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Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1 - 19)
WEDNESDAY 13 MAY 1998
MR MAURICE STOREY AND MR JOHN ASTBURY
Chairman
1. Today we are hearing evidence on the
Comptroller and Auditor General's Report on HM Coastguard: Civil
Maritime Search and Rescue. We have before us Mr Maurice Storey,
Chief Executive of that Agency. Would you like to introduce your
colleague, Mr Storey, before we start and then we can get under
way.
(Mr Storey) I have Mr John Astbury
with me who is the Chief Coastguard.
2. Thank you. I do not think you have been
before us before so try and keep your answers as brief as possible
because we have limited time and it makes things go along at a
fair pace. I am going to start with page 24 of the Report, figure
10, which shows that the United Kingdom is now well served by
a network of remote radio sites for receiving distress calls but
paragraph 2.13 says that the system for controlling these sites
will soon be obsolete. Indeed, I understand your current system
will not be supported by the manufacturer after the end of this
year. So what progress has been made in replacing this system
and when is it likely to be fully operational?
(Mr Storey) Effectively the new
system called ICCS is within the five-year strategy document and
we are awaiting the decision of Ministers to make that installation
but it should be installed in adequate time to ensure there is
complete continuous coverage.
3. I am sure others will want to come back
to that but I am going to rattle through and cover a few subjects
to get us warmed up, as it were. In paragraphs 2.15 and 2.16 and
figure 12 I see that there is a wide variation in the workload
of watch staff and that you are proposing to close some co-ordination
centres. What is the status of those proposals?
(Mr Storey) The status of those
proposals are currently with Ministers waiting for a decision
on which way to go.
4. Right, okay. I am quite certain there
will be further questions on that. Again I will move on. Paragraphs
2.31 to 2.34 tell us that some of HM Coastguard's coastal response
teams are below their normal strength and volunteers are not receiving
the requisite amount of training and team inspections are not
being carried out. What are you planning to do to ensure that
you recruit and train sufficient volunteers around the coast,
and keep them fully trained?
(Mr Storey) Well at the current
time we have 3,079 auxiliaries out of a complement of 3,100 [1]
so we have got a shortfall of 136 which is under four per cent.
With a normal turnover that is not an unacceptable number. Recruitment
is often done by word of mouth but if necessary we would do a
public recruitment programme in the press or whatever if it was
necessary to do so.
5. Recruitment is by word of mouth which
depends a lot on the level of morale and satisfaction of current
volunteers. What action does HM Coastguard propose to ensure volunteers
receive the support and recognition they deserve and thereby maintain
their morale?
(Mr Astbury) We have started a recent
initiative where we have attempted to raise the profile of the
auxiliaries who are, as you say, a very valued part of HM Coastguard,
and that has included the establishment of an annual national
conference for auxiliary coastguards. We have improved their uniform
and heightened the profile of the livery on the vehicles they
drive. We are introducing certification for various standards
of auxiliary coastguards such as boat driving and so on together
with the reintroduction of specialised workshops and training
programmes at our training centre at Highcliffe and we hope to
develop more initiatives in concert with the auxiliary coastguards
themselves once we have our first conference which is set for
6th June coming.
6. Will that correct the shortfall in training
identified in the report?
(Mr Storey) Yes we hope that it
will.
7. Again I will move on. On page 41, figure
16, it suggests that there may be scope to reduce the number of
helicopter bases on the south coast, although I assume you need
to await the outcome of the strategic defence review on that front
before you address that issue properly. What is the latest position?
(Mr Storey) Again the MoD have not
declared the situation as it stands at the moment but we are faced
with the current contracts for the two helicopters, the one at
Solent and at Portland and the Portland one concludes in 2002
and has a year's extension available to take it to 2003 to match
the one at Solent but we could get out of it in 2002 if the MoD
come up with the goods.
8. Again others may pick that up. Paragraph
3.4 says that the effectiveness of the United Kingdom civil maritime
search and rescue service is hard to judge because of deficiencies
in your compilation of data on lives lost or saved. The C&AG's
Report also recommends in appendix 2 changes to the performance
measures for the service. What action will HM Coastguard be taking
to improve the measurement and reporting of its own performance
and that of the service it co- ordinates?
