Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180
- 199)
WEDNESDAY 14 NOVEMBER 2007
MR KIM
RYLEY, PROFESSOR
TOM COULTHARD,
SIR ROBERT
KERSLAKE, COUNCILLOR
JAN WILSON
AND MR
JOHN CHARLTON
Q180 Mr Drew:
Is that the right structure of emergency response or is there
a better way of working this? Is there a way in which this joined-up
thinking in terms of action really does work on the ground?
Sir Robert Kerslake: Our view
is Gold and Silver Command works as a model. Gold covered the
whole of South Yorkshire—
Q181 Mr Drew:
Silver was more specific.
Sir Robert Kerslake: Being able
to operate across administrative boundaries was critical, particularly
on issues like the Ulley Dam which was in Rotherham but had a
huge impact on Sheffield. Gold Command operating across South
Yorkshire was absolutely the right thing. Similarly, Silver Command
in the Town Hall which focused on the operational issues in Sheffield
was the right thing. The interrelationship between them worked
pretty well during the most immediate period. I should also say
that we had done an exercise on flood risk a year before and that
proved absolutely invaluable. One key lesson for us was almost
everything that we tried out in the dry run happened, if that
is not the wrong phrase to use. Everything we did in the practice
session turned out to be there in the reality and, therefore,
we were much better equipped. We set up both Gold and Silver at
two o'clock on the afternoon when the flooding happened and we
kept it sustained during the whole of that week and it was the
right thing to do, I have no question. What did we learn about
that? We have got very good working relationships between the
core services—local authority, fire and police—but
there were significant issues in relation to the utilities, the
category two utilities, in terms of electricity and gas. There
are a lot of lessons to learn there about their engagement in
planned exercises and subsequently.
Q182 Mr Drew:
Mr Ryley, you are nodding.
Mr Ryley: We had a slightly different
experience, partly because of the geography of the Humber. It
is unusual perhaps to have a civil emergency on this scale on
both banks of the Humber simultaneously which stretched emergency
services' resources. With hindsight, if this were to happen again
we would go to Gold Command immediately rather than wait.
Q183 Mr Drew:
This may have come out in the report, but why did you not go to
Gold Command? I know you were havering on that, but why did you
not go to Gold Command?
Mr Ryley: The discussion I had
with the Chief Constable and the Chief Fire Rescue Officer on
the second day of this was that Silver was established by then
and operating effectively and we felt there was no immediate benefit
in going to Gold, we would keep it under constant review on a
24 hour basis and could move to Gold at any stage. Silver Command
was operating effectively enough and we did not want to disrupt
that, as it were, by adding another layer unnecessarily to the
system. With hindsight, what we would do now is we would have
a single Gold Command for the Humber with a Silver Command on
each bank, one on the north and one on the south, because that
would have been a better arrangement because there were local
variations in the nature of the event and the response that we
could have picked up better. The other thing that was something
we discovered only after the event that was an unintended outcome
of this was by not going to Gold Command we inadvertently signalled
to outside observers and the Government that we did not have a
major emergency. The Government's response was, "If you don't
have Gold Command there isn't a problem" and it took us a
while to get people's attention drawn to the scale of what has
happening in Hull as a result of that. Again, with hindsight,
we would go to Gold Command sooner. One other element where that
would have been helpful as the scale of the emergency spread in
scale and duration was there were issues about bringing in additional
resources like the Army and so on, and procurement of resources
from outside the region would have been easier with a Gold Command
structure in place perhaps, although we managed fairly well without
it.
Q184 Mr Drew:
Professor Coulthard, is there anything you want to bring out from
your Independent Review on that?
Professor Coulthard: Our Review
probably echoes what Kim has just said. We identified there would
have been some advantages if they had decided to move to Gold
Command, in particular mobilising the Army or getting the Army's
resources seems to be much easier in that situation. Whether or
not that would have been of great use is another question. Certainly
from the profile point of view, it might have been important for
getting aid to Hull in those first couple of days.
Q185 Mr Drew:
Can I ask a question about the role of the voluntary sector, which
is somewhat underestimated.
Professor Coulthard: Absolutely.
