Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180-199)
WEDNESDAY 26 MARCH 2003
MR ROGER
CHING, MS
SHEILA CLARK,
CAPTAIN MARTIN
PUTMAN, CHIEF
CONSTABLE PAUL
KERNAGHAN QPM, MR
RICHARD MAWSON,
COMMODORE AMJAD
HUSSAIN, MR
MALCOLM EASTWOOD
AND MAJOR
SIMON ANDREWS
180. Generally. It worries me that you are all
too well trained, apart from the Chief Constable—
(Mr Ching) I can certainly comment from the local
authority's point of view in that, as I said, we have a very meagre
budget in terms of all we get is a civil defence grant and the
only thing we can spend that on is the salaries of the officers
employed, of which there are two and a half I believe. The experience
of the city council in the past few years is we have had a number
of real-time emergencies, the cost of which has been incredibly
more than the budget that we have had available, and of course
the opportunity to local authorities as and when that happens
is you rely on the Bellwin Rules. You have got to spend as far
as Portsmouth is concerned something like £240,000 before
you can claim any money back, which is a tad unfair given the
number of incidents we have had. I seem to recall reading in the
evidence you took last time from the Secretariat that the LGA
said local authorities nationally spend £10 million more
on emergencies than the government makes funding available for.
As you are aware, apart from the civil defence grant which is
a specific grant for local authorities, the lion's share of funding
comes through the formula of the SSA, and it is a brave person
who says there is a specific allocation in there allocated to
emergency planning.
(Mr Eastwood) One of the problem you have got is that
most of things go back through our professional bodies, CACFOA,
ACPO and ASA, and that is quite a good mechanism, as I am sure
you are aware because it keeps it very focused and held in. The
problem is we do not get the funding allocation we would like.
We have to be very pragmatic and realistic. We have all got wish
lists but you have got to be realistic and when you have an incident
you do not always get monies back. You expend it at the time because
it has got to be done and then claw it back and see how much you
can claim back. We spend a lot of time and finance dealing with
initiatives from central government and other bodies and agencies
belonging to central government which take up a lot of time and
resource when we would like to be concentrating on other areas,
but that is another story!
Mr Crausby
181. Mr Ching, I understand that you have got
£386 more in the civil defence budget for next year, which
I accept would not buy the standard of meal that Andy Gilchrist
is used to, but nevertheless the question of local democracy and
local taxation would be a bit pointless without local decision
making whilst the civil defence grant I understand is £74,500,
how much do you spend in Portsmouth on emergency planning, you
say £10 million more is spent nationally?
(Mr Ching) I think the printed budget figure shows
between £75,000 and £80,000 which relates to the cost
of employing the emergency planning officer, his assistant and
I believe a full time administrative assistant. There are an awful
lot of other costs dotted around the other budgets which whether
they should or should not be allocated to emergency planning is
debatable, but they are not and of course the real issue is as
and when the real emergencies come to light such as a fire, such
as a flood, such as the fuel crisis we do our best to collate
those costs and add them up, but certainly we have not been able
to make any claim against the Bellwin Rules. The real issue is
we spend significantly more than the present budget figure as
a result of the emergencies arising.[1]
182. It must be difficult, as anyone with any
experience in local authorities will know, to make those decisions.
Do you think that the lack of a statutory framework would make
a difference to you? Would you welcome a statutory framework for
emergency planning?
(Mr Ching) I think it would give more clout in allocation
of funds by elected members to the emergency planning process
because, rightly or wrongly, emergency planning is not always
seen as a priority given the priorities that local members have
to face when allocating resources.
183. This Defence Committee recommended last
July that there should be a Civil Contingency Bill and it may
well contain a statutory framework and we understand that a draft
Bill is now being considered and that consultations are about,
so what involvement have you had with these consultations, if
any?
(Mr Ching) Me personally, none whatever. I asked my
emergency planning officer yesterday as to whether his organisation
had been approached with regard to feeding comments into it. It
is my understanding that consultation is taking place now. Certainly
we would be extremely keen to feed in comments and be part and
parcel of the consultation process.
