The Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms (COBR) are meeting rooms in the

Cabinet Office The Cabinet Office is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet. It is composed of various units that support Cabinet committees and which co-ordinate the delivery of government object ...

in London. These rooms are used for committees which co-ordinate the actions of

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government i ...

bodies in response to national or regional crises, or during overseas events with major implications for the UK. It is popularly referred to as COBRA.

The facility

The Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms are a group of meeting rooms in the

at 70 Whitehall in London, often used for different committees which co-ordinate the actions of bodies within the

Government of the United Kingdom ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal Arms , date_est ...

in response to instances of national or regional crisis, or during events abroad with major implications for the UK. It is popularly, but not officially referred to as COBRA, even when the acronym is spelt out by officials. Other meeting rooms in the Cabinet Office are not part of the COBR facility, including the old Treasury Board Room, which is labelled "Conference Room A", located in Kent's Treasury, a different part of the Cabinet Office building. A single photo of one of the rooms in COBR was released in 2010 in response to a

Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request: * Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Australian act * ...

request.

The committees

The composition of a ministerial-level meeting in COBR depends on the nature of the incident but it is usually chaired by the

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

or another senior minister, with other key ministers as appropriate, city mayors and representatives of relevant external organisations such as the

National Police Chiefs' Council The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) is a national coordination body for law enforcement in the United Kingdom and the representative body for British police chief officers. Established on 1 April 2015, it replaced the former Association ...

and the

Local Government Association The Local Government Association (LGA) is the national membership body for local authorities. Its core membership is made up of 339 English councils and the 22 Welsh councils through the Welsh Local Government Association. The LGA is p ...

. The first COBR meeting took place in the 1970s to oversee the government's response to the 1972 miners' strike. Other events that have led to meetings being convened include the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege, the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak, the

11 September 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...

, the

7 July 2005 London bombings The 7 July 2005 London bombings, often referred to as 7/7, were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks carried out by Islamic terrorists in London that targeted commuters travelling on the city's public transport system during the mo ...

, the

refugee crisis A refugee crisis can refer to difficulties and dangerous situations in the reception of large groups of forcibly displaced persons. These could be either internally displaced, refugees, asylum seekers or any other huge groups of migrants. A ...

Calais Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's prefecture is its third-largest city of Arras. Th ...

, the 2015 Paris attacks, the Manchester Arena bombing, and the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. In 2009, former senior police officer

Andy Hayman Andrew Christopher Hayman CBE QPM (born 1959) is a retired British police officer and author of '' The Terrorist Hunters''. Hayman held the rank of Chief Constable of Norfolk Constabulary and Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations at ...

, who sat on a committee after the

and at other intervals from 2005 to 2007, was highly critical of its workings in his book ''

The Terrorist Hunters ''The Terrorist Hunters'' (published 2009) is a controversial non-fiction book by former senior police officer Andy Hayman, co-written by Margaret Gilmore, about Hayman's role as head of the Metropolitan Police's Specialist Operations Division. ...

''. The

Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) is a British Government body that advises central government in emergencies. It is usually chaired by the United Kingdom's Chief Scientific Adviser, currently Sir Patrick Vallance. Specialis ...

(SAGE) is a sub-committee of COBR.

References

{{Cabinet Office Emergency management in the United Kingdom Cabinet Office (United Kingdom) Individual rooms National government buildings in London

The facility

The committees

See also

References