This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A team of civil emergency workers are being recruited on salaries of up to £50,000 a year to help the country cope with any fallout from Brexit.

The government has posted adverts looking for resilience advisers to handle any “disruption” caused by the various permutations of Britain’s exit from the European Union next year. The specialists would be employed until June 2019 but “with the possibility of extension or permanency”.

The resilience and emergency division (Red) posts are billed as “exciting and challenging” and come with a £45,938 salary, rising to £50,006 in London.

Applicants are told Red helps communities across the UK to “respond to and recover from civil emergencies of all types”. The job advertisement, posted by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) calls for three resilience advisers for “EU exit readiness and response support to local preparedness”.

Key skills for the roles include being proficient in “strategic thinking” and communicating confidently and effectively with a range of audiences including ministers.

The advert said: “We have nine-month secondment opportunities (with the possibility of extension) to support MHCLG’s preparations for EU exit, both in the case of a no-deal or negotiated exit. These roles are to provide support to the local resilience community to develop, test and exercise plans for the mitigation of any disruption following our exit from the EU.”

A MHCLG spokesman said: “It is in everyone’s interests to secure a good deal for both sides and we think that is by far and away the highest probability, but we have a duty to plan for the alternative.

“We continue to work closely with local areas, and meet representatives regularly. Government is doing the sensible thing and taking precautions as we plan for all scenarios.”

Labour MEP Jude Kirton-Darling wrote on Twitter: “Worth reminding that we are doing this self-harm to ourselves – what a shambles! The Government is hiring specialists to deal with ‘civil emergencies’ caused by Brexit.”

The home secretary, Sajid Javid, last month refused to rule out the possibility that a no-deal Brexit could cause a rise in crime and widespread protests escalating into weeks of civil disorder.

Contingency plans for a no-deal departure drawn up by the National Police Coordination Centre warned that shortages of medicine could “feed civil disorder”, while price rises could prompt “widespread protest which could then escalate into disorder”.

The document said there could be an increase in crime, notably theft and robbery, amid shortages of food and drugs, as well as the “expectation that more people will become ill”.

Part of the report said: “There is an expectation that crime not directly connected to Brexit will rise, as acquisitive crime will habitually rise in the event of restricted availability of goods.”

Javid told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show: “I’m glad the police and other experts are looking into this and thinking what might happen in a no-deal scenario. I don’t expect a no-deal outcome but we need to prepare for all contingencies and it’s absolutely correct.”