Highlights

Abstract

Keywords

۱٫ Introduction

۲٫ Background

۲٫۱٫ The importance of the integrity of Crisis Management Plans

۲٫۲٫ Importance of risk assessment in CMP

۳٫ Research method

۴٫ Research findings

۵٫ Discussion of findings

Funding

Declaration of competing interest

References

Abstract

This paper discusses the integrity of Crisis Management Plans (CMP) in Poland. Integrity is understood as the unified way of developing the CMP by different public administration entities. On the one hand, quantifying the scale of CMPs discrepancies is essential for estimating public administration readiness to assess threat risk on a national scale. On the other hand, recognizing the nature of the discrepancy may allow one to identify corrective actions to raise the level of CMPs effectiveness. However, there are no quantitative measurements of discrepancies of CMPs elements in Poland. Here, we fill this gap in the body of knowledge and quantify integrity and the scale of CMPs discrepancies. We analyze the scope of collected data and the form of their presentation in different CMP components. The study includes an analysis of CMPs developed at the district level in 2013–۲۰۱۵٫ To quantify integrity, we develop an evaluation template based on the formal and legal conditions in force. We use it to quantify the integrity in terms of the data presentation form and the completeness of the data set. The National Crisis Management Plan from the same period was used as a reference. We show that CMPs differ from the adopted benchmark in data presentation and the collected data set. It is worth emphasizing that the observed differences in data collection are mainly due to the lack of the element under consideration in CMPs. The observed differences may cause difficulties in the flow and aggregation of data and impede assessing the risk of threats.

۱٫ Introduction

Ensuring public safety, defined as keeping the risk of threats affecting the public at an acceptable level, is a fundamental responsibility of the state. It means decreasing the impact of a crisis situation1 – to achieve a level of impact caused by the occurrence of a threat that businesses or households can cope with using the standard instruments available in the economic system. Ensuring public safety in this context relies on the constant readiness of state authorities to identify, monitor, and respond to potential threats. That helps to ensure the stability of the living conditions and development of society. An efficiently managed state can ensure public safety by implementing a proper system of prevention and response procedures. The system must effectively deal with a threat and work independently of the individual competence of those implementing the procedures.

Activities related to ensuring public safety are carried out, among other things, within the framework of the process of civil planning2 and crisis management3 by the emergency services (fire brigade, ambulance, gas, water supply, police, etc.), crisis management structures (province crisis management centers, district and commune crisis management teams, public administration entities, private enterprises classified as the so-called critical infrastructure operators4 and essential service operators5) and in exceptional cases by the military. One of the primary aims of the process of civil planning and crisis management is to coordinate the work of services, institutions, and organizations that do not usually cooperate and that have to proceed according to their emergency response procedures [ [1]; p. 28].