Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300-319)
CAPTAIN STEPHEN
BLIGH AND
MR JOHN
ASTBURY
2 MARCH 2005
Q300 Clive Efford: We have just been
told that no coastguard station has been properly staffed all
through the last year. Is that true?
Captain Bligh: The figures which
I have presented to me do not bear that out. As of this very moment,
we have vacancies within the Agency, we have three Watch Managers
and 11 Watch Officers, one Sector Manager vacancy and one District
Operations Manager. They are the only vacancies that we have as
of today. We have presently just completed a training course where
16 CWAs have gone through the Watch Officer course, 13 of those
have passed so they will be filling those Watch Officer vacancies
shortly. We have another course just starting for CWAs, for training,
where 10 will be trained in the coming months, March and so on.
Q301 Clive Efford: What is being implied
is that it is a lowly-paid job and therefore that recruitment
and retention are very difficult. Is that your experience?
Captain Bligh: Figures for recruitment
and retention in fact at the moment are showing that we have the
lowest amount of vacancies that we have ever had, it is less than
2% across the whole of the organisation. That is not just the
Search and Rescue side of things. There is a smaller pool that
we are fishing in. As has been mentioned already, people who have
had a maritime career, there are fewer and fewer people within
the United Kingdom, and therefore fishing in that pool is becoming
more difficult.
Q302 Clive Efford: The practice of having
unqualified or inexperienced staff managing a watch is not commonplace?
Captain Bligh: To the best of
my knowledge, no, it is not. I do not know if Mr Astbury has a
view.
Mr Astbury: I think the PCS probably
overstated that somewhat. I have no knowledge of the sort of statement
which was made, that over the year every coastguard station at
some point was staffed by unqualified people. If that was the
case then why did they not tell me, if they thought that? That
is not the evidence we are getting from our local managers. As
Captain Bligh says, we have no evidence to support that. I am
quite happy to take it from the PCS. If they have evidence, let
us see it and we will look into it.
Q303 Clive Efford: Does it matter that
the Coastguard do not have control over resources operated by
voluntary organisations, for example, the launch of a lifeboat?
Mr Astbury: I think there is a
misconception there somewhat. Once the asset is launched it does
come under the co-ordination of the Coastguard. It is only when
the asset is dormant that it comes under the control of the relevant
authority, with its policies and so on. That is why the Operators
Group has gone to great lengths over the last three years to try
to get consistent and common policies amongst the diverse range
of resources so that when we do operate together we are operating
to known standards. That is when the benefit is, as you heard
Mr Vlasto refer to, of the Operators Group.
Q304 Clive Efford: You would say that
the current situation is satisfactory and that there is no problem
between the two organisations?
Mr Astbury: Not in terms of maritime
Search and Rescue. What I would say is that there is a definite
need for improvement across the whole range of UK SAR plc. There
needs to be more collaboration between all the emergency services,
because at the moment we do not have that. That is what the Operators
Group are striving to achieve and we have had some successes,
as I mentioned to Madam Chairman, the fire-fighting at sea project
and, of course, the harmonisation of helicopters. They have been
tremendous, real successes because of bringing together different
government departments previously so diverse, different, and I
think that has worked very well. There is a lot more to do.
Q305 Clive Efford: You have mentioned
that. Is there a problem with pulling together different services
when using helicopters?
Mr Astbury: There is not on the
ground. Traditionally, because of the way the UK is formed, with
its emergency services—Fire, Police, Ambulance and, of course,
Coastguard—people have operated in silos because of the
way they have done it. With events like Carlisle and Boscastle
and, of course, the events we have seen in South East Asia, people
are starting to take notice that perhaps we ought to work more
closely and get greater synergy and greater value for money and
a better service to the public as a result of working closely
together rather than separately.
Q306 Clive Efford: You would say that
was happening, or is there something that you are saying should
be done or someone who should be put in place to make that happen?
Mr Astbury: It is starting to
happen and I think more needs to be done to make it happen. I
am pleased to say that this review into Search and Rescue I believe
has already helped a great deal.
Q307 Clive Efford: The MCA is going to
be taking responsibility for the Lake District from 1 April. How
do you intend to cover that area?
Mr Astbury: We have placed new
relay antennas around the area, so we have got adequate communications,
and we have put in place a Coastguard Rescue Team.
Q308 Clive Efford: Are they employees
of the MCA or will they be auxiliaries?
Mr Astbury: They are volunteers.
Captain Bligh: I think it is useful
to point out that it is volunteers, and when we were looking for
new volunteers to set up that system we had an oversubscription
of people who wished to volunteer to become part of the auxiliary
service in that area.
Q309 Miss McIntosh: You provided a very
useful comparative table in your submission. I notice, if I am
reading it correctly, that it does not say a great deal about
the volunteers, though you do refer to the number of volunteers
in this country. What co-ordination is there with the volunteer
Search and Rescue teams in this country in preparation for a general
rather than a mass Search and Rescue operation that you are involved
in?