Q186 Mr Drew:
I include in that obviously RNLI. How important was that in the
structure of the decision-making, not just on the ground but knowing
what decisions had to be made?
Professor Coulthard: Hull City
is divided into seven areas and there is somebody in charge of
each area committee and within that there is a whole structure
of community wardens, people who care for old people, childcare,
single mums and that type of thing. On the ground the city operated
with that structure with each area working its own area and they
were able to call in resources from other areas. The city has
over 300 community wardens who were out on the streets that day
blocking off roads, knocking on people's doors, checking if old
ladies were trapped upstairs and that type of thing. That sort
of thing was invaluable. I believe they had a representative in
Bronze Command as part of the procedure.
Q187 Mr Drew:
Sheffield?
Councillor Wilson: In terms of
the voluntary sector—
Q188 Mr Drew:
I am thinking in terms of the command structure decision-making
so they could task people to do things on the ground.
Councillor Wilson: The Chief Executive
will answer in detail from the Gold Command headquarters. My observation,
and as a councillor I felt it important to be briefed but not
interfering, was that there was a lot of informal pulling together
during that short period of what was a severe emergency. The trains
stopped and people were stranded, children with exceptionally
severe needs were stranded at their schools, and there was an
informal coming together of the community in Sheffield. The hotels
just opened up for people who were stranded there, and so forth.
I do not think there was any formal commissioning in the way that
the RNLI, for example, would exercise.
Sir Robert Kerslake: What I would
say is they were closely involved in Silver Command and were able
to guide us on things like where to locate centres. Those were
critical decisions for us, particularly as the impact of the flooding
was to cut the city in half, so we had to find people who were
available in the right places to set up centres and they were
very influential on those sorts of issues.
Professor Coulthard: The head
of the Fire and Rescue Service indicated to me that one of the
issues he had was with some of the voluntary sectors that came
forward. For example, the local 4x4 club came along and said,
"Can we help rescue people" and at first he thought,
"That's great" and then he thought, "Hang on, you
are not CIB checked, if there's a school in trouble you can't
go there. You haven't got any liability insurance". That
might sound crazy but if they go and start rescuing people and
it all goes horribly wrong then who does that fall on. One of
the things we suggested was that there could be some sort of approved
register for these voluntary organisations so they can come along
and say, "Yes, we're okay" and away they go.
Mr Ryley: It is certainly worth
emphasising, as you have heard, that despite the speed of the
response of the emergency services, singly and in combination,
there were parts of Hull which were cut off for periods of time
when communities had to cope for themselves for the first 12 or
15 hours. It was the ability of communities to work around their
local resources, their local groups, their local intelligence
and understanding of the patch that in some cases was quite crucial
to that initial response being effective. It threw up communication
issues with Silver Command later on but we were able to deal with
those quite readily in terms of better co-ordination. We are in
the process now of evolving even more key frontline resources
to our area level because they proved so effective at being able
to direct that and having the discretion to deal with issues even
before we could arrive from a Silver Command perspective.
Q189 Mr Drew:
Can I conclude by saying, and this is to put this on the record,
the initiatives in both Hull and Sheffield in terms of the decision-making
was locally driven and although you may have brought in national
support you led and there was not a national overlay, if you like,
in terms of the decision-making.
Mr Ryley: That is exactly right.
Q190 Chairman:
And you do not want some great national body in the future?
Sir Robert Kerslake: I think the
critical issue in relation to the question you raised on the Environment
Agency is who leads in the co-ordination task. I would be the
last one to advocate a huge reorganisation of responsibilities,
but when you do have this set of divided responsibilities there
has to be someone who is primus inter pares who takes responsibility
for bringing together, convening if you like, the key players,
the local authority, and in our case Yorkshire Water and the Environment
Agency. That is the gap at the moment in my view.
Mr Ryley: There may be some different
perspectives on this because in terms of the recovery process
itself the emergency in this case was quite protracted, it ran
to the best part of a week in Hull, but in practice you are into
a recovery process straight afterwards which is much more protracted
and intensive and it is the local autohrity that comes to the
fore at that point and is probably the only organisation—this
was reflected back to us by our partner organisations—which
has, for want of a better word, the moral authority to bring everyone
together around what is then still an important, integrated and
combined recovery effort that is going to run over several months
after the immediate emergency is over. That is one type of co-ordination.
