The CCS is part of the Cabinet Office. It was established in July 2001 and reports to Ministers and through the Security and Intelligence Co-ordinator and Permanent Secretary to the Cabinet Office, Sir David Omand. David Miliband MP, Minister for the Cabinet Office, answers for the work of the Secretariat in Parliament.

The CCS was set up to improve the UK's resilience against disruptive challenges through working with others to anticipate, assess, prevent, prepare, respond and recover. They define resilience as the ability at every level - national, regional and local - to detect, prevent and if necessary handle disruptive challenges. These could range from floods, through outbreaks of human or animal disease, to terrorist attacks.

Like all Cabinet Office Secretariats, they support Ministers collectively. Specifically, they service the Committees chaired by the Home Secretary which address consequence management and resilience issues and the Civil Contingencies Committee which handles individual crises as they arise.

For more information click here:- Civil Contingencies Secretariat

Collective decision making within government is delivered through the Cabinet Committee system.  Decision making during emergencies follows the same pattern.  But because of the unpredictable nature of emergencies, the government maintains arrangements for a dedicated committee which is activated only in the event of a major or national emergency - the Civil Contingencies Committee (CCC).

The CCC has only one standing member, the Home Secretary, and other ministers are invited to attend depending on the nature of the emergency.