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This is an edited transcript of a February 2025 mentor dinner talk by Kathy Oldham OBE, GMCA Chief Resilience Officer (Sources & bio below). She shared a sobering take on our exposure to crises of all kinds, but also offered some optimism based on GM’s track record in collaboration. It definitely got the group talking! How would you answer the questions she poses at the end?
It’s a privilege to share thoughts on resilience, especially in the wake of GM’s recent flooding and severe weather [Kathy was at the heart of the response]. It will come as no surprise that we are living through ‘TUNA’ times: Turbulent, Uncertain, Novel and Ambiguous. There is arguably a trend towards an increasing number of crises, with consequences and impacts that haven’t necessarily been seen before – we all remember Covid 19.
Crises are already significantly affecting the global and UK economy and this is projected to worsen. Reinsurance giant Munich Re calculated 2023 global disaster losses at US$250bn, roughly the GDP of New Zealand or Portugal. Further, Kisters reported in 2023 that with the cost of natural disasters in the UK rising by 11.2% a year, if nothing changes, that cost could match the government’s budget by around 2122 and the UK could be bankrupt.
My ambition is that in GM, if we focus on resilience, we can get ahead of the curve. Sadly, resilience isn’t a term that gets many people excited, or even one we have a common understanding of. Investing in case the unexpected happens at some indeterminate point in the future always risks being overtaken by shorter-term priorities with greater visibility and a more immediate return.
We must think about crisis in a different way – not just in terms of managing them when they occur but also in terms of designing in resilience.
We usually expect someone to keep us safe and assume we can rely on things working; after all, it is the first duty of Government to keep us safe and secure. However, a series of events – Covid 19, terrorist attacks, infected blood scandal – have undermined public confidence in this assumption and made resilience an issue for the whole of society.
Underlining the challenge resilience poses, Lord Toby Harris talks about it being a ‘NIMTO’ (Not In My Term of Office) issue and accepts it is not easy for decision-makers to balance their immediate priorities against longer-term preparations to deal with the unpredictable and uncertain. However, if we fail to adapt for the challenges of the future, that will have been a grotesque abnegation of our responsibilities to our children and future generations.
Drawing on 20+ years’ experience of a wide range of emergencies, I’d argue all organisations and their leaders have a part to play. Crises show how every organisation can make decisions that affect the likelihood of risks or consequences for their own performance (e.g. cyber security) and for their impact on others (e.g. building standards leaving Tameside houses vulnerable to tornado).
Today’s emergencies result in part from cross-sector systems (e.g. Grenfell Tower – procurement and construction; Covid19 – health and social care) and the interdependences and linkages across multiple systems (Storm Eva – energy and water supplies). GM is renowned for cross-sector systems leadership and governance that could give us an edge in anticipating and mitigating these outcomes.
Nevertheless, I would argue that when you look at the causes of disasters, we each have a part to play and there is no such thing as a natural disaster. The UN is clear that the world is losing ground in the battle to reduce disaster losses by failing to act on early warnings, eliminate risk or invest in disaster prevention.
To quote UCL’s llan Kelman, most emergencies are “disasters of choice”:
We know how to build infrastructure to withstand floods and tornadoes. We know when severe weather might come. We have structures, paints and electrical equipment which can survive floods and other hazards. Yet, despite this knowledge, we do not always implement what we know, meaning that these events result in injury, death, and damage. Why do we not continually use the knowledge we have to avert disasters?
Some of those disasters are well known and just around the corner. For example, by 2070 more than 3 billion people may live in places that are outside the “Human Climate Niche”, i.e. unliveable. Whatever the cause of a crisis, the impacts are intensely personal, affecting individuals, families and communities. Translating the abstract or far-away into compelling, relatable stories that lead to action or pressure is critical.
Potentially everyone in society could understand the risks we face – information is available through resources such as the National Risk Register – and try to strengthen their own capacity to cope with whatever shocks come their way. However, it is often the decisions and actions taken by governments and other large actors that determine how much people will be exposed to emergencies and how severe the consequences may be.
Despite the difficulties, the concept of resilience has gained traction and is increasingly mentioned by politicians thinking about the future. Work is also underway to reverse the trend of fragility, but will need many stakeholders to work across silos.
Two examples of how organisations across Greater Manchester are working collaboratively to build resilience are GM‘s Integrated Water Management Plan (IWMP) and the Mayor’s Live Well initiative. Each draws on GM’s strengths in place-based leadership and each represents one side of the resilience coin – the IWMP is working on risk reduction while Live Well works on strengthening individuals’ coping capacity.
To conclude, given the urgency of this agenda and the shrinking window we have to get this right, I have two questions for you:
- I’m sure each organisation represented here has a risk register cataloguing the risks the organisation faces through its own actions or those of others. Have you also looked at where your actions or inaction may be creating risk for our communities, exposing people to hazards or increasing their vulnerability?