There is co-ordination around some of the technical issues of
dealing with the immediate aftermath or planning for another event
of this kind in terms of the infrastructure that is necessary
to respond in an emergency.
Q191 Lynne Jones:
Professor Coulthard, you commented earlier about the lack of co-ordination
between the various agencies. Do I take it that Hull did not have
a Strategic Flood Risk Assessment?
Professor Coulthard: I believe
that Hull is working on its Strategic Flood Risk Assessment at
the moment.
Mr Ryley: Ironically we had started
it in May before the floods and it is nearing completion now.
Professor Coulthard: To interject,
the flooding planning in Hull in its entirety was based on the
risk of coastal flooding from estuarine defences being breached
or river flooding. The flood events we had this summer, which
were pluvially based, that were coming from flash flooding, from
rainfall flooding, were very different in their nature and in
their geography in the areas which they inundated. It came from
nowhere, no-one was really expecting it.
Q192 Lynne Jones:
The assessment you were working on was largely based on past expectations
and even though you were still working on it you had not anticipated
that you would have that problem?
Professor Coulthard: That is right.
Mr Ryley: It has fundamentally
changed since then, of course.
Professor Coulthard: That is being
factored in, I believe.
Q193 Lynne Jones:
Have you got one now?
Mr Ryley: We have indeed.
Professor Coulthard: It is nearly
done.
Mr Ryley: It is nearly done. It
has already influenced our planning policy locally, for example.
We have had two reports to our planning committee and we have
picked up a detailed raft of new planning guidance and have already
had the first planning application refused on the basis of that
guidance because of flooding concerns. That is an example of how
quickly we have put change into place.
Q194 Lynne Jones:
Have you agreed a lead agency?
Mr Ryley: We are in that process.
We are waiting for the final report of our Independent Review
Body, due very soon, to put the final pieces of the jigsaw together.
We have certainly been working closely on the early learning we
have extracted from the experience already but we are waiting
for the final key pieces of the jigsaw so we can have a clear,
sequenced plan of action both immediately and longer term.
Q195 Lynne Jones:
Has Sheffield got a lead agency?
Sir Robert Kerslake: Sheffield
has done a Strategic Flood Risk Assessment and that was formally
adopted earlier this year. It links to PPS25, which covers development
in flood areas. That is in place at the moment.
Mr Charlton: And was in place
before the floods. It is a live document. The actual footprint
of the flood pretty well coincided with the 100 year event, so
we see no reason at this point in time to update it. We will wait
for the Environment Agency report, who are doing a review in the
immediate aftermath of the floods, because their report might
lead us to update it. When they do the Catchment Area Management
Plan, which will report in April 2009, that the Chief Executive
referred to earlier, that may further inform our Strategic Flood
Risk Assessment. We do have one, it is a live document and it
informs our planning process.
Q196 Lynne Jones:
But have you an agreed lead agency in terms of all the different
agencies?
Sir Robert Kerslake: The short
answer is at this stage we have agreed that it will be joint between
the council and the Environment Agency, so we have not picked
one agency because there is a lack of clarity nationally on this.
Pending anything that comes from this Review, or any other reviews,
we have agreed we will lead jointly on this process across all
the different agencies.
Q197 Lynne Jones:
Do you think it is a satisfactory arrangement?
Sir Robert Kerslake: Personally
I think you need one lead.
Q198 Lynne Jones:
So you want somebody to tell you who it should be?
Sir Robert Kerslake: No. I think
we will need to determine between us and the Environment Agency.
It is not simply who leads but who has the capacity to take on
the role.
Q199 Lynne Jones:
Who do you think it should be then with your local knowledge?
Sir Robert Kerslake: Personally,
for this issue I think it needs to be the Environment Agency that
leads. The reason I say that is when we are talking about the
watercourse system, it does not just cover Sheffield, you have
to look across South Yorkshire and beyond that. Sheffield could
deal with its issues but this needs an agency that has a wider
span of role, and that is why I think it ought to be the Environment
Agency.
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