National Audit Office: Government has more to do to boost the UK’s resilience to severe space weather
|
Since the inclusion of severe space weather in
the UK's National Risk Register in 2011, the government has
invested in improving its forecasting
capability There are gaps in the government's
preparedness which must be addressed including the level
of resilience the UK requires and outlining actions for
business and citizens to take The NAO recommends that the
government...Request free trial
The government has boosted the UK's resilience to severe space weather by strengthening its forecasting capability and testing how it would respond to an event – but ongoing issues such as an incomplete cross-government understanding of how sectors plan to respond to an emergency need to be resolved, according to a new National Audit Office (NAO) report. Space weather refers to phenomena primarily from the sun that can cause changes to the atmosphere and environment in near-earth space, including solar flares which are sudden bursts of electromagnetic energy. A severe space weather event could cause disruption to air travel, localised power outages, and disruption to satellite services1. The government has invested in developing the UK's capability in forecasting space weather, which has led to the Met Office's work in this area being well respected internationally. Additionally, the government is taking steps to increase the UK's resilience to the potential impacts of space weather, drawing on expertise in the scientific community to assess the risks. The government has set an ambition to build the UK's resilience to the risk of severe space weather, while also collaborating with international partners and making science and technology integral to addressing the risk. DSIT coordinates the government's work on severe space weather, having formally taken on this role in December 2025. In 2025-26, it spent around £6.7 million on the Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre, and to date it has committed around £300 million to the European Space Agency's (ESA's) Vigil space weather mission2. Limitations in scientific understanding and departmental planning, such as how short disruptions to global navigation satellite systems would affect transport mean that the government does not yet fully understand the full range of possible impacts. As a consequence, the potential economic impact of a severe space weather event is also uncertain but in 2022 was estimated to be £9 billion. But forecasting continues to be complex, with the forecasting window ranging from no notice to 96 hours depending on the type of space weather, and the resilience of the UK's space weather monitoring capability remains vulnerable. Additionally, roles and responsibilities3 for managing the risk remain unclear, accountabilities could be stronger, and the government has not set out clear outcomes for what it is looking to achieve. While the government's 2021 strategy included 12 high-level commitments aimed at improving resilience, this did not include what outcome it was looking to achieve, the level of residual impacts it is willing to accept or any cost estimates. The Met Office has worked collaboratively with some sectors, for example the electricity sector, to develop specialist forecasts. But other sectors continue to find the technical information difficult to interpret and there is more to do to make forecasting information useful for government officials and industry. In February 2026, DSIT commissioned updated response plans from departments, building on work by DESNZ to create and gather information on response plans. The government has begun testing these plans, but has yet to run a full simulation exercise involving local responders. Other government departments have carried out exercises, but there is no systematic learning from these. The Met Office has undertaken work to raise public awareness of space weather, and the government has an outline communications plan that it plans to revise and expand. But it has not yet developed pre-agreed messages for the public in the event of an emergency, and the government can do more to engage local responders and businesses to ensure its whole-of-society response is effective. To address gaps in its preparedness for severe space weather events, the NAO recommends that the government:
Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said: “The government has invested in improving the UK's forecasting and is taking steps to increase its resilience to severe space weather. “As the government develops its new severe space weather preparedness strategy, DSIT and the Met Office should work collaboratively to further improve forecasting and resilience.”
ENDS
|