A report from the House of Lords has cast doubts on the UK’s long-term risk planning and warned that the country is insufficiently prepared for a major threat.

The House of Lords Risk Assessment and Risk Planning Committee’s report, Preparing for Extreme Risks: Building a Resilient Society, analysed the UK’s preparedness for a serious disaster, including cyber or physical attacks on the nation’s infrastructure, or severe space weather damaging vital smart technologies, such as GPS, the internet, communications systems and power supplies.

According to the report, the UK’s traditional security plans are insufficient to deal with an increasingly interconnected and complicated society.

“The UK must move away from a risk management strategy which prepares for individual risk scenarios in isolation and often ignores or fails to appreciate the interconnected nature of our society,” the report stated.

“More broadly, our inquiry has analysed the UK’s risk assessment process and found that our current system is deficient at assessing and addressing future threats and hazards,” it added.

“The core of the UK’s current risk assessment system, the National Security Risk Assessment, is not rigorous enough to justify the confidence placed in it.”

It added that disaster planning must move beyond just anticipating risks towards preparing for and responding to them effectively.

Back in March this year, the newly appointed head of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) warned that the UK must not become complacent against cybersecurity threats.

Lindy Cameron said that growing reliance on technology presents new challenges and threats, as well as increasing the severity of a cyberattack.

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The inquiry’s main recommendation was that the UK should develop generalised resilience in the face of increasingly unpredictable risk.

“The Government’s risk management system should change from attempting to forecast and mitigate discrete risks, towards a more holistic system of preparedness,” the report stated.

“Reframing risk management through the lens of resilience would produce a risk management system that ties all sectors of society together.

“The UK would then be better prepared to defend against the wide range of emerging threats and hazards that confront us, with all elements of society able to mobilise and respond to events when they occur.”

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