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Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40 - 59)
WEDNESDAY 13 MAY 1998
MR MAURICE STOREY AND MR JOHN ASTBURY
40. So you are proposing to reduce the number
of regional managers because I understand the idea during the
review was that they would be halved from six to three? We find
despite the fact there were assurances that the proposals would
not be cherry-picked that in fact each region would maintain a
regional manager and an assistant.
(Mr Astbury) As I recall Focus for
Change, one of the options was to go down to three certainly but
there was also an option for four, indeed five, a whole range
of options and four was selected as the most strategically sensible
and best option given the geographical spread these regional managers
would have to tackle.
Mr Campbell: I am sure you can make
the case for this, and this is the last point, but for those serving
in coastguard stations at the sharp end it does look again as
a case of the "poor bloody infantry". If there have
to be cuts in order to pay for a new system coming in people in
coastguard HQ are damn sure it is not going to be people from
Coastguard HQ, it is not going to be officers, it is going to
be the infantry. Thank you, Chair.
Chairman: Thank you, we understand
your concerns. Ms Maria Eagle?
Maria Eagle
41. I also, as you may have spotted, represent
a seat which does have a constituency interest in the proposed
closure programmes. I hope you will forgive me if you ask some
questions in respect of that. Am I right in thinking that the
NAO seems to agree in the Report that the new technology, if and
when you get it, in would enable you to do the job of these co-ordinating
centres effectively from one place if you wished to do so? Is
that realistic?
(Mr Storey) Theoretically you could
say the AA does it from one place but we are talking about a fixed
motorway network and fixed vehicles. I believe it is necessary
to have some requirement close to the coast and I think we need
to do it in certain areas. I think the infrastructure is entirely
different round the coast compared to a motorway network. So I
do not think we can do it from one centre in the UK.
42. Like the RAC does. They have one centre
each and they do all their rescue calls from there. You do not
envisage that being the future?
(Mr Storey) Not at all.
43. What kind of minimum number of centres
do you envisage?
(Mr Storey) It is too early for
me to state that. As I say, I have been in post for six weeks
and I am charged to carry out a review of the business and I need
time to go through that in detail.
44. Presumably the Agency itself will have
had some thoughts on this. You might just not have read the details
of it yet.
(Mr Astbury) On the first point,
if I may, the "Birmingham coastguard syndrome" as it
is commonly referred to, one has to remember the way the coastguard
infrastructure is set out is a network that uses BT telephone
lines. The more exchanges you go through the greater the risk
of a failure and in a life saving organisation you have to mitigate
that risk and that is one of the things we have done in terms
of the five-year strategy through private wires.
45. Is that not an argument for having one
centre?
(Mr Astbury) No it is not because
it is not cost effective anyway. You would need X number of operators
to operate the VHF radio sites. The AA, remember, do not monitor
other than pick up telephones. We have to monitor radio.
46. You need the centres to do the other
half of the job which is to monitor radio frequencies?
(Mr Astbury) Yes we do.
47. Thank you for that. It is interesting
because it suggests that perhaps the closure of the four that
are envisaged to be closed and the co-location of the fifth and
sixth might not be the end of the process. There may be some further
rationalisation but you are not in a position to say whether or
not there will be. I want to explore a little how you have chosen
the stations you propose to close. Can you tell me upon what criteria
they have been chosen?
(Mr Astbury) Mr Campbell talked
earlier about incident numbers. There is no one single criteria
we used.
48. How many criteria were there then?
(Mr Astbury) We looked at the issues
that coastguards need to tackle like more resources on the coast,
greater flexibility, all of that. We looked at the private wire
links in terms of the new technology centres. We considered things
like the estate for example. Holyhead is a new building, a million
pound investment during the last three years. Liverpool is an
older building. The costs of switching the private wires on the
new system to Holyhead are marginally cheaper than they are to
Liverpool. All of these other things were taken into account.
We accept that had we chosen Holyhead the same arguments on that
side would have prevailed. Why did you not choose Holyhead, it
is a new building, a million pound capital investment. So all
of these factors were taken into account. We have to ensure a
strategic spread. Had we based the closures on volume of incidents
alone we would not have any coastguard stations in Scotland. To
have all the Scottish VHF sites controlled from England and Wales
given they are routed through BT lines would not have been an
acceptable risk. So that is what we mean by strategic spread of
coastguard stations.