184. Have you any views on that that you would
like to share with us as to what provisions the Bill should contain?
We felt pretty strongly that the central funding should be put
on a sounder footing. Have you any views on that?
(Mr Ching) I certainly agree that central funding
should be put on a sounder footing but I would rather get a comprehensive
brief from my colleagues and put that in writing to you, if that
is okay.[2]
185. Do you expect more funding as a result
of the Civil Contingencies Bill?
(Mr Ching) I live in hope.
Chairman
186. One thing this Committee has done is to
look at emergency planning in Chicago and to see the incredible
investment they have made in buildings, in technology, in communications,
which is truly, truly formidable. If your budget is as miserly
as it is, what scope do you have for buying additional equipment
or, in the sense of a crisis, are you properly housed? There must
be lots of bunkers remaining from the Second World War around.
Can you give us an indication as to how you have withstood (or
have you?) the pressure from commercial organisations who are
very, very keen to sell you not just equipment but communications
facilities and equipment that they say is the answer to all of
your prayers and prayers you have not yet had. Give us some indication
of the pressure you are under.
(Mr Ching) It is very easy to say to commercial people,
"Sorry, we do not want your products because we have not
got the funding", but the fact of the matter, as I said earlier,
and I think it is common across local authorities generally, is
that emergency planning is not treated as a top priority. If you
take an authority like Portsmouth which became a unitary authority
in 1997 we have got a net budget of some £200 million of
which half goes to education and a quarter goes to social services,
so you are talking about pretty small beer in terms of the rest
of the services. There are always competing bids for additional
funding in the budget round. There have been bids for emergency
planning in the past but members have chosen not to allocate money
to that budget. As to what the effect of that is, as and when
an emergency arises you are dependent on using equipment from
other agencies. I have to say that that has worked with the emergencies
that we have had to face as a result of close co-operation with
our colleagues. That is basically it.
187. So do you have dedicated facilities, albeit
not as perfect as you would like, where your team would prepare
for a major crisis?
(Mr Ching) I think we have got a pretty good set of
facilities here. We have got the staff but we have also got the
emergency planning room which is directly across the corridor
with all the facilities that are required. When the exercises
take place within Portsmouth and indeed the real thing, we have
got a whole suite of rooms here which is made available for the
different agencies, for their separate briefings, combining in
the emergency planning process in the emergency planning room
as and when is necessary, so I think we are pretty well accommodated
as far as that particular issue is concerned.
188. Without revealing where the alternative
location is, should there be a major attack which engulfs this
part of the city, have you alternative accommodation to go to
where you would have adequate facilities to undertake the onerous
tasks that your emergency planners are going to have to take?
(Mr Ching) Yes, we have. It is dependent on the type
of emergency and the scale of things. We would be very happy to
provide specific details of that to you.[3]
189. We would love to look at the facilities
so get the cleaner out and we will go in in the few minutes we
have.
(Mr Ching) It has been done.
190. That is good. Thank you.
(Mr Eastwood) Can I make a point. There is an issue
here, which I am sure in your investigations and inquiries you
have realised, which is over a number of years emergency planning
was wound down to a very severe degree and we are now playing
catch up. The problem is that in the local authority and the agencies
represented around this table, over a period of time, the funding
was removed and the people and expertise were removed because
the threat had gone away virtually. It came back with a vengeance
and now there is this element of it that has got to be done and
done now. We look towards a plethora of different emergency planning
departments, it needs centralising in respect of making sure it
is done and done properly and adequately funded.
Mr Hancock
191. Strangely enough, my next series of questions
follows on from that and it is about the Government's ambition
to set up some regional organisation under the government offices
on that sort of basis. All of you and all of us who represent
this area have seen the police budget increased by 25% on the
precept.
(Mr Kernaghan) I think it is actually more than that.
192. City council tax is up 20%, the Hampshire
increase was?
