Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-139)
MR JON
GIFFORD AND
MR MARK
DANSON-HATCHER
9 FEBRUARY 2005
Q120 Chairman: Good. Sorry, Mr Danson-Hatcher.
Mr Danson-Hatcher: It is important
for the Committee to note that our contribution is as a visual
watch. That is something that no other agency really does to the
same extent.
Q121 Chairman: You grew out of specific
problems that had arisen in various places. Do you tend to recruit
people who have relevant past experience or do you train your
volunteers, or do you have a minimum set of standards that they
must meet?
Mr Danson-Hatcher: We have a minimum
set of standards which all our recruits go through. Some might
be master mariners, some might be ex military with a very relevant
background, but they still have to go through the same assessment
procedure.
Q122 Chairman: Do you assess their eyesight?
Mr Danson-Hatcher: Yes, we do.
Q123 Miss McIntosh: How do you raise
your funds and do you have difficulty raising the money for insurance
policies?
Mr Gifford: It works this way.
Basically the stations, as they go on, raise appeals locally,
they raise their own funds mainly. When a station is starting
up, they will get a grant from the central fund to get them going.
They will then raise appeals and they are very active with this
in order to be self-supporting. Nobody at all in the charity is
paid, not one person. It is all voluntary. The basic arrangement
is that the stations raise their own funds, the central organisation
raises some funds and, to cope with all the quite comprehensive
insurances we have to have, we take a contribution in capitation
from each station.
Q124 Ian Lucas: How do you decide where
to set up new coastal watch stations?
Mr Gifford: The first thing is
to establish that there is a need and that often comes from the
public, the local people, the fishermen, local people working
in an area or living in an area. They would point out a disused
premise that we could possibly use. We will then assess that to
see whether there is enough there to do to keep intelligent, trained
volunteers busy. If we decide to do it, as we have just done in
Kingsweir near Dartmouth, we would then have public meetings and
gauge the interest and see how it pans out before we make a final
decision. It also depends upon the lease, the availability, of
the property.
Q125 Ian Lucas: At the moment most of
your stations are in the south of England, is that right?
Mr Gifford: The majority are in
the south and south west; we are moving slowly northwards now.
There is a big cost in setting up a station.
Q126 Ian Lucas: My observation is that
you are doing very well, because you are quite a new organisation
relatively speaking, are you not?
Mr Gifford: Ten years' old this
year.
Q127 Ian Lucas: Is the reason that you
have not been able to move further north to date, because of the
work which is involved in setting up a new watch station rather
than the need?
Mr Gifford: We know of places
where we could go and we are working slowly northwards. At a cost
of about £18,000 to set up from donated funds only, we have
to cut our suit to our cloth.
Q128 Ian Lucas: How do you attract volunteers?
Mr Gifford: Amazingly easily,
more so in the retired areas, the south coast, the south west,
Norfolk and Suffolk, with a little difficulty in the Thames estuary
because most people are working, it is not a retired area. As
we move further northwards there are two questions: to find the
volunteers and the quality of people that we have to train.
Q129 Ian Lucas: How do you assess the
quality?
Mr Gifford: Talk to them, hear
about their background, see whether it is practical for them to
come on duty. We do not want people who have to drive 60 or 70
miles to do a watch because they will start off and then tail
off. We are very lucky with this. We have a very high standard
of watchkeeper.
Q130 Ian Lucas: Do you receive any statutory
financial support?
Mr Gifford: Nothing.
Q131 Ian Lucas: Should you?
Mr Gifford: There are mixed feelings
about this. It would be nice to have money so we could get on
and put up some more stations. It would depend what strings were
attached to it. At the moment we are going on quite steadily,
but we would like to go faster. It is a difficult question.
Q132 Chairman: What is the normal background?
Is there a kind of type of person who volunteers? What sort of
background do they have?
Mr Gifford: It is extremely interesting.
We have high court judges, we have surgeons, we have doctors,
we have all sorts of people, dive masters, master mariners, two
admirals and then some professional gardeners.
Q133 Chairman: Would you trust an admiral?
Mr Gifford: This is very interesting.
The first question you ask them is whether they are prepared to
submit to our standards of training. I have never known one that
did not and they enjoy it. Having been an admiral they have forgotten
a lot of things.
Chairman: Some of them might not have
known it in the first place.
Q134 Mr Stringer: How do you judge your
effectiveness over the 10 years?
Mr Gifford: When we are asked
by people to quantify what we do, it is very difficult, because
we keep watch, sometimes for weeks on end, very little serious
happens and then an incident occurs. It is a bit like flying an
airliner. You sit there and nothing happens and then there are
10 minutes of panic when a yacht turns over, when somebody is
found on the beach, or when something starts to emit danger signals
or emergency signals. I could produce a file of incidents that
thick, some of which are very significant and we have definitely
saved lives, I could point to that. Generally speaking we are
intervening to report a problem to the coastguard or to the relevant
agency, whether it be customs or police, then they take it on.
We do not dance about on cliffs to pull people out of trouble.
We call the right people, hopefully, to come to help do it.
Q135 Mr Stringer: Can you quantify that?
How many lives have you saved in the 10 years which would not
otherwise have been saved?
Mr Gifford: I cannot tell you
that, but in the last year it would be six.
Q136 Mr Stringer: Can one draw the inference
from that, that when the coastguards have been here and they have
told us that closing stations does not put people more at risk,
because new technology will replace those coastguard stations,
that is not accurate?
Mr Gifford: There is no technical
replacement for the human eye, ear and good common sense and training.
We have radars; we will have other technological instruments,
but they are on the back burner when it comes to training. We
are there to look and notice.
Q137 Mr Stringer: Can we draw the inference
that on the parts of the coast where you are not operating people
are dying unnecessarily? If your service were operating all round
the coast, we would be saving more lives.
Mr Gifford: I would hope so; that
is why we do it. I will not guarantee it.
Q138 Mr Stringer: No, but that is the
inference we can draw. Your service is not comprehensive, and
that is not a criticism, but it is not comprehensive and people
are dying every year.
Mr Gifford: Oh, yes.
Q139 Mr Stringer: Do you get involved
in training people at all to use the coast?
Mr Gifford: Yes.
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