49. Can you tell me why in your consultation
document, which I have in front of me, page 16, paragraph 3.18
there is a paragraph about reducing the number of co-ordination
centres. You say: "The co-ordination centres selected for
closure were considered against the issues which are needed to
be addressed", which is not very transparent. It is not very
helpful for either myself or the people who work at the Liverpool
coastguard station. It is not very helpful for them to understand
your thinking when it is as opaque as that, is it? Do you accept
the way in which you have made this decision is not at all clear
to anybody that is concerned and you have actually caused a lot
of upset and a fall in morale in the officers who are in these
stations? They cannot understand the basis upon which you made
your decision.
(Mr Astbury) I think there are two
sides to that. The first one is that the decision was made not
by me alone. There was a full consultation with HM Coastguard
management board on it. There were discussions held between them
and certain members of their middle management. When we announced
the proposed closures there were discussions held on site with
regional and deputy regional managers to discuss the implications
and the rationale behind it. One was held at Liverpool, for example,
and in the other centres at the time of the announcement on 17th
December [2]
last year.
50. Have you at any time set out to the
staff and to the people who support the coastguard service, your
volunteers, who also might be badly affected by an adverse impact
on morale, your rationale and the criteria you used and the basis
upon which you have come to the decision because what I am getting
back from people is that you have not?
(Mr Astbury) I think we accept that
the consultation document in that particular regard could have
been a lot clearer.
51. Thank you for that. The other thing
which might have been helpful is if you had set out details of
all the co-ordination centres in your consultation document. The
only ones you refer to specifically are the ones that you propose
to close. There are no comparisons in your document with any of
the other stations and that does not inspire confidence that this
is a consultation. It looks more like a fait accompli. I want
to move on to the NAO's Report, page 31, paragraph 2.21, where
we are looking at co-ordination centres. It says here that "the
financial savings generated by the proposed reduction in the number
of co-ordination centres would be used to fund the introduction
of new communications technology." If it was not for this
need to introduce a new technology would you be closing these
centres at all?
(Mr Astbury) Yes.
52. You would be anyway?
(Mr Astbury) Yes.
53. That is interesting because that is
not what the NAO Report says on page 9, paragraph 1.4. This is
a point already referred to at the end of Mr Campbell's comments.
What impact will your merger with the Marine Safety Agency have
on these plans to close co-ordination centres? Will it make it
more acceptable, for example, to close other centres, apart from
the ones you have identified already, because of the assets that
you have now of the MSA which you now have to integrate?
(Mr Storey) I think we must remember
that the MSA's role was a different role to that of the coastguard.
54. We are talking about having assets available,
are we not? It may make sense, therefore, to change.
(Mr Storey) There was a complete
review of the MSA done two or three years ago on the way they
operated and it was reduced quite considerably at that time. As
I see it under the review that I am doing, I am going through
looking at what were the MSA offices and where we can put the
two organisations together that will be done.
55. But you do not envisage that having
any impact on your reasoning for deciding which of the stations
to close?
(Mr Storey) No.
56. You are as clear now that you have chosen
the right ones as you were then, are you?
(Mr Storey) Yes.
57. Can you turn to figure 11, page 28,
which is a map of the stations. I am interested particularly,
of course, in Liverpool and Holyhead. Would it not make equal
sense to relocate Holyhead to Liverpool in terms of the geographical
spread, not looking at other factors now? You could do it that
way round and you would still have a sensible geographical spread,
would you not?
(Mr Storey) Yes, you could probably
put a case forward for that. The Holyhead coastguard station is
the most modern of the two, built later than the Liverpool one
and it is in a good strategic position.
58. There has been an increase in leisure
and business traffic and use of the river and Liverpool Bay going
on. Also, the port of Liverpool is increasing its tonnage throughput
annually by quite significant amounts. You have got increased
leisure activity in the bay. You have got two ro-ro ferry terminals
being constructed on the Mersey. Liverpool airport's passenger
numbers are going up every year. You have got the oil and gas
exploration going on. Would it not be more sensible, in view of
the likely increase in river and Liverpool Bay traffic, to have
that centre in Liverpool instead of in Holyhead?
(Mr Storey) Not at all. I think
we are talking about the reception that is required when there
is a distress message given and it is picked up by radio aerial
to the coastguard station. The coastguard station then find out
where the incident is and then get task forces to deal with that
incident. If there is an incident within the river confines usually
the harbour authority would be dealing with it anyway in co-ordination
with the coastguard.
59. Is it not at this point that the local
knowledge becomes important and might you not lose that if you
locate in Holyhead?
(Mr Storey) I do not think so. The
people in Holyhead that will be there will be trained, if they
do not have the knowledge, about the area that they have got to
cover.
2 Note by Witness: The month was, in fact, November,
not December. Back
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