(Mr Eastwood) For us, 4.8%
193. No, the council tax went up 20%
(Mr Eastwood) More than that, but around about that
area.
194. There is not a single mention in any of
those things about the importance of simple preparedness, not
a single line from any of you that mentions that. I think that
is something we ought to address collectively as a unit and next
year to establish a link between what people are paying and this
element because I think people are right to question it. How do
you all feel about the idea of having a Regional Resilience team,
which sounds very nice but if our efforts to get money out of
the Government Office of the South East for local authority deals
at the moment is anything to go by, it is a pretty depressing
set up. I am curious about how you would all feel about having
to respond to a Resilience team based in Guildford.
(Mr Kernaghan) The first thing I would say about spending
the budget, I have always stated that I provide a full spectrum
capability as a police force and that is not just about officers
on the beat, it is not just about child protection, it is responding
hopefully to any emergency that comes along. Performance indicators
focus my attention in certain areas and professionally I have
always felt I have a responsibility for plane crashes or whatever,
and people expect Hampshire Constabulary to investigate that with
colleagues from elsewhere and look after the relatives, etc. If
it is a major disaster we would work to the centre. If it is a
criminal dimension or a terrorist dimension we would work to the
Cabinet Office briefing room. It may be on such a scale, and some
of your colleagues have alluded to the size and scale. I would
simply ask the question what would a regional tier add in terms
of value? If it adds value, I would welcome it enthusiastically
but if it is simply another bureaucratic level I would not. If
I am being asked a question by a senior civil servant in London,
I do not want a middle-ranking civil servant in Guildford to be
asking me the same question, particularly if we are in a crisis
situation. If it adds value, great, but it has got to be thought
through. Are we going to operate on a regional basis or on occasion
are we going to go directly through to national government? If
it is a national issue we will go to COBRA. We have also set up
a police information centre to co-ordinate the Police Service's
response. I have to ask the question, I have not had demonstrated
to me what value a regional tier would add in terms of my Service's
operational response.
195. I think that is very helpful.
(Mr Kernaghan) I do not speak on behalf of the Association
and I would not want to, but I think they would be asking the
same question. If it is going to do something for them, they would
welcome it but it has got to be demonstrated. I would not want
somebody saying because of other reasons let us have a regional
tier. It has got to add value to our operational response.
196. Have they asked for your opinion?
(Mr Ching) I have not been asked personally and Hampshire
has not been asked whether there should be a regional tier or
not.
(Mr Eastwood) What we are frightened of is another
tier of meetings, another tier of bureaucracy coming in where
we have already got enough of that. We want to deal and get on
with things. We do collaborate on a regional basis anyway. I think
that is echoed across the majority of people represented across
this table here. That collaboration is extremely helpful and valuable.
We do not need the bureaucracy that goes with some of the elements
that come forward where you have got to attend another series
of meetings and it causes a stumbling block.
(Mr Mawson) From the Ambulance Service's point of
view we recognise that there is tension between traditional planning
for different locally based incidents moving upwards and perhaps
in terms of the CBRN there is a national perspective or even a
regional perspective. I would echo the point Paul made about added
value. Anything that slows things down or would create a greater
bureaucracy in the system is less than helpful. One of the things
that is a concern from my point of view in terms of the programmes
being introduced, because although there is a strong public health
link, there does not seem to be such a strong link from the NHS
specifically. If that is going to be developed that is one area
I would wish to have looked at again.
197. Can I ask Sheila, what do you think should
be the role of the Regional Director of Public Health in this
area?
(Ms Clark) There is a strong link through the Public
Health Network and the Regional Director of Public Health at the
Government Office for the South East. In fact, we are seeing some
added value from that. Specialist aspects of public health knowledge
and expertise is not such that economies of scale would mean that
you would want that in every primary care trust in the country.
