Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
DR ANTHONY
S G JONES MBE, MS
PENELOPE BROCKMAN,
MR ADRIAN
EDWARDS, MS
MARGARET BENNETT
AND MR
ROBERT BRADLEY
9 FEBRUARY 2005
Q60 Mrs Ellman: Is that something which
happened in practice or is it something that you think could happen
potentially?
Mr Bradley: In terms of ALSAR
and LSDogs, lowland search dogs, as far as I am aware no such
incident has happened at this time.
Dr Jones: It certainly happens
in mountain rescue. In fact it has been ruled, through the Home
Office, that health and safety legislation does not—does
not—apply to voluntary search and rescue teams. It has also
been stated recently that draft regulations on working at height,
which potentially could put in a serious detrimental complication,
do not apply to mountain rescue.
Q61 Chairman: Could you give us later
an indication of exactly where you have that?
Dr Jones: I can send you the papers.
Chairman: Yes, that would be helpful,
thank you.
Q62 Mrs Ellman: Have you found that your
volunteers are able to come out as required? Will employers release
them as required, or is that an issue?
Ms Brockman: It has become increasingly
difficult for the volunteers. In the last 10 years companies have
decreased their work forces and therefore it is far more difficult.
Systems have been put in place to help that by using our pager
system where more teams are called out on a call-out to get the
number of personnel required to an incident. We have used technology
to get around our situation.
Q63 Miss McIntosh: Dr Jones, I gather
that you liaise with various government departments. I have RAF
Leeming's mountain rescue team in the constituency. Do you liaise
with the military rescue teams as well?
Dr Jones: I have to say that the
MoD, in terms of search and rescue, that is both the helicopter
force and the mountain rescue service, has for a very long time
shown close liaison between the two sides. In fact, we are two
sides of the same service, the mountain rescue service. A critical
element of that of course is the Aeronautical Rescue Co-ordination
Centre at Kinloss and we are in continual operational contact.
I have no fears about the co-operation.
Q64 Miss McIntosh: You say in your written
submission that it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain
and sustain volunteers. To which factors do you attribute that?
Dr Jones: This is a debate which
all of us could have, but, basically, we see a change in society,
pressure of work, difficulty getting off and the cost of getting
off, because many of the volunteers would lose wages for mid-week
operations. It is a variable feast, because some teams have no
problem getting members, whilst other teams find it very difficult.
It is a very variable picture.
Q65 Miss McIntosh: Could I ask each organisation
whether you pay volunteers or reimburse them for costs incurred?
Dr Jones: We will reimburse expenses
against receipts, but there is no payment. Each team has its own
system. The team I used to be member of had a principle that it
would pay against receipts, but no payment for services given.
Q66 Chairman: Did you identify the difference
between the teams where some recruited without any trouble and
some found it difficult? Is it a geographical and practical one?
Is it a personality one? Do you have any experience of any reason
why some areas are able to recruit and others are not?
Dr Jones: Not really, I can only
surmise that it is related to centres of population and there
must be another factor, though I could not prove it to you, and
that is the activity of the team itself. Busy teams tend to encourage
members to join them; less busy teams may have a bit more difficultly.
Q67 Chairman: Mr Bradley, do you want
to comment on that?
Mr Bradley: The last report into
volunteering talked about the numbers of volunteers actually decreasing
and those volunteers that are putting in the time are putting
in more time to do that. The concern I would have, and possibly
my colleagues as well, is the effect that has on the volunteers
themselves. Within the workplace we are obviously being taught
about the balance of life and work and that sort of thing: with
so many volunteers putting in these extra hours, the focus for
them is their work and their voluntary life without a balance
within those.
Q68 Miss McIntosh: Did each of you wish
to answer the question I put to Dr Jones? Presumably you do not
pay volunteers.
Mr Edwards: No, we leave it to
individual teams to make their policies. Most teams refund no
monies at all apart from the receipts, expenditure on equipment
for the team itself.
Mr Bradley: Ours is the same.
Q69 Miss McIntosh: How does each of you
raise funds for your organisation?
Mr Bradley: We are a training
organisation and we ask those people coming to us to pay. We cover
the cost of the course and that is it. We do not have any further
expenditure.
Mr Edwards: As an association,
ALSAR, we just have the powers to raise levies against member
teams. However we do not exercise that power at the moment, so
any funds we get are purely donations.
Ms Brockman: The Mountain Rescue—England
and Wales gets a £30,000 grant from one of the ambulance
authorities and the teams in Wales are also supported by a grant
from Wales. The majority of funding, at national body, regional
and team level, is reliant on donations, which is extremely difficult,
because it takes a lot of person hours to obtain that funding.
Q70 Miss McIntosh: May I ask each of
you turn whether there should be more statutory funding for the
work that you do?
Dr Jones: That depends on what
strings are attached to the statutory funding. It would be nice
if there were control, and I have to say that through the Operators'
Group, a system does exist by which funding could be passed down
the line to the voluntary search and rescue organisations with
proper accounting and proper scrutiny. However, you will get a
very variable feast: some volunteers do not want anything to do
with government funding, others say "Let's get what we can".
Certainly government funding would be a very good demonstration
of the government's support to maintain the volunteer search and
rescue which is so cost effective.
