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Wirral Council has only one emergency plan in place, according to an internal audit report going to councillors on Tuesday, 27 October.
The audit of the council’s emergency planning was given an overall rating of “Major”, the most serious of the four ratings its auditors use.
Under the council’s own definitions, that means there are “potentially serious weaknesses” which could leave it open to “a major risk of a fundamental or material nature” if they are not put right.
Auditors, who examined the council’s emergency plans, how they are tested and the training given to staff, also found a lack of evidence that some plans had been tested or practised, or reviewed afterwards to learn lessons.
There was no record of the training and skills of officers with emergency planning duties, and the council could not provide risk assessments showing current and emerging risks.
The report says the council should work out which emergency plans it needs, giving a beach pollution plan as an example, and set out who will write each one and by when.
Emergency rest centres, used to support people during an emergency, also came under scrutiny.
Auditors want plans for the centres to be written and tested, and a review to check there are enough venues, spread across the borough, with enough trained staff.
Emergency “grab bags” should include short instruction cards for dealing with each type of emergency.
In total, auditors made 27 recommendations, 11 of them high priority.
One calls for a council-wide business continuity plan, setting out how it would keep services running during a disruption. The report says an action plan has already been drafted, with a target date of September 2026. It does not say whether that has been met.
According to the report, management “has agreed an action plan to address the issues identified”, and auditors will check that the agreed actions are carried out.
More widely, the report says only 50% of high-priority audit recommendations were completed by their agreed deadlines between April and August, against a target of 80%. Auditors describe overall performance as “weak and below target”.
They also say the council has accepted more risk than it has agreed to tolerate by failing to show that some fixes have been made, naming audits including one on a referral investigation involving Birkenhead Market.
Under new rules introduced in July, deadlines agreed by managers for fixing problems found by auditors can no longer be pushed back, and any delays will be reported to senior officers and councillors.
The Audit and Risk Management Committee will consider the report, which councillors are asked to note, on Tuesday.
