New volunteer system to support local response against threats

Category Business Continuity Management Briefing BCM - BCM & Risk Management - news - General - Continuity Forum

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Government plans for new volunteer Army

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21/03/2008

Gordon Brown wants tens of thousands of Britons to join a new volunteer force to help the Government respond and help tackle boost resources in handling threats to our communities from flooding right through to terrorism.

The Prime Minister also said ministers will also publish an annual risk register of the top threats facing Britain, from the Al Qaeda terror threat to flooding and cyber crime.

The new force, called a new Civil Protection Network, will be based on the local Neighbourhood Watch schemes and will link into Local Authority Planning

The Prime Minister said he wanted to see “improved resilience against emergencies” from floods to terrorist attacks.

This would take “not the old Cold War idea of civil defence but a new form of civil protection”.

People will be asked later this year if they want to join up to help defend Britain’s and then be given training in how to deal with a number of threats.

Media critics suggested that the new force will be a new British Home Guard or 'Dads’ Army’, and one official said it was more likely to be “a variation” of the ARP [air raid precaution wardens] who patrolled Britain’s streets during the Blitz.

A Cabinet Office spokesman said that the new volunteer force would be open to anyone from teenagers to old age pensioners. “There is no upper age limit,” she said.
However, unlike the 1.5million ARP wardens who protected Britain during the Second World War, the new army of volunteers will not be given badges or uniforms.

The new volunteer force will be specially trained to deal with a wide range of threats and could even play a role in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. He said: “We want people to be part of a group who will ensure that, say during flooding, elderly or disabled people will not be forgotten.”

The force will build on civil emergency plans developed council-controlled local resilience forums and set up by Whitehall’s Civil Contingencies Secretariat.
It will be seen as the successor to the old civil defence corps which was wound up after the ending of the Cold War in the 1990s.

The force will fill response gaps between existing emergency organisations like the Royal National Lifeboat Institute and the Mountain Rescue.

This initiative will formalise and provide a control structure for volunteers enabling many of those who do step forward during local and national crisis’s to be more effective in their efforts. The provision of appropriate training will also substantially reduce the risks to volunteers’ safety and provide better liaison better the Blue Light services and of course other volunteer groups such as the Red Cross and WRVS.

Mr Brown said the Government was also planning to publish an annual risk register of threats to Britain’s security.

The “risk register” would be issued in the summer, and would “enable communities to prepare better” by including possible numbers of fatalities in a range of disasters.
In a Commons statement, Mr Brown said: “The primary duty of Government - our abiding obligation - is, and always will be, the safety of all British people and the protection of the British national interest.”

Mr Brown told MPs that the security situation in the UK had changed since the old threats of the Cold War and Irish republican terrorism.

Now, the consequences of regional instability, terrorism, climate change, poverty, mass immigration and organised crime “reverberate quickly around the globe”.

The Prime Minister said the Government had learned the lessons from conflicts including Iraq and Afghanistan and would establish a 1,000-strong civilian task force which would be on standby to offer expert help to failing states.

The force will include police, emergency services and judges, he said.

Continuity Forum Comment

While in principle adding a proactice recruitment and control system for the temporary helpers needed during flooding or other significant events careful consideration will have to be given to the resources needed to manage and train this volunteer base. From the work of the Continuity Forum with Local Authorities it is already clear that there is already a major issue concerning money and support and adding to the workload of overburdened planners doe slittle to help despite the merit of the concept.

To achieve real community resilience much more money and resource needs to be targetted on both the BCM and Emergency Planning functions, along with a greater empowerment.

We have now doubts that if properly funded and supported the skills of Emergency Planners and Business Continuity Professionals across the public sector would have a very major impact, reducing the impact of of events considerably and putting the meat on the Prime Ministers words.

Our concern though is that we frequently see evidence of the much touted government investment not making it through the the planners and communities that need it.

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