- ORGSEC
- Municipal preparedness for crisis and war
Municipal preparedness for crisis and war
For chief municipal executives, preparedness coordinators and sector managers who must integrate security-policy crisis and war into their preparedness work, and who know that the County Governor supervises whether it has been done.
Why now
Municipalities must plan for war, and lack deputies and guidance
The County Governors' expectation letters for 2027 are clear: the municipality must integrate security-policy crisis and war into its preparedness work, use the municipal preparedness council actively, draw up an overall continuity plan in sectors and units, have a plan for crisis communication with the public, the media and its own employees, and exercise real dilemmas, including what can be deprioritised. The most important thing the municipality can do is to deliver services as close to normal as possible.
The Municipal Survey 2025 shows where the gap lies. Almost all municipalities have a comprehensive risk and vulnerability analysis and an overall contingency plan, but 22 per cent have an analysis that is more than four years old, only 58 per cent have a training system that ensures adequate qualifications, 70 per cent give regular training to the crisis management team, and only 41 per cent to the deputies, while 15 per cent have not defined deputies at all. The Office of the Auditor General found that all the civilian actors it spoke to found it unclear what the Armed Forces will need in a crisis or war, and that municipalities want clearer guidance on what to prepare for. This is a target group that knows it has a duty, knows it will be looked at, and lacks a tool that says where it stands.
Sources: County Governor of Vestfold and Telemark: expectation letter 2027 (Norwegian) · DSB: Municipal Survey 2025 (Norwegian) · Altinget on the Auditor General's report (Norwegian)
The figures
What the Municipal Survey 2025 shows
The figures are taken from DSB's main report and should be checked against the report's own charts before further use; they apply to municipalities as a whole, not to the individual municipality.
What the County Governor expects
Five expectations for 2027
- Crisis and war in preparedness workSecurity-policy crisis and war must be integrated into the comprehensive risk analysis, the contingency plan and exercises, not kept in a separate document nobody uses.
- The preparedness councilThe municipal preparedness council must be used actively, as a meeting place for the actors the municipality depends on in a crisis.
- ContinuityAn overall continuity plan in sectors and units, stating which services must be secured when capacity is limited and absence is high.
- Crisis communicationA plan for communication with the public, the media and the municipality's own employees, and information points residents know about in the event of communications outages.
- Exercising real dilemmasExercises that test what can be deprioritised, and that involve the deputies, not only the permanent members of the crisis management team.
In the ORGSEC assessment
Where the theme lands in the assessment
- Area 03
Preparedness and continuity
Whether critical services, dependencies and continuity plans are known in the sectors, and whether the plans have been exercised as the regulation requires.
- Area 06
Crisis capability
Whether the crisis management team and the deputies can actually lead when the crisis lasts, measured after an exercise, not by whether the plan exists.
For municipalities the result is read against the Civil Protection Act sections 14 and 15 and the regulation's requirement to exercise every two years, with deputies and training as separate findings. See the six areas →
What we deliver
Assessment, e-learning and talk
The municipal package in ORGSEC+ is made so that the municipality can find out where it stands, before the supervision does.
Municipal preparedness duty
The ORGSEC assessment for municipalities, read against the Civil Protection Act sections 14 and 15 and the regulation's exercise requirement, with deputies and training as separate findings. All services →
Continuity and the deputy role
For crisis management, staff and deputies. Continuity under high absence and communications outages, crisis communication with your own employees, and what the deputy must master when the regular leader is not there. About the subscription →
When the deputy has to lead
Municipal crisis management and continuity when the crisis lasts and half the staff are gone.
Talk
The talk within the theme
When the deputy has to lead
Municipal crisis management and continuity when the crisis lasts and half the staff are gone.
- Suitable for
- Chief municipal executives, preparedness coordinators, sector managers, municipal preparedness councils and crisis management teams
- Format
- 45–90 minutes, or a half day with an exercise for the crisis management team and the deputies. In person or online.
The people
Talk to an expert
Tell us what you need, and we will propose scope and delivery. The assessment is carried out digitally; we recommend, you decide.
- CEO · ExpertiseOle André BråtenSecurity researcher and special adviser in organisational security
- COO · Projects and developmentAnette FalkumProject and innovation manager