It would be wasteful and also very difficult for that number of
people to remain the specialists and experts that they need to
be. So from our point of view the potential is already there for
added value with the expertise and knowledge that we get through
the Public Health Networks. I do however agree, having been involved
in a number of exercises and indeed live incidents, that the existence
of another tier which is either performance monitoring or offering
advice on management of situations needs to be very carefully
thought out.
(Commodore Hussain) I would like to add a comment
from a slightly different perspective from other colleagues here
who perhaps look across a county whereas someone like me looks
very much closer to home. We have a regional organisation through
145 Brigade in Aldershot which marshals, if you like, all the
military resources in the area in providing support to civil emergencies
and that, I think, from our side is hugely important. We could
not marshal those resources in any other way, they play a vital
role and I believe it has been strengthened in doing that. There
might be a difference in perception from services that already
operate at a county level or an area level and those where it
is pockets of service which we provide all based locally.
198. It would be helpful, Commodore, if we were
given a breakdown in writing of what you can call on from the
brigade at Aldershot in the way of facilities that would be available
to them if you chose to use them.
(Commodore Hussain) We would be delighted to do that.
I have someone here from 145 Brigade and I have asked that he
be available to cover some of those angles with you this afternoon
where an opportunity does exist on our tour. Perhaps if at the
end of that you would come back to me or him on the specifics
we will cover it in writing to the Secretariat.
Chairman
199. I am sure that request will be examined
by at least eight levels of bureaucracy between here and beyond
Guildford. I hope we will see a document eventually. One question
supplementing what Mr Hancock said, where we have been sitting
in London looking down at different tiers of potential response,
the picture is not always as pretty as it might look here. I am
sure you see yourselves as incredibly professional people who
can deal with almost anything on the basics of your training and
with the British capability of adjusting to crises in a way which
we know very well, but other authorities do not reach your level
of competence and cannot and never will for a variety of reasons,
so why I am more of a centralist than a localist is that there
ought to be levels above so that should there be a crisis that
you cannot cope with, and if the citizens of your city do not
want to spend time on you acquiring the expertise, that those
who would have expertise in the areas you are not able to cover
would then be able to supplement swiftly, if not usurp, your position
or at least sit behind those who are making decisions. Can you
see any advantage of people from central government in the military
sphere, the police sphere, supplementary specialists, Porton Down,
which you would not want to have deployed in every region? There
could be teams who could be called upon very quickly to come to
your assistance to allow you at this level to discharge your functions
more effectively than you are able to at the moment.
(Commodore Hussain) I know from the military that
those teams exist already and we have mechanisms for drawing on
them through the MACA framework and I think all of us are aware
of that.
(Mr Kernaghan) If I could echo that. There is a mechanism.
The Navy by definition is a national capability, etc, but there
are mechanisms whereby we can do it. We go to the Cabinet Office
in essence and Porton Down and, equally, Aldermaston, will be
directed and told to give us specialist support, so that mechanism
is there. It is about professional co-operation with the other
services, particularly the police, etc, we do not have a national
structure so it is about co-operation between colleagues and there
is a wider debate, there is a very controversial debate one could
have. As I say, in relation to specialist support you could not
have it based regionally. Porton Down is one unique facility but
there is a mechanism where I can task or, equally, Malcolm if
he detects something we would together get the message to Porton
Down and we would get a response.
1 Note from Witness: The full costs including
accommodation and support changes but excluding training amount
to £113,000 per annum. Back
2
Note from Witness: It should be based upon a risk assessment
of the total amount of risks faced by the authority as opposed
to the present allocation system based on area and population.
An example to clarify this is that the funding given to Portsmouth
with its Naval Base, Ferry Port and urban density etc is less
than that given to Bath or Norfolk where there are little or no
risks. Unitary Authorities also have a wider range of functions
and responsibilities they need to carry out compared with County
Councils. Back
3
The alternative accommodation is provided for at a City Council
owned Sports Centre. A Memorandum of Understanding exists for
providing accommodation at neighbouring Council Offices. Arrangements
are also made with Portsmouth Football Club at an early stage. Back
|
