The Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms (COBR) are meeting rooms in the Cabinet Office in London. These rooms are used for committees which co-ordinate the actions of government bodies in response to national or regional crises, or during overseas events with major implications for the UK. It is sometimes referred to as COBRA.
The facility
The Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms are a group of meeting rooms in the Cabinet Office at 70 Whitehall in London, often used for different committees which co-ordinate the actions of bodies within the Government of the United Kingdom in response to instances of national or regional crisis, or during events abroad with major implications for the UK. It is occasionally, but not officially referred to as COBRA,[1] even when the acronym is spelt out by officials.[2] 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.[3]
A single photo of one of the rooms in COBR was released in 2010 in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.[4]
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 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 and the Local Government Association.[5]
^"The Home Office's Response to Terrorist Attacks"(PDF). The Stationery Office. London. 26 January 2010. Retrieved 25 February 2020., p. 5 chapter 2: "COBRA is not an officially recognised term and will therefore not be found in official documents and evidence."
^"London 2012: What exactly is a Cobra meeting?". BBC. London. 23 July 2012. Retrieved 25 February 2020.: "It sounds great but it stands for Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms, so it's rather mundane," reflects Lord O'Donnell."
^Winterton, Jonathan; Winterton, Ruth (1989). Coal, Crisis, and Conflict: The 1984–85 Miners' Strike in Yorkshire. Manchester University Press. p. 145. ISBN9780719025488.