Captain Bligh: If we are talking
about the Auxiliary Coastguard Service where presently we have
3,500 volunteers, they are the people who deliver the coastal
rescue as opposed to the waterborne rescue, which actually is
delivered by the RNLI. We have 400 sites or Rescue Centres around
the country from where the 3,500 volunteers operate. They are
all supplied with a four-by-four vehicle and the teams have all
their various equipment. Similar to many organisations, recruitment
is always an issue in some areas, where changes in work patterns
and social conditions mean that people are not necessarily working
in their local communities, they are travelling a further distance,
particularly, for instance, in the Southend area, where people
are commuting into London and then, when they are coming home
of an evening, are reluctant to volunteer, but we are still managing
to fill our vacancies across the country.
Q310 Miss McIntosh: Are we more heavily
dependent than or as heavily dependent as other European countries,
or indeed America or Australia, on volunteers?
Captain Bligh: In many areas,
the Coastal Rescue Service that we operate actually is operated
by the police forces in some of the other countries that you mention.
They are not part of the Coastguard's remit. They will deliver
only the maritime aspect.
Q311 Miss McIntosh: I notice that one
of NUMAST's conclusions is that to have a provision of statutory
recognition for voluntary work within the UK Search and Rescue
Agency should be considered. What would be the implications for
your organisation if that were proposed?
Captain Bligh: The large percentage
of our volunteers volunteer out of a community spirit and a desire
to contribute something. Very few of them would wish to be burdened
by what they would see as some form of bureaucracy and system
which basically managed them into a particular area where they
did not want to go. We would be concerned that, if some of these
areas moved forward, a large percentage of our volunteer force
might well decide that they did not wish to continue in that particular
area.
Q312 Miss McIntosh: That would be in
addition to the fact, as the Chairman pointed out, that probably
fewer volunteers are coming forward generally?
Captain Bligh: Yes.
Q313 Miss McIntosh: I was a Member of
the European Parliament for Southend and Harwich and I know that
they regularly used to have incident training because they asked
me to be sort of the VIP who caused all the problems on the ferry,
which I declined. Frankly, I am quite staggered by what you said
earlier, Captain Bligh, that you feel there is not sufficient
co-ordination and perhaps coming together of minds and rehearsals.
Is there not something annually?
Captain Bligh: There is a national
exercise for maritime Search and Rescue and oil pollution, we
carry out national exercises. I think there is a difference between
the sort of exercise which is interfacing with the landside Search
and Rescue organisations and the maritime. We do carry out exercises.
An exercise was carried out in the not too distant past. For instance,
a large oil tanker or chemical tanker in the Solent and the impact
that would have on the surrounding areas and the police were involved
in that particular incident with regard to evacuation should anything
happen.
Mr Astbury: Perhaps I could add
to that, Madam Chairman. Prior to the formation of the current
structure, the UK SAR in the UK, there was no committee which
represented inland Search and Rescue. Together with the Department,
when we formed the new UK SAR structure, we expressly put in there
that it would represent sea and land, and that is what the Strategic
Committee and the Operators Group now represent. Hence, the landside
of collaboration is a little behind the maritime side.
Q314 Chairman: Can I just ask, I am not
clear, are you saying that the MCA and the RNLI co-ordination
is good but the Police, the Mountain Rescue and now ALSAR are
not so good?
Mr Astbury: No. I am not saying
that, Madam Chairman, at all. I am saying that, on the procedural
side of things, the command and control and the way that the services
inter-operate need to be more consistent. At the moment, for example,
the Coastguard in Carlisle, when we were dealing there, we dealt
with communications in our way, where the Police were dealing
with the communications in their own way, and so were the Fire
Service and the Ambulance Service. What we need to have is a UK
SAR plc co-ordinated communications plan and we have not actually
got that at the moment.
Q315 Chairman: Are all your communications
actually working?
Mr Astbury: Yes. In fact, in Carlisle,
Coastguard communications were the only communications working.
Q316 Chairman: You do not think that
there are certain stations where there are problems with communication,
with pagers that do not work?
Mr Astbury: I was surprised to
hear that.
Q317 Chairman: Surprised?
Mr Astbury: Yes. We have no evidence
of that.
Q318 Chairman: No evidence?
Mr Astbury: No. O2 dropped out
of the paging service overnight, literally, and left all services
which were reliant on pagers with a problem, but our Technical
Services Division solved that problem and no auxiliary team has
reported to us to say that they have failed to be called out because
of paging problems.
Q319 Chairman: So it is not true that
there have been occasions when two or three teams have been called
because that was the only way it could happen?
Mr Astbury: No. I think there
is a misconception there. Two or three teams are called because
they train together to provide a local service.
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