The summer’s racist violence and NI’s Civil Contingencies Framework

On 24 July PPR submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Executive Office about its 2023 ‘Building Resilience Together’ NI Civil Contingencies Framework, intended to provide for strategic, tactical and operational coordination (p. 10) in the face of 'all types of emergencies' (2.1). PPR asked whether the Framework was invoked, either during or in the aftermath of the coordinated and targeted racist attacks on homes in June.

The Framework provides for the NI Emergency Preparedness Group to create a ‘Strategic Co-ordination Group’ in response to an emergency, “to take overall responsibility for the multi-agency management of an incident” in order to “protect and preserve life; contain the incident - mitigate and minimise impacts; and create conditions for recovery” (p. 33). PPR’s FOI asked was this done and if so, at the request of which of the named actors (which include PSNI, Executive Office, councils, departments or partner agencies (figure 19)).

PPR also asked if a Vulnerable People Plan (figure 29) was put in place and if the Framework was reviewed for ‘lessons learned’ under section 2.6 (Management of Civil Contingencies Framework).

The Executive Office responded on 11 August (FOI 2026 0088) that it was exempt from responding as it “estimates that the cost of compliance for identifying, retrieving, and extracting information would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’”; it added, “it is estimated that it would take in excess of 200 staff hours to interrogate those records for relevance; therefore, exceeding the limit of 24 staff hours”. 

The response noted more generally:

“the Framework is not specifically invoked during or in the aftermath of emergencies; the processes of emergency management operate on a constant loop, the regularity of which depends on the nature and extent of emergencies impacting society, and on continuous policy development and improvement.”

“Public disorder is considered to be a civil contingencies risk for which the Department of Justice (DoJ) is the Lead Government Department. The impacts of this risk are assessed by the DoJ and plans for response are established.”

Specifically with regard to the June violence, the response added:

“with regard to the public disorder and racist attacks in June 2026 a multi-agency Strategic Coordination Group (SCG) chaired by the PSNI was established. A Humanitarian Cell, a Communications Cell, a Children and Young People Cell, and a Community Cohesion Cell were formed reporting to the SCG. These Cells remained in place as part of the Recovery Coordination Group led by the DoJ.”

With regard to PPR’s query about whether the Framework was reviewed following the racist violence for ‘lessons learned’ (per section 2.6 Management of the Civil Contingencies Framework), the TEO response said:

“during the transition to Recovery, the SCG undertook a debriefing exercise which has informed wider lessons learned. The NI Civil Contingencies Framework is presently subject to review and will reflect on those lessons identified from the events in June.”

PPR will follow up with additional FOI requests and will post any further information here.