The UK government has published its first national security strategy, which highlights today’s challenges facing Britain and how the country should respond to them. The top risks detailed included terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and organised crime. Announcing the strategy, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "While our obligation to ensure the safety of the British people and to protect the national interest is fixed and unwavering, the nature of the threats and the risks we face have changed beyond recognition and confounds all assumptions about national defence and international security."
The aim of the strategy is to review lessons learned over recent years in Britain and overseas in dealing with civil emergencies and acts of terrorism and to highlight the need for the international community to act together. Long-term planning, stabilising conflict-ridden areas and combating violent extremism were also emphasised.
Risks are to be included in a new national risk register, to be published in the public domain for the first time and updated annually, so the public can see the risks they face and plan accordingly. The Prime Minister explained this move by explaining to parliament that "new threats demand new approaches. A radically updated and much more co-ordinated response is now required."
Other global risks identified by the strategy include climate change and flooding, a burgeoning world population, global poverty and the scarcity of food and energy resources. Protection from cyber attacks was also highlighted as a key priority as the report warned of the potential use of such weapons by criminals and terrorist groups.
A major risk facing the world today is terrorism and violent extremism. The government reports it has increased counter-terrorism spending from £1 billion in 2001 to £2.5 billion, with a further increase to £3.5 billion by 2011. The security service will be doubled alongside the increase in Special Branch and counter-terrorism officers. This is in recognition of currently known terrorist plots and the numerous networks being monitored.
MI5 has made public the terrorist threat since August 2006, in an effort to make the assessment system more transparent. The strategy states that the threat has remained at the second-highest level, 'severe', except for two short periods during August 2006 and June and July 2007, when it was raised to the highest level 'critical'.
Also detailed in the strategy is the creation of a national security forum, where business leaders, academics and other experts from outside government will be invited to advise on security risk. Security services personnel will also be increased to 4,000 and a 1,000-strong civilian task force created to aid the recovery of failing states.
Britain's national security strategy has similarities to the US 2002 National Security Strategy, which aimed to "transform America's national security institutions to meet the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century". This also identified the threat posed by terrorism, poverty, and pandemics such as HIV and Aids. Writing for the Guardian, Daniel Korski, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations has even branded the UK's proposals a "US-style national security strategy."
In response to the government's proposals, the Conservative party has stressed the need for a "coherent national security strategy to protect Britain from the threats posed by terrorism, climate change and energy security". But Conservative leader David Cameron called for a national security council, instead of the "talking shop" suggested by Labour. The Liberal Democrats say that "most importantly, the strategy will be judged on whether it strikes the right balance between security and liberty."
Commenting on the pubic availability of such information, Malcolm Tarling, as spokesman for the Association of British Insurers (ABI), says: “I think it’s important to identify where the risks lie because there are so many, many different areas.” He highlights that insurers already use databases to share information in the fight against fraud, as an example of how such techniques could be beneficial.
Commenting on the national security strategy from an insurance perspective, the ABI says that broadly speaking, it is "very supportive of the principles behind this". Mr Tarling explains that the industry particularly welcomed the commitment to tackle security issues such as fraud. "We've called for some time for fraud to be tackled in a more committed and coordinated way."
"Insurance fraud alone, which is a small but significant part of the problem, costs in excess of £1.6 billion each year, and the total fraud bill across all sectors of the UK is in excess of £16 billion, which is costing every homeowner around £300 a year. So fraud is a major problem," he added. "It's a problem for the insurance industry, but we recognise that fraud that affects us very often crosses over to other agencies as well."
Carolyn Williams, development manager at the Institute of Risk Management, also supports the publication of the national risk register. "It must be welcomed," she said. "The government is doing this work to look at the risks that are affecting the country and it's something that both public and private organisations have been doing for a while."
Ms Williams adds that such a move not only highlights the risks themselves, but the potential for managing such risks should they occur: "The idea of raising the level where you look at risks helps you to understand more about the interconnected nature of risks in an organisation and, at a higher view, where you can start to look and see how risks affect each other and what would happen if more than one risk happened at the same time," she comments. "So you get that extra dimension of understanding of the nature of risks affecting you."
While supportive of the government’s objectives, Ms Williams from the Institute of Risk Management warns against scaremongering: "It needs to be kept in proportion. I know the government's also tried to do work in that area, because you don't want to panic people about it." She goes on to say that risk had to be seen in the context of the actual likelihood of something happening: "So that's a communications exercise that when people talk about risk they actually give people some idea that this is not likely, but the consequences could be very great so we are taking these steps."
