Memorandum by The Chief Fire Officers
Association (SAR 02)
SEARCH AND RESCUE
The following comments are submitted on behalf
of the Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOA) which represents
the most senior managers of all fire and rescue services in the
UK. We welcome the opportunity to make comment to the Transport
Committee on this very important issue.
UK SEARCH AND
RESCUE CO
-ORDINATION
CFOA believes the co-ordination arrangements
for Search and Rescue are very good and improving. In recent years
the UK Search and Rescue Committee has done much to improve relationships
between responding agencies, statutory and voluntary. The current
arrangements for consultation and liaison are very good. The production
of the UK SAR Handbook marked a significant step forward in setting
out the breadth of involvement for the first time. CFOA was very
happy to support production of the original document and will
support further revisions as they become necessary.
During incidents fire and rescue services have
found the co-ordination of SAR incidents through the Coastguard
to be very good. CFOA has noted that greater understanding of
the different agencies command protocols will assist further improvement.
There is some potential for confusion because of the differing
approaches to command and control. It is essential that communication
from the scene to the responding agencies control centres does
not bypass communication to the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centres.
RESOURCES, EQUIPMENT
AND TRAINING
The organisations involved in SAR are very professional
but there is little doubt that every one of them can claim that
additional resources, equipment and training allow further improvements.
That holds true for statutory and voluntary agencies. Achieving
a balance between investment and proportion, appropriate capacity
will remain highly subjective and will adapt as society's expectations
develop. There does appear to be greater demand against a public
expectation that they can engage in leisure activities with the
knowledge that an emergency response will be available.
With regards the fire and rescue services response
to incidents at sea this remains an area of weakness as there
is no requirement to provide a response. The national project
to develop strategically positioned teams into a Marine Incident
Response Group is the most efficient manner to develop a capability.
It is disappointing that the Government Ministry with principal
responsibility for fire and rescue services, the Office of the
Deputy Prime Minister is not as positively engaged as the Department
of Transport in this project. Recognition within ODPM of the strategic
importance that we are an island nation and carry out the majority
of trade by sea is not apparent. Reliance on another Government
Department to develop and support improvement is unhelpful. Firm
and clear arrangements should be supported.
VOLUNTARY ORGANISATIONS
There is little doubt that an effective SAR
response is highly dependent on voluntary agencies in a large
number of instances. Those voluntary agencies involved provide
a high value/low cost service to the nation. However they in turn
are very dependent on support and encouragement from the statutory
agencies to continue with their operations. It is difficult to
quantify the real cost to the statutory agencies of that support.
However compared with the cost of delivering the same capacity
from a purely statutory agency basis the costs are insignificant.
In a small number of instances the provision
of the capacity to provide a voluntary response is not necessary.
Often this is put in place because of a perceived need in the
community rather than one that is proven through relevant risk
assessment. This does cause "competition" for resources
from the local communities, which is unhelpful.
There are concerns that competing strategies
of the different voluntary agencies can be counter productive.
It is of greater concern that the pool of volunteers is decreasing
and successive legislative changes are actively discouraging volunteers.
Liability is one of the major disincentives for volunteers and
voluntary agencies. The UK does need to consider this in overall
policy and legislative development if it does not wish to see
a continued decline in the voluntary response. CFOA firmly believes
that there will be a significant weakening of capacity unless
the UK takes firm, and practical, steps to encourage and develop
voluntary response.
INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS
CFOA has limited knowledge of the detail of
SAR arrangements across the world, but believes a number of different
models of delivery exist. There appears to be no reason to believe
that the basis for the UK arrangements is sound and deliver a
good response. CFOA has not received any negative views of the
UK's arrangements from colleagues internationally. It has received
significant interest in the MIRG arrangements and many have commented
that when in operation it should provide an international example
of good practice.
IMPROVEMENTS
CFOA believes the building blocks are in place
for continued improvement of the UK SAR response. However there
is scope for greater formal integration between statutory agencies
that could provide efficiencies. For example greater sharing of
infrastructure would be helpful but it is impeded by the different
governance arrangements of those agencies, eg some are Government
responsibility, others are local government responsibility. The
different financial and legislative basis acts as a barrier to
further improvement and often slows down improvement opportunities
whilst a way around the legislative and fiscal barriers is developed.
December 2004
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