(Mr Astbury) First of all, on the
definition of lives lost and lives saved, for the last two years
we have been working with the RNLI in particular to produce a
national database which is called the sea-related emergencies
database (SEAREM) and together we have drawn up clear definitions
of lives lost and lives saved. You can imagine for all of the
national authorities involved in this database we need to be clear
what we are talking about. We have made tremendous headway there
on definitions. We are also quite keen to ensure we can record
lives saved where there is a clear threat to life as opposed to
towing people in in boats. So we have made headway there. In terms
of the key performance indicators we have already taken on board
Appendix 2 from the NAO, for which we thank them, and we have
put that as part of our capability performance indicators and
that will be put on our computer management information system
when we can get our software engineers to do it so we have made
good progress there.
9. What is the likely timetable on that
as to when you get your software engineers in?
(Mr Astbury) The key performance
indicators are in place now in terms of Appendix 2 and we hope
to have the management information system in place on the computer
by the new year.
10. Thank you. Part 3 of the C&AG's
report provides interesting information on the relative performance
of the search and rescue service around the United Kingdom coast.
What have you done to enhance the performance of slower co-ordination
centres?
(Mr Astbury) In fact the various
figures that are shown here do not actually show the performance
of the co-ordination centres themselves; they are actually showing
the performance, as I understand it, of the resources that have
been despatched by the rescue centres.
11. The coastal response teams? Who are
you talking about here?
(Mr Astbury) We are talking about
the helicopters and lifeboats here. Depending on the type of incident
they will dictate the response by the particular co-ordination
centre so what is being measured in the figures showing the helicopter
and lifeboat arrival times, for example, the scramble times, is
actually a measure of the response by the unit itself rather than
the efficiency of the co-ordination centre. In terms of the response
teams we accept as a fair criticism that the NAO have picked up
that in our charter we actually said we would have a coastguard
presence within 30 minutes. In fact our recording mechanism recorded
that 30 minutes from when they were alerted rather than from the
start of the incident. Quite clearly we were recording one thing
and the NAO read into what we said, quite rightly, that we should
be recording something else. We have now rectified that.
12. So you are doing something about the
measurements but you are also doing something about performance?
(Mr Astbury) Yes indeed.
13. Again others no doubt will come back
on the detail of that. I see from paragraph 3.30 that 44 per cent
of incidents in 1996 turned out to be false alarms. I recognise
that you would prefer coast users to err on the side of caution,
we all understand that, in notifying suspected incidents but have
you analysed these false alarms in such a way as to see whether
or not you can do anything to reduce the incidence of them?
(Mr Storey) We are actually conducting
a baseline analyse at the present time and we look at all these
incidents and see what action can be taken to see if we can do
something about it and we hope to have that achieved by 1st August
this year.
14. You do not have any indication about
what the common denominators are?
(Mr Storey) Not yet.
Chairman: Perhaps now is the time
to widen matters out and I will go to Mr Alan Campbell.
Mr Campbell
15. Good afternoon, Mr Storey. Could I begin
by taking up the offer of the Chairman to say something about
the closure programme, four centres to close by the year 2000
and the co-location of others by 2002. How did you choose what
stations were to close?
(Mr Storey) I think it would be
incorrect to go into the detail of that situation at the present
time because of course the submission is with Ministers, but I
think really looking at the outline of it you must look at the
coverage of the areas and indicate the coverage and as long as
you can give the maximum coverage of the organisation then you
are doing the job correctly.
16. So there are no criteria that were chosen
to identify particular stations?
(Mr Storey) We have taken the stations
that have probably got a lesser workload than other ones and tried
to spread the work and give the maximum coverage.
17. Can I pick up on that then go to figure
12 which the NAO Report makes a great deal of. It is about the
number of incidents the watch officers deal with at each of the
co-ordination centres. Let's take two, for example, Tyne Tees
and Forth. If you look at figure 12 which of those stations according
to figure 12 is the busiest station?
(Mr Storey) Between Tyne Tees and
Forth?
18. Yes.
(Mr Storey) Forth.
19. Forth is the busiest station. In answer
to written questions I put down answered by the Coastguard Agency
for 1996 (which is the year in question) Tyne Tees handled 334
incidents and Forth handled 316. They both had 17 watch officers
and try as I might I cannot get a formula that will actually make
Forth busier. How do you account for that?
(Mr Storey) I think you have got
to look at the situation. What is the coastguard station actually
doing? It is a marine search and rescue centre. That does not
have to be at any particular point. The country is split up into
various regions and the regions are covered by radio aerials.
Those radio aerials are listened to. Providing you have got the
technology and the infrastructure and the maximum coverage of
the radio aerials, you could move the position of the marine rescue
centre to within the area closest to the coast. We are giving
maximum coverage on that basis. With the new technology I think
we will cover that quite adequately. It is all to do with the
way you look at the economy and the efficiency of the service.
1 Note: The figure should, in fact, be 3,215. Back
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