- Resilience often requires many voices to advocate for change. For example, increasing the engagement of regulators in resilience will require a groundswell of professional as well as public opinion. Could you focus greater energy and thought on resilience?
I’ll end with a call to action from Mumbai-based Sheela Patel, an urban poverty and climate activist: “Have we become the people who protect the status quo, or are we resilience adventurers?“
Bio: Dr Kathryn Oldham OBE – GMCA Chief Resilience Officer
Kathy has been in post since 2017, providing strategic leadership for the city-region’s approach to resilience. She is responsible for a specialist unit delivering a shared civil contingencies service to GM’s 10 local authorities and has nearly 20 years’ experience responding to a wide variety of emergencies across GM. Kathy also heads the partnership team supporting the Greater Manchester Resilience Forum, a multi-agency collaboration to deliver safer, stronger, more resilient communities.
Kathy led the development of GM’s 10-year Resilience Strategy, one of the first in the UK, and shares expertise with GM’s cross-sector Strategic Infrastructure Board, Natural Capital Group, Economic Resilience Group and Digital Infrastructure Advisory Group. She’s also on the Resilience for Communities Steering Group, co-designing ways to promote climate resilience with communities.
Kathy is a member of the Global Steering Committee for the Resilient Cities Network; sits on the Europe & Central Asia Regional Coordinating Committee of UNDRR’s Making Cities Resilient 2030 Initiative (MCR2030); and is a member of the international board of the Counter Terrorism Preparedness Network (CTPN). The UN has recognised Greater Manchester as an MCR2030 Resilience Hub, committed to helping other cities accelerate action globally. Kathy was recently appointed as a Commissioner for the National Preparedness Commission and is Co-Chair of the Institute of Strategic Risk Management’s Global Urban Resilience Steering Committee. She also sits on the Local Government Association’s Resilience Advisory Network, the University of Manchester’s Urban Institute Local Advisory Board and the Strategic Board for the University’s SALIENT Research and Coordination Hub. Kathy holds a medical degree and has held a range of roles in local government.
References & resources:
- Munich Re loss calculation [Uncounted costs – Data gaps hide the true human impacts of disasters in 2023 | UNDRR]
- Kisters cost of emergencies projection: New Statesman, 13.12.23 Extreme weather could bankrupt the UK in 100 years – New Statesman [Kisters is an international environmental data and insights organisation]
- As GM Chief Resilience Officer, I have responded to nearly every major incident or emergency impacting GM in the last 20 years: natural hazards such as flooding and moorland fire; infectious diseases including Ebola and Covid19; industrial and infrastructure emergencies such as the near-collapse of the dam at Toddbrook Reservoir and the release of dangerous chemicals from one of our industrial sites; large urban fires such as the Cube Fire; and malicious acts such as the horrific Manchester Arena attack.
- “The world is losing ground in the battle to reduce disaster losses by failing to act on early warnings, eliminate risk and invest in disaster prevention.” UNDRR 2021 [https://www.undrr.org/news/sendai-framework-6th-anniversary-time-recognize-there-no-such-thing-natural-disaster-were ]
- Ilan Kelman, Disaster By Choice, 2020
- Panel discussion of the Kerslake report into the Manchester Arena attack and GMFRS delays explored the ‘Swiss Cheese’ model: had one of about 8 factors not aligned, the situation would not have arisen. Each failure – not undergoing training or prioritising other activities on the basis that emergencies like these are unlikely – can be ‘minor’ but when aligned with others makes a critical difference [The Swiss Cheese Model was developed by James Reason of University of Manchester and likens human systems to multiple slices of Swiss cheese, each with holes representing weaknesses in different places. When these holes align, they create a pathway for an accident to occur.” [Copilot 24102024]].
- More than 3bn people will live places with “near un-liveable” temperatures by 2070 [https://www.nrdc.org/stories/2070-more-3-billion-people-may-live-outside-human-climate-niche[
- “If we fail to invest adequately in preparedness…that will have been a grotesque abnegation of our obligations to future generations”. [Lord Harris of Haringey]
- Research in cognitive psychology and behavioural economics [Ostrich-Paradox-issue-brief.pdf] suggest most disaster preparedness errors can be traced to these six decision-making biases:
- Myopia – a tendency to focus on overly short future time horizons when appraising immediate costs and the potential benefits of protective investments.
- Amnesia – a tendency to forget too quickly the lessons of past disasters.
- Optimism – a tendency to underestimate the likelihood that losses will occur from future hazards.
- Inertia – a tendency to maintain the status quo or adopt a default option when there is uncertainty about the potential benefits of investing in alternative protective measures.
- Simplification – a tendency to selectively attend to only a subset of the relevant facts to consider when making choices involving risk.
- Herding – a tendency to base choices on the observed actions of others.
- “The importance of government, businesses, civil society and individuals taking coherent action to foster a resilient society” [Resilience-Report-2024.pdf]