cities, regions and nations

For Bristol this policy has been facilitated by their membership of the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities network.

The 100 Resilient Cities network are facilitating collaboration between the British Standards Institute and DIN (Deutsches Institut für Normung) – the German Institute for Standardization.

Further details of the approach and cases can be found: https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/docs/collateral/resilience-direct-brochure.pdf

Outcome

A key consequence was that similarities and differences were discovered with other cities. It is difficult to assess the immediate impact of the standard but the effectiveness of the standard is something that can be reflected on over time and whether there has been an improvement in resilience. It has allowed better relationships with other local and national cities and these improved relationships have helped to enhance resilience.

Cooperation between stakeholders

The British Standards Institute (BSI) acted as a facilitator and pulled together a number of cities both with lots of experience with resilience who already had a resilience strategy (Glasgow and Bristol) and others that were not as far along the process.

Assessment of Effectiveness

The project is developing a strategic framework for cities to build greater resilience, whilst giving city leaders the freedom to tailor the approach to their specific local and strategic contexts.

Resource requirements

The project to develop the guidance standard is being led by the BSI and UK Cabinet Office Civil Contingencies Secretariat with funding from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy to run a series of city workshops across the UK with relevant stakeholders. Once the BS standard is developed, organisations will need to establish resourcing requirements for adopting and working towards the standard, which may itself generate ideas and/or projects for resilience building that require funding.

For Glasgow City Council the input has been as a participant rather than a leader, thus input was not onerous. Providing knowledge about their own context at workshops and putting forward Glasgow City Council best practice. The British Standards Institute led on this case study as an understanding of standards and how they are produced was important.

http://www.iclei.org/fileadmin/PUBLICATIONS/Case_Studies/ICLEI_cs_145_Nantes.pdf
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/europeangreencapital/winning-cities/2013-nantes/ nantes-application/index.html