Ms Brockman: The Mountain Rescue—England
and Wales, after the Scottish Mountain Rescue Committee obtained
annual funding, have gone forward with a bid with Tim Collins
MP as a chairman and Mr Dai Havard MP as a secretary. We sent
out CDs to all MPs and members of the House of Lords as a campaign.
However, to agree with Anthony Jones, it will be on a par with
Scotland, where no strings are attached, the money provided goes
through the police forces and the teams agree how it is going
to be spent.
Mr Edwards: Like Dr Jones, I would
agree that, whilst funding would be welcome, we would be cautious
of any strings attached and would obviously like to see it regulated
accordingly.
Mr Bradley: You asked the question
in terms of the funding of teams. There is also the funding of
the agencies that use them and funding for things like exercises,
co-operation, working arrangements, that sort of thing, because
a lot of the duties that they have are not statutory duties and
therefore they need additional funding in order to co-operate
with the voluntary agencies.
Q71 Chairman: You all seem to be terrified
of the government's involvement. What are you so frightened of?
Dr Jones: He who pays calls the
tune. Again, I would point out that we had the HSE interference
with its potential problems and certainly in mountain rescue it
has been standard ever since we have been in existence to do dynamic
risk assessments on each and every operation. We do not really
need bureaucrats to tell us what is dangerous and what is good
practice, because we want to live.
Q72 Chairman: Is that the only thing
you can think of, that they might put their sticky fingers in
something you do not want?
Dr Jones: No, there is also the
fear that there would be extra burdensome administration; there
is enough as it is and administration takes a lot of the volunteers'
time.
Q73 Chairman: Yes, but not unreasonably,
Mr Jones, if you were given government money, you would expect
them to know how you spent it and that is administrative.
Dr Jones: Indeed, but it would
be problematic if there were conditions attached which might impinge
on the effective operations that we try to carry out.
Q74 Chairman: Anything you want to expand
on that, any objections?
Ms Brockman: I think the statement
you make is quite true. Under the Charities Act, and the majority
of teams are charities, that type of regulation already takes
place. If strings were attached to how we spent money and if there
were an administrative burden in addition to what we are doing
already, it would be a worrying concern because of fund-raising
volunteers' time.
Dr Jones: May I just make one
comment? The current modern disease of targets, something you
shoot arrows at, the setting of targets, could cause a very detrimental
effect on the volunteer organisations and would be unrealistic.
Q75 Miss McIntosh: You list in your submission
the number of insurance policies you have to have. Apart from
personal accident insurance, which you say is provided by each
police force, that leaves public liability and trustee and I presume
the public liability insurance alone would be quite hefty.
Dr Jones: May I ask our treasurer
to answer your question?
Ms Brockman: We are quite fortunate.
The public liability is £10,000. The insurance company actually
sees us as a low risk, because of all the training and guidelines
we have in place. Our trustee indemnity insurance is also low,
because it relates to finance and the controls in place because
of the Charities Act and the number of committee members you actually
have govern the spend of money. We are very fortunate, but two
or three years ago that policy nearly went up three-fold overnight
and we had to change insurance companies. It is a concern, it
is a concern because it is very difficult to get money to pay
for insurance; that is what makes it very, very difficult. We
cannot really get donations, we cannot go to trusts to ask for
insurance. Unrestricted money has to be allocated to this.
Q76 Ian Lucas: You mentioned training
there, Miss Brockman. What training is supplied? If I came along
to you and said I wanted to do some mountain rescue, before I
went out what training would be provided?
Ms Brockman: That is very dependent
on the team. I will pass it to Anthony Jones because he is the
chairman of the training sub-committee.
Dr Jones: For most teams it is
axiomatic that any member wanting to join a mountain rescue team
must be a mountaineer before they apply to join. After that training
starts at team level with basic safety and those attributes needed
for search and rescue. It continues all through the period up
to regional level and then to national level and different courses.
The particular line a member may take on training does depend
to a certain extent on their particular interests, though there
is a base level to which we expect all members to be trained.
Q77 Ian Lucas: Is most of that training
provided by the units themselves? It is not external training
in any way, is it?
Dr Jones: It starts in the individual
teams, goes up to the group of teams in a particular region and
then there are national courses, particularly in search planning
and management search field skills and things like that. Our casualty
care course for mountain rescue is a national course nationally
examined. We are looking to bring that in. Is there external training?
Yes. In one area training is provided by the police for dealing
with fatal incidents, so that is external but we do not regard
it as external, because the police and the teams work together
for a common aim.
Q78 Ian Lucas: Is there any communication
with insurers concerning the level of training that is provided?
Ms Brockman: For the public liability
policy, we have to provide the casualty care syllabus and we have
to detail all the teams in Mountain Rescue—England and Wales.
It is quite detailed. The insurance company we are with is Perkin
and Slade, who are well known in the sports industry and we have
had quite a long-term relationship with them, so they have a full
understanding of the organisation, which has helped us keep down
the cost of the policy.
Q79 Ian Lucas: How is the insurance funded?
Is that just from your own income?
Ms Brockman: That is what is making
the funding position for Mountain Rescue—England and Wales
extremely difficult, because it has to come out of our funds.
When you look at going out to get money, nobody wants to pay for
insurance; they do not see it as a